Description

Work
Capitalism. Economics. Resistance
Crimethinc Ex-Workers Collective

After so much technological progress, why do we have to work more than ever before? How is it that the harder we work, the poorer we end up compared to our bosses? When the economy crashes, why do people focus on protecting their jobs when no one likes working in the first place? Can capitalism survive another century of crises?

Our newest book, entitled Work, addresses these questions and a great many more. To answer them, we had to revisit our previous analysis of employment and develop a more nuanced understanding of the economy. We spent months studying obscure history and comparing notes about how we experience exploitation in our daily lives, slowly hammering out a grand unified theory of contemporary capitalism.

In addition to distilling our findings in this book, we’ve also prepared a poster to diagram the system it describes. The poster is based on the classic illustration of the pyramid of the capitalist system published in the Industrial Worker in 1911. With the assistance of Packard Jennings, we’ve created a new version, much more detailed than the original and updated to account for all the transformations of the past one hundred years.

In combination, the book and poster explore the positions we occupy within this pyramid and the mechanics that maintain it. From the industrial revolution to the internet, from the colonization of the Americas to the explosion of the service sector and the stock market, from the 2008 financial crisis to the upheavals taking place right now across the globe, Work offers an overview of how capitalism functions in the 21st century and what we can do to get beyond it.
TECH SPECS

Size: 4.75″ x 7.5″ x .8125″

Weight: 13.7 ounces

Ink: Four colors with foil stamp on cover, and two colors (black and spring green) with full bleeds throughout.

Pages: 378 + cover

Words: 66,507

Illustrations: 106

Photographs: 52

Binding: Otabind w/ PUR glue

CONTENTS

I. The Occupation

i. Work

ii. The Economy

Schemata: What It Is

Shifting Terrain
The Metropolis

Positions: Where We Are

At the Top
Magnates
Politicians
Bosses
Superstars
Professionals
Middle Management
Self-Employment
Factory Workers
Students
The Service Industry
Domestic Labor
The Sex Industry
Police and Military
Migrant Labor
Prisoners
Unemployment and Homelessness
Outside the Market
Animals, Plants, Minerals

Mechanics: How It Works

Production
Consumption
Media
Bodies and Simulacra
Finance
Investment
Debt
Banking
Taxes
Inheritance
Research and Development
Medicine
Identification
Identity
Vertical Alliances, Horizontal Conflicts
Religion
Justice
Illegal Capitalism
Theft
Gentrification
Boundaries and Travel
Pollution
Crisis
Precarity and Vertigo
Reformism
Culture and Subculture

II. The Resistance

Bibliography

Colophon