Work Won't Love You Back

by Sarah Jaffe

  Freeing love from work, then, is key to the struggle to remake the world. And people are already reclaiming spaces to experiment with what it means to love one another without the demands of capitalist work patterns. As Silvia Federici said, recalling Plato, “if only you could have an army of lovers, that army would be invincible.” Love, she argued, is a power that takes us beyond ourselves. “It’s the great anti-individuality, it’s the great communizer.” Capitalism must control our affections, our sexuality, our bodies in order to keep us separated from one another. The greatest trick it has been able to pull is to convince us that work is our greatest love.

  IT IS VALENTINE’S DAY MORNING AND THE SUN IS SHINING THROUGH THE windows in this borrowed London apartment where I have come to finish this book, because the people I love most in the world are here, and they have helped me put the pieces of myself back together again. And because if there is one thing worth doing with our brief, flickering lives on this dying planet, it is loving other people, attempting to understand them across a space of difference that will always contain mystery no matter how well you think you know someone.

  What I believe, and want you to believe, too, is that love is too big and beautiful and grand and messy and human a thing to be wasted on a temporary fact of life like work.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  JOURNALISM IS A PROCESS OF SYNTHESIS; I LEARN FROM EVERYONE I SPEAK with, and the things they say change how I think. This book is the product of thousands of conversations, thousands of pages of reading, and countless passing interactions. But it is first and foremost a product of the conversations I had with ten people: Ray Malone, Adela Seally, Rosa Jimenez, Ann Marie Reinhart, Ashley Brink, Kate O’Shea, Camille Marcoux, Katherine Wilson, Kevin Agwaze, and Meghan Duggan. Thanks to them, and many, many working people like them, for fighting to bring a little justice to the process of working.

  Thanks to Katy O’Donnell, gem among editors and among friends. All writers should be so lucky to have their work in the hands of someone as sharp, generous, and insightful as Katy has been. She handled every crisis with grace and patience, and has made me a much better and more careful writer and thinker. If you thought this book was any good at all it’s because Katy believed in it.

  To Lydia Wills for shepherding this book towards its existence and to Sarah Burnes for stepping in: thank you for your encouragement and all your efforts on my behalf.

  Laura Feuillebois, who’s worked with me on basically every story I’ve reported and now two books: you are a wonder, and thanks for every word you’ve transcribed.

  Everyone at Bold Type Books who worked on this project: Jocelynn Pedro, Jaime Leifer, Lindsay Fradkoff, Brynn Warriner, Clive Priddle, Miguel Cervantes, and Pete Garceau. (Also Kristina Fazzolaro, I miss you!)

  And everyone at the Type Media Center: Taya Kitman, it is so good to get to do this work with you in my corner. Thanks to Roz Hunter, Annelise Whitley, Kristine Bruch, and the whole crew. Thanks to the Lannan Foundation and everyone there who’s supported my ability to be a cranky labor reporter for half a decade now.

  Evan Malmgren for a wonderfully precise fact-check. Truly, blessed are the fact-checkers, they will always save you from yourself.

  The person who ran the @javelinarunning Twitter account for the laughs that got me across the finish line. Everyone who sent me cat and dog photos and silly memes on Twitter and Facebook when I asked for them: you don’t know, actually, how much that cheered me up!

  To the people who generously made connections for me, suggested books I should read, or sat down for long conversations only a fraction of which made it into print: Rebecca Burns, longtime comrade, made a key chapter’s key conversation happen; Gemma Clarke made very generous introductions; Lena Solow, thank you for all the super-smart chats about retail and nonprofits, your influence is everywhere in those chapters; Amy Schiller, for all your insights on philanthropy and women’s work and also for the jokes and the Beyonceder; Kate Bahn for sharing your dissertation and so many thoughts about teachers and caring workers; Eleni Schirmer for advice on teachers, recommended reading, and a perfect description of hegemony; Laura Sivert for art history recommendations, without which I would have been at a total loss; OK Fox for introductions and both OK and Lucia Love for long conversations about art and for your podcast, which has taught me so much about the art world; Marijam Didžgalvytė and Jamie Woodcock for all the video games; Amy Schur for advice and introductions in Los Angeles on some rainy picket lines; Andrea Dehlendorf for years of connections on Walmart and now Toys “R” Us; Chenjerai Kumanyika for suggestions on cultural workers and conspiring over cocktails; Matt Dineen for introducing me to Kate O’Shea—and Kate O’Shea, I’ve thanked you once but thank you again for the artists’ tour of Ireland; Barb Jacobson for invaluable introductions and all the chats about UBI and so much more; Mary Ann Clawson, for leading me to Raymond Williams; Bill Mazza; Gabe Winant, Max Fraser, and Erik Loomis for book recommendations and patience with my amateur labor history when they are professionals.

  To all the editors who assigned me pieces that helped lay groundwork for this book—Julia Rubin; Paula Finn and Steve Fraser at New Labor Forum; Lizzy Ratner, Chris Shays, and the whole crew at The Nation; Chris Lehmann and Katie McDonagh at the New Republic; David Dayen at The American Prospect; Tana Ganeva, who all the way back at AlterNet encouraged me in my weirdness; Natasha Lewis and everyone at Dissent; the good people of The Progressive, past and present; Richard Kim; Bob Moser; Matt Seaton; James Downie at the Washington Post; John Guida and Parul Sehgal at the New York Times; Maya Schenwar, Alana Price, and everyone at Truthout; David O’Neill at Bookforum; Alissa Quart and David Wallis at the Economic Hardship Reporting Project; Jessica Stites; Karin Kamp; Allegra Kirkland, everyone who’s ever published me.

  To endless inspirations, Eileen Boris, Angela Davis, Selma James, Silvia Federici, Frances Fox Piven, Arlie Russell Hochschild, Barbara Ehrenreich, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Premilla Nadasen, and particularly Kathi Weeks for having been Kathi Weeks and her early interest in my work on this, a project I am incredibly grateful to share with such comrades. And Mark Fisher, whose work gave me a framework for thinking through the roots of this book and its conclusion: you are missed.

  Dan Clawson, thanks for believing in me. I miss you and wish I could have handed you this book.

  I just wrapped up this book with a call to spend more time caring about people and less about work and yet I am incredibly lucky to have comrades who are also friends, who shift from analyzing the conjuncture to crying together over heartbreak. I don’t have space here to write what all of you mean to me, but thank you: Joe Guinan, Miya Tokumitsu, Tressie McMillan Cottom, Todd Wolfson for all the plotting, Victor Pickard, Nantina Vgontzas, Adam Kotsko for endless non-watercooler watercooler chats, Patrick Blanchfield for so much co-working, Abby Kluchin, Sean Collins, Connor Lewis, Ronan Burtenshaw, George Ciccariello-Maher, Viktoria Zerda, Sophie Lewis, Esther Kaplan, Edna Bonhomme, Dave Zirin, Jeremy Scahill, Matt Browner Hamlin, Astra Taylor, Joanne McNeil, Susie Cagle, Sarah Nicole Prickett, Kali Handelman for an introduction and a lovely new friendship, Ajay Chaudhary, Isham Christie, Tobita Chow, David Stein, Greg Basta, Maurice BP-Weeks, Nelini Stamp for all the rebellions, Mary Clinton for that and also the hockey, Gregg Levine, Kate Aronoff, Alyssa Battistoni, Daniel Denvir, Thea Riofrancos, Travis Waldron, Ben Tarnoff, Moira Weigel, Laura Hanna, Matt Bors, Tanna Tucker, Shenid Bhayroo, Zack Lerner, Mike Konczal, Kendra Salois, Charlotte Shane, Zoé Samudzi, Michelle Chen for YEARS of podcastage, Lauren Kelley, Sarah Seltzer, Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, Kristen Gwynne, Mindy Isser, Kevin Prosen for always being an education, Meredith Clark for getting me into soccer, Samantha Corbin for a conversation in Ohio, Rory Fanning, Joshua Clover for a word on fascism, Arielle Cohen and Nooshin Sadeghsamimi for surviving lockdown with me and helping me finally learn to cook, Brenda Coughlin for being the power behind so many thrones, Matt Renner for starting the GSC with me, Raj Patel for reading an early chapter so closely and f
or encouragement that frankly makes me blush, Anne Rumberger, John McDonald, Molly Crabapple for sending me down a path of trying to think through art and for the letters, Sarah Feld for being the best reader and understanding all my weirdness.

  To Laura Clawson, Samhita Mukhopadhyay, Angelica Sgouros, and Carinne Luck, for grieving alongside me.

  To Terry Cramer and Rusti Poulette, for helping me keep it together.

  To London, for loving me back. And all of the people here who’ve opened their arms and brilliant minds to me. Mona Nathan, for a place to hide and finish this book. Claire English, Adam Elliott-Cooper, Mathew Lawrence, Kyle Lewis, Callum Cant, Philip Proudfoot, John Merrick, Miriam Brett, Josh Gabert-Doyon, George Eaton, Jen Johnson, Dalia Gebrial, Archie Woodrow, Gary McQuiggin, James Butler, Michael Walker, Ash Sarkar, Clare Hymer, K. Biswas, Grace Blakeley, Barnaby Raine, Amelia Horgan, Adrienne Buller, Kulsoom Jafri, Duncan Thomas, Oonagh Ryder for a chat on abolition when I really needed it, Isaac Hopkins and Charlie Owen-Caw for putting me up and letting me obsess over your cat, Miranda Hall for talking about care and space, Nathalie Olah for reminding me that book-writing is crazy-making and it’s not just me, Dalila Mujagic and the magpies.

  Stephen Lerner and Marilyn Sneiderman, for opening your hearts and home to me and making me part of the family.

  To Laura Flanders, I don’t believe in bosses but you were the exception that proves the rule. Endlessly grateful that I got to work with and learn from you.

  My sister, Amanda; my brother-in-law, John Vick; and once again, to Agnes Mae Vick: we’re trying, kid, to keep this world around until you’re big enough to fix it. Luckily you have wonderful parents who are there for you and for me while we both try to grow up.

  Jessie Kindig for the witches, Sarah McCarry for a spell and a spread, and both of you for helping pick up the pieces of me at some of the worst moments of my life. To Nicole Aro for reminding me when I was falling apart that this is what friends are for. To Holly Wood for long socially distanced lockdown walks that helped me keep it together. To Sasha Josette: you know how I feel.

  To Will Stronge for making me feel seen and known in a moment when I didn’t know myself.

  Brett Scott, whose fingerprints are on this book in surprising places.

  Craig Gent for a correspondence that helped me not only survive lockdown but learn how to think better about loneliness, friendship, and other forms of connection.

  To Cortney Harding, for over a decade now of a friendship that revolves around all of the best things in life: rock ’n’ roll, good food, good politics, and always, always knowing I can rely on you.

  To Julian Siravo for picking up the phone when I have a wild idea and you’re the only one I can discuss it with, for the wombat communism, for talking me down from a ledge or two, and for always hugging me when I need it.

  To Anna Lekas Miller and Salem Rezek for providing me the thing that has felt most like home in the past few years, and extra special thanks to Anna for ten years of camaraderie and cat jokes.

  Ethan Earle: thank you for being there with wise and lovely words, the right poems, songs, and hippo videos, and a thing I don’t quite have a word for, but maybe you can tell me how to say it in French.

  Joana Ramiro, who talks to me pretty much every day about matters of the head and heart and the intersection of the two, who is here when work and love get me down, thank you for spending so much time thinking through the way we move in the world together.

  Kieron Gillen, through the fun and games and deadly serious times, you have been there when I needed you, even with an ocean between us most of that time.

  To Dania Rajendra, the root of our friendship might be that we’ve both gone through a similar kind of hell, but having you to help me through it has been everything and I wish I could go back in time to reciprocate.

  Michael Whitney, last time I said “there are no words,” and there still really aren’t, but I’m going to try: you’re my entire goddamn heart.

  To my mother—I’m far away and it is hard but I am still who I am because of you. And my father, who I miss every single day.

  Melissa Gira Grant and Peter Frase: this entire book grew from having the two of you in my life. I began to think through this topic with Melissa, in long emails and longer conversations over wine and cocktails, figuring out how to carve out space for the work we wanted to do in a world that too often doesn’t consider that real work. And I clarified it (and so much else besides) with Peter, learning by arguing and challenging, and it’s still your opinion I want first to check myself. I love both of you so much.

  And to everyone in the streets, fighting for a better world: thank you for every risk you take and the love you bring forth.

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  NOTES

  INTRODUCTION: WELCOME TO THE WORKING WEEK

  1. According to the United States Census, Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement, the median income for female workers aged thirty-five to forty-four with a master’s degree in 2018 was $65,076. See www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/cps-pinc/pinc-03.html#par_textimage_54.

  2. Derek Thompson, “Workism Is Making Americans Miserable,” The Atlantic, February 24, 2019, www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/religion-workism-making-americans-miserable/583441; Editorial Staff, “Do You Check Your Email After Work Hours? New Study Says Simply Thinking About It Could Be Harmful,” BioSpace, August 13, 2018, www.biospace.com/article/do-you-check-your-email-after-work-hours-new-study-says-simply-thinking-about-it-could-be-harmful.

  3. Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (reprint, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2017 [2014]), loc. 1930–1933, 2,806, 2807, 2809, 2811, Kindle; Guy Standing, The Precariat (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2011), loc. 416, 421–423, 2806–2811, Kindle.

  4. Vindu Goel, “Dissecting Marissa Mayer’s $900,000-a-Week Yahoo Paycheck,” New York Times, June 3, 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/technology/yahoo-marissa-mayer-compensation.html; Sarah Leonard, “She Can’t Sleep No More,” Jacobin, December 27, 2012, https://jacobinmag.com/2012/12/she-cant-sleep-no-more; Dan Hancox, “Why We Are All Losing Sleep,” New Statesman, November 6, 2019, www.newstatesman.com/24-7-jonathan-crary-somerset-house-losing-sleep-review. “Idleness and abundant leisure were once markers of the aristocracy,” wrote Judy Wacjman. “Today a busy, frenetic existence in which both work and leisure are crowded with multiple activities denotes high status.” Judy Wacjman, Pressed for Time: The Acceleration of Life in Digital Capitalism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014), 61. See also Ross Perlin, Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy (New York: Verso, 2011), 49.

  5. William Morris, Signs of Change: The Aims of Art, Marxists Internet Archive, taken from 1896 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition, originally prepared by David Price for Project Gutenberg, www.marxists.org/archive/morris/works/1888/signs/chapters/chapter5.htm; Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (1848), loc. 107–108, 111, 122–125, Kindle.

  6. Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks (New York: International Publishers, 2012 [1971]), loc. 8082–8091, Kindle.

  7. Ruth Milkman, Farewell to the Factory: Auto Workers in the Late Twentieth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 23.

  8. Wacjman, Pressed for Time, 63–65; James Meadway, personal communication with author.

  9. Emily Guendelsberger, On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane (New York: Little, Brown, 2019). See also Eric Spitznagel, “Inside the Hellish Workday of an Amazon Warehouse Employee,” New York Post, July 13, 2019, https://nypost.com/2019/07/13/inside-the-hellish-workday-of-an-amazon-warehouse-employee.

  10. Michelle Chen, “6 Years After the Rana Plaza Collapse, Are Garment Workers Any Safer?,” The Nation, July 1
5, 2019, www.thenation.com/article/rana-plaza-unions-world; Harrison Jacobs, “Inside ‘iPhone City,’ the Massive Chinese Factory Town Where Half of the World’s iPhones Are Produced,” Business Insider, May 7, 2018, www.businessinsider.com/apple-iphone-factory-foxconn-china-photos-tour-2018-5; Bertrand Gruss and Natalija Novta, “The Decline in Manufacturing Jobs: Not Necessarily a Cause for Concern,” IMFBlog, April 9, 2018, https://blogs.imf.org/2018/04/09/the-decline-in-manufacturing-jobs-not-necessarily-a-cause-for-concern.

  11. George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier (London: Penguin, 2001), loc. 320–323, 342–350, 551–553, 576–582, Kindle; Milkman, Farewell to the Factory, 11–12; Sarah Jaffe and Michelle Chen, “The GM Strike and the Future of the UAW,” Dissent, November 8, 2019, www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/the-gm-strike-and-the-future-of-the-uaw.

  12. Tamara Draut, Sleeping Giant: How the New Working Class Will Transform America (New York: Doubleday, 2016), 44.

  13. Mark Fisher, K-punk: The Collected and Unpublished Writings of Mark Fisher, ed. Darren Ambrose (London: Repeater Books, 2018), loc. 7683, Kindle; Asad Haider, “Class Cancelled,” August 17, 2020, https://asadhaider.substack.com/p/class-cancelled; Adam Kotsko, Neoliberalism’s Demons: On the Political Theology of Late Capital (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2018), loc. 230, Kindle. See also Mike Konczal, Freedom from the Market: America’s Fight to Liberate Itself from the Grip of the Invisible Hand (New York: New Press, 2020).

  14. David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 1–2; Standing, Precariat, loc. 128; Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown (New York: Verso, 2013), 23–24, 40, 56–57; Kotsko, Neoliberalism’s Demons, loc. 741, 127, 132–133.