Antiwork Part 1: The Great Resignation

But with Robert saying all the all the countries of the world, well, you know what you need to do in order to be able to pay good money for something Garrison, you need to you need to. You need to get money by by working well to be born rich. But if you're not born rich, you have to work. And a lot of people are saying what if we did, what if we didn't? And now they have a subreddit And that's what we're talking about to day anti work.

Uh not just the subreddit, but that's why we're talking about it today because the anti work subreddit has grown hugely, um and it's got like a milli it's or it's it's like doubled. It's been around for years. It's more than doubled. It's it's almost. It's almost. Yeah, it's it's it's well, I'll have the numbers for later. Yeah yeah, okay, great. UM So, Garrison, why don't you kick us off? Now that I've let everyone know what to expect, will stop

working UM in solidarity with the anti work movement. Thanks Robert UM, You're welcome. So yeah, the past few months, if you're anything like us, um and and if you're online in the same ways that we are, you've you've probably seen like a flurry of posts and screenshots depicting text conversations between like an employee and their boss. Typically, the boss like asks them to come in when they said they were going to have to be have to

have having to have time off or something. The employee objects, the boston gets mad and makes threats and demands the employee be a better team player or some bullshit like that. Um and and then like the employee said something like well you know what, actually I quit, good luck filling the shift now buy and then the boss like pleads that the now former employee comes back and offers like

concessions and end of screenshots. So pretty soon this type of like screenshotted text conversation became like a meme format with with people joking and obviously like staging fake ones as well. Uh, you know, similar to the scene I

just described. But but but by all accounts, this trend started incredibly like sincerely with with genuine text conversations showcasing like worker abuse um and and uh you know, bosses being unreasonable and cruel um and some people putting their jobs just to stand up for themselves and um, all the stuff is kind of tied up in the worker shortage kind of miss the great resignation as a as

a loud yes yeah people of people resigning. And then you know a lot of like big companies complaining about worker shortages um and and central to this like text conversation online kind of meme trend thing and and employee resignations is a subredit called anti work. So the antiwork subredit has has been a growing place specifically the past year. Um.

Their motto is unemployment for all, not just for the rich. Uh. It's a it's a good good it is it is a solid it's a solid botto of their their their own like a description is uh a subredit for those who want to end work, are curious about ending work, want to get the most out of a work free life, want more information on anti work ideas, and want personal

help with their own jobs slash work related struggles. So back in back in February, um it only the subord it's been around, But back in February it had like two hundred and thirty five thousand UM subs, and now it has over one point one million UM It's grown. Most of that growth has been in the past two months. Uh it's it has kind of kind of exploded in popularity.

Um and actually it got it got so big, and there's so many posts on it that they have to they have they have now they have to like restrict text message conversation screenshots to only being allowed to be posted like on one day a week, just because of the intense influx of of these posts, you know, some

of them genuine, others maybe not so much. Um And And even though the suburn it may not be the biggest in terms of like subscribers, um it's it has more like daily posts than something like the Wall Street bets suburb it has, so even though it doesn't have as many subscribers, the amount of actual like posting on it is is higher than a lot of other suburates as well, So it is it is growing in popularity,

like in in in multiple ways. It feels a little bit right now like the social media equivalent of at of a sort of Dama lea. It's like Wall Street bets made a not insignificant uh splash earlier this year. It was it was quite a thing for the national

economy for a little while there. Um and Anti Work hasn't had that moment, but I kind of feel like it might be getting close to critical mass, Like something, something might come out of this um which I think would be rad For for the record, I think would be rad absolutely, And you know, it may not be one big thing, but it could be a lot of

smaller things, right. You know, sometimes it's harder to see bigger change when you're like having more anarchist adjacent ideas and and and the and the anti works that when it does does try to keep itself being a radical suborb and does trying to fight off neoliberal sentiments and stuff,

And there have been there have been some complaints. I've seen a people being like, ah, the liberals have gotten in and and people are talking about like, well, I just really want a life that's like I'm not stressed all the time, and I have enough money for for bills and stuff. Like people have been talking about like, oh, this job, Like I I left my old job and I got into a better situation. That's good. And there's complaints about that. And I think it is important to

like push against de radicalizing the sub credit. But I don't think it's bad that you're getting a lot of liberals in there who are not turned off by the name anti work um, and I think that's I think it's positive that that they're even if they're you know, they're not coming at it from kind of a revolutionary perspective. But hey, it's okay to quit my job if if the conditions are shipped and try to find a place where I'm treated better. If that's their in road to

this kind of thought, I still think that's pretty pretty awesome. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, because I mean it's not realistic for every single person. Well and actually it is realistic for every single person to quit their job, but it's it's not realistic for only a few people to write and sometimes if if not if if everyone's not going to do it, like

literally everyone. Then he knows some people can't can't afford to quit their job um right now because they have like kids, defeat or whatever um for themselves or you know, there's a lot there's a lot of reasons, which I'll kind of talk a little bit more about later. So and so the term anti work just does not does

not come from the subredit um. And anti work has been like a post left term for a while now, and it kind of kind of applies to a broad spectrum of like anarchist adjacent kind of thought around, Hey, if we're gonna if we're gonna question like capitalism, uh and the state, we should probably also question just the idea of work itself and how it functions, and how the state kind of works only possible with the state,

and and it's that specific line line of thinking. UM. A few examples of like of like you know, seminal anti work books UM is. One of them is Bob Black's The Abolition of Work. UM. Crime Think has a really good book just called work, which is another another one that gets referenced a lot even even in the subredit And also Bullshit Jobs by David Graber and uh Bullshit Jobs was also kind of partially inspired by Blacks

the abolition of work. Um, all of those are are great resources and uh specifically like bullshit Jobs is great in like a like a for a modern outlook on this, like Bob Black's book was written, was written a while ago, and the Bullshit Jobs is definitely very timely and even even even crimes things. Work book also also addresses stuff or even though it wasn't not written within the past. I think it is maybe slightly older than than a decade, but I think that they are updating it with more

information about like the gig economy and stuff like that. Yeah, and it's it's not as it's characterized as as anti work is often characterised by critics. It's not saying like nobody should have to do anything in a way, it's not Actually we'll talk about Diogenes later. Um, but it's not everyone should just like lay around and do nothing. It's people shouldn't have to do the thing that we call work, which is destroy your body or your mind or both. Uh, most of your waking hours, most of

your life. The hope that you'll get ten years as an old person to not do that, and and and and a little bit that that that's bad. That's a bad way to be a person, like a bad way to have to be And it's not bad to do that,

it's it's bad that you have to do that. Yeah, yeah, and I mean and and there is a there is a little bit of it that is about finding time to chill out, which which was just going to apply a lot of you know, a lot of the ways if you have to keep a job, you know, the different ways you can you can go about that job that does that makes it so doesn't like kill you. One of my favorite ways to think about anti work

is just like anti capitalism put into actual practice. So it's sort of you know, just debating online about anti capitalism as some you know, future things like no, like what can you do to actually you know, make capitalism less important part of how you live your life every day, which means you know, not obsessing over careers and all

these kind of other things. So I think I think, first of all, it might be useful to kind of think about, like what do we actually mean by work because works kind of a works like a it's it has a lot of definitions to be depending on what's like you depend depending on like what you mean by it, right, Is it just like wage labor? Is it just forced labor? Um? You know, is cooking for yourself or your family considered work?

But not always? But you know, like at times when I when when I when I'm like relaxed, I quite enjoy cooking for friends and family. But but certainly, but certainly it can feel like work sometimes, especially if you especially if you just got home from like a work shift, so in a way, like work creates more work. Um, And it's it's not it's it's it kind of it's doesn't It isn't just it isn't just about like wage labor or something. It can kind of apply to a

lot of ways about how you live your life. You know, there's a lot of looking laying down wood chips or sod. If that's like your job, every day can be like a miserable, backbreaking process. If you actually have a huge yard or like own a little bit of land and you're making your own garden, that can be an intensely like the best part of your week. It can be

a great Yeah, yeah, it's it's not. The problem is not the individual tasks necessary early, it's what work is as a as a a platonic kind of concept in our society. Yeah, not and and again one of the things, and I think this is one of the things speaking of you talked about David Graber earlier, who's a an anarchist anthropologist and widely seen to be like one of

the most brilliant anthropologists of his generation. He did. He recently deceased, but a book that he wrote before he died with another uh and another fellow, came out recently called The Dawn of Everything that talks a lot about how Yeah, these ideas, that kind of capitalism has a vested interest in you believing that the world was always hard in the way that it's hard, by which I mean like, in order to get basic necessities you have to make somebody else rich um or find some grift

of your own. And as opposed to like, yeah, life is always hard, but life wasn't didn't always involve labor the way we think about it. Labor has not been a constant in human civilization. In fact, most of humans realization people have not done a thing that we would recognize as labor. And I think also even if you go towards things that like look more like labor to us, right, Like I don't know, like look look like if you

look at like feudal levies, right, you're a peasant. You have to give some amount of grain to your lord. But like, okay, we work way longer than medieval peasants did.

And not only do we work longer is something Greaper and David Beno talk about in that book, is like, yeah, like not only do we work much longer, Like the amount that we work would have been considered absolutely, like even even a feudal lord would look at that much work and go no, like this is this is this is like and you know, and I think there's there's

another great hasn't. As another point um he wrote a piece called Turning Modes of Production inside Out where he has this argument that like, okay, so if if you take you know, if you take like Plato, right, you're like you take any of the Greek philosophers, even the conservative ones, and you show them this the thing, the thing that we do every day. Right, you know, you have your you're completely under the command of another person for like at least a third probably more of your day. Yeah,

I monitor you and Garrison's bathroom breaks. I look at your texts with family and friends. Um, it's it's really situation. Yeah, it's an incredibly strict surveillance state. From Robert Evans. Yeah yeah, this is like like you know, if you show a Greek person that this is like this is the apocalypse to them, this is this is the worst thing that

could possibly happen. It's every single person in society has like essentially been reduced to a slave, and you know that's bad and it doesn't have to be like it's not that they've been because I want to push back on that terminology because it can go to some uncomfortable places. It's not that they are treated as a slave. It's that in the hours in which they are expected to labor, there's a societal expectation that they act as the property

of whoever owns the business or manages them. Right. The idea of like if it if it like that, that attitude from like like working in a kitchen or or working at a fast food restaurant, like if you lean, if you're if you can lean, you can clean, Like that attitude is saying you do not have any autonomy when you are at work, you are the property of

the of the employer while you are at work. Um, I think, yeah, and I think and I think, you know, but I think the specific thing with Greece is that, like, you know, you the only way you could do that to someone in Greece is if you owned them. Yeah, Like you know, I'm like, the grease has wage labor, right, but the only people who like it has wage labor,

but it has wage labor for slaves. And that's like it right, like this, you know, and this is this is not like obviously not to say that, like you know, we're like having a job is the same thing as slavery, But it's just to say that, like the kinds of things that we think of as normal, like are things that like the people who you know that the people who run the system and the people who you know get cited all the time justify stuff would have looked

at as like the worst thing that could possibly have happened to a society. Yeah, like daily life for a very substantial chunk of of the American workforce is that would be a nightmare to large percentages of the human

population prior to the modern period. Like it's it's and and if you think about it that way, like one of the things Graab does a good job of going into UM is like the way in which uh and this is also something that comes up in in in Tribe by younger, the way in which, like, during the early period of colonization of North America, UM, it was very common for you know, Europeans to leave the cities and in towns being established behind um and and join

up with indigenals, with the tribes. The reverse never happened, like like not willingly, not without kidnapping being a part of it. UM. And it's because like their attitude was, they were looking at the lives these people were living in these cities and like, well, why would you agree to do that? And Um, this is turning anyway, Garrison, you should you should take us back on the rails.

This is getting more but first time for products. You know what has nothing to do with the fact that human beings are forced to labor for basic necessities in order to keep up a system that steals the freedom of the many in order to provide impossible liberty to the few. You know what isn't related to that. Sure, the advertise industrial complex not has nothing to do with it,

totally unrelated. Why would you say that? Garrison? By the way, did you know that McDonald's seg muffin is turning fifty years old and it's giving the breakfast they're they're they're they're selling it for its original price of sixty three cents during breakfast hour six am to ten thirty am, exclusively on the McDonald's app. I can't, I can't do you guys? Do you guys want mcmuffins for sixty three cents? That's the original price. I wonder what else the McDonald's

app is looking at on my phone? Any way, here's some mats. Oh, we're back and we're talking about anti work. We're talking about how works kind of bullshit for our jobs. Um yeah, yeah, we sure are, We sure are. So you know, like there is there there's a lot of people who like enjoy stuff like gardening, fishing, carpentry, cooking, and even like you know, just fighting this fighting computer programming just for their own sake. Like a lot of the stuff that we like, quote unquote needs to need

for society to function. A lot a lot of those things people like doing as hobbies in their spirits. For for example, if you're a police officer, gunning down a man in cold blood might be kind of like your day job and like frustrating, and there's a lot of ship you have to deal with. If you're a mass shooter, though, you just love it. You know, you're just doing it.

It's not work, it's not I mean for a mash that is that is exactly what the cow writtenhouse thing is though like like like like like actually like literally that that that is what that is. This is we I mean, we're not going to get the verdict today. It doesn't look like not today, which isn't but by the time this airs, it may already be done. Um. But anyway, like a lot of a lot of people like doing those things without getting paid, and sometimes you know,

often like costing themselves money. Right, A lot of these hobbies are you know, are costly in their own in their own right, um. And I think it's interesting to you know, think, think of a society where you're well, you're free to do those things when you feel like it, and you don't need to drag yourself out of bed at you know, early in the morning to work to work a ten hour shift as like a cash register.

And it's not just even when you feel like it, because there will be things that you have to do, even if I will discuss this letter get yeah, yeah yeah, in any like yeah, but there is it's not work if you're if you're going out and harvesting food that feeds you in your community. That's not like work in

the sense that we talk about modern work. The amount of extra energy we have by not having ten hour horrible shifts that drain ourselves mentally and physically and more in with you know, the amount of most of the work that we people do, as shown in David Graper's

bull bullshit Jobs, is like not necessary. Like a lot of like a lot of the work that we do as a whole is not There's there's some squibbling about because the book was based off of a study, like a survey that kind of showed a lot of very significant chunk of the workforce thinks their job is like pointless and doesn't do anything, And there's been some criticisms of that, but it is undoubted that a very significant amount of total labor time spent is stuff that isn't

necessary for really like reason of like making people's lives better. And another part of like anti work theories is looking is looking at our society as it's built, you know, because it is it is HyG to anarchism, and be like how much of this is actually necessary? Like how do we do we really need a mac rib? Like do we do? We? We do? What do you? What do you Garrison? Do we do not need to macrib?

We do not? Did the company training? And they the company training says you can't attack someone for their religion, and Garrison just attacked the McRib, So that actually is you know, it is a religion for a lot of people. Did you see that there there? They they did sell a macribb n FT a few weeks ago. Um and tell me that ship that is so upsetting, thank god damn it. Yeah yeah, just saying society with no money would not have so gosh. You know, I think thinking

of like anti work as as the theory. You know, it's about cutting down those those unnecessary things that fill people's time. Um. And you know and for a more you know, forward forward looking sense. It's it's a general kind of like a like abolition of the producer and consumer based society. Um. So you know, life is not dedicated to the production and consumption of of goods and commodities.

So you know this this applies not not just a capitalism but also to you know, like state socialism um, where you know, work is still you know, a big part of state socialism UM. And I think you know it's humans. It's it's it posits the future that humans can be way, way, way more free when they you know, can reclaim their time from jobs and employment, um, instead of you know, spending a lot of their time doing that and spending spending a lot of like not just time,

but also just like their energy. Right, because even if you work, you know, eight hours a day, you still have a majority of the day to yourself. But you're exhausted, you can't do it, you can't do much, right, It's it drains you of everything. So you know, the main point one of the main points of like of the Abolition of work essay by Bob Black is but like there's no one should work because because work is as defined as like as like as like a forced labor

practice um. Is. You can kind of track this to being the source of most of the misery in the world from you know, in in individual people, um, who are forced to do this. So like this is where a lot of a lot of their pain comes from. Um is this is this is this forced labor concept. UM. I think I think a good a good way. You know, there is you know the point that Robert brought up earlier is like you know, what about the tasks that aren't fun? You know what about what about the stuff

that isn't isn't maybe as as enjoyable. Um. You know, there's this there's there's a list of list of things that the standard responses. Who's going to clean up the poop? Right? That's that's the thing. So you know I I kind of I I kind of I kind of look at this as like the I kind of kind of look at this as like whenever I have to turn the compost, which is not my favorite thing to do. I I don't look forward to having to turn over our massive, shitty,

rotting compost pile. Not not my favorite thing. Um. But no, but now like if there's if if there's like friends around and we're playing music and we're all we have like some like have I have have like an iced tea or Dr Pepper, and we're like talking as we're turning the compost. It's a lot more doable. You know. It's there's there's it's it's it's one task that's going to help all of us in the future. Um and I'm not getting watched over by a boss to fill

a certain quote so I can pay my rent. Right, It's it's this, it's this. It's this thing that helps everybody and I and I do it because I want, I want the goal of it to succeed. So there's there's there's gonna there's always gonna be tasks that are

less pleasant than others. You know, what we can do is, you know, imagine a world where the amount of work actually needed to be done is greatly reduced so that the tasks that are necessary and some of them unpleasant, can be spread out, um and among more people, because less people will be wasting upwards of eight hours a day, five days a week doing mostly pointless time filling work.

Because yeah, there's there's gonna be things that sucked, and we'll be able to do those a lot better if there's more people and we don't have to waste our times doing stuff that is is honestly a lot more bullshit than actually scooping bullshit. Wow, what a good joke. Speaking it's time. It's time to scoop up some more ads. Wait, really haven't we done too? No, we only only one. All right, we went a while without doing one. Guys, listen to the products because everyone loves a service. It's

not like the thing we're talking about is bad. It's different than that. So it's fine. Yep, we're back and we're still still talking about into work. Um, I I do. This is something that the crime think work h points out and you know it's a pretty it's pretty obvious thing I've I've certainly thought of this before is that, you know, we've been told that the like technological progress will soon liberate humanity from the need to do work or from you know, having to do work as much um.

And today we have the capabilities that you know, our ancestors couldn't have even imagined for free, the amount of work that we could get done. Um. But these predictions still like aren't true. We're still working more than ever, even though we have developed so much um technologically, we're

still working more than ever. And if I think it's silly to think that we'll we'll, we'll reach like a magic threshold where somehow now we have less work to do because we'll have like I don't know, like robots being a server at Adam Adam McDonald's or whatever. Right where there's still there, there's still is forcing people into this thing because this is the only way that we can live, right. This is we've we've built our whole society around getting work for money. So this is the

only the only thing that we can do. Yeah, David Creeper. One of the things he's arguing in Bullshit Jobs is basically, you know, okay, so so if if you have like you have the Soviet economy, right, okay, so the Soviet economy has has the policy of of full employment. And for a little bit they were like, okay, what if

we make everyone work less? And then they stopped and then like everything went to ship, so you know, okay, but if if if you can't make people work less hours and everyone has to work, what do you do?

It was like, okay, well you pay a bunch of people to like stand at a doorway, right now, we also do this And then one of the graps, like the funniest points that he brings up is that the total number of bureaucrats in the x USSR like increased dramatically after the sr fell, which is incredible, and you know what what it points to is that like, yeah, you know, Grebar called this total bureaucratization, which is that you know what, what we did, instead of like giving

ourselves more free time is created this just like endless, enormous, incredibly violent bureaucracy that all of us have to spend all of our time, like dealing with bullshit from our insurance companies and like fighting with like the Comcast service person and all of this just like you know, incredibly violent to humanizing stuff that you know, it's it's it's a make work program, right, it's but it's a make work program that just the work that it makes everyone

is making everyone's lives miserable. And we could just not do this. Mh yeah, I mean we could. It's always more complicated than that, right, because the thing that is when we talk about anti work, I think that's on the other side of this is like Okay, well, what if you get a kid, how are you going to feed that kid? Like what like yeah, how are you going to keep him in a house? Like how not even just if you have a kid. But like, yeah, you people die in our society when they do not

have access to adequate resources. And the only way to have access to adequate resources is to be born rich or to work. Those are your options. Yeah, this is why without without robust mutual aid and a commitment by a lot of people to try to make sure that a lifestyle is sustained ball outside of you know, this system, Like it's not impossible, but it's somewhere along the line

there has to be input. I mean, yeah, like we've we've been talking about Yeah, we've been talking about antiwork as like as kind of like a broad hopeful like future goal in some other you know, post scarcity, well not not post scarcity, but like it's post like a post crumbling, post kind of collapse future. But I think, you know, for us now, as you know, the Antiworks is about people now, right, the Antiworks episode, It is

not about a future world. I think the anti work now is like an alternative to the obsession with living your life with the goal of a career. Yes, it's about trend you know, it's it's like a project to radically reframe the how we think of work. And leisure. Um, it's like like like like a cognitive antidote to like the that's like this culture of like hustle and hard work which is like taken over our minds and and

and our time. So it's like for for those who can't just resign from their jaw for whatever reason, whatever moment. The anti work is about like thinking of this movement as like the antithesis to the mainstream capitalist hustle culture. You know that that includes like slacking off more, finding ways to waste time, possibly even finding ways to steal or scam your boss. I I've I've read certain certain alleged ways of doing this inside the Anti Work for days,

but where they got it from? But yeah, no, but like you no, like there is you know, like ways to like scam scam whatever corporation you work for. Right that that there's been examples shared in the anti right in the Anti Works, I brut it. So you know, it's about actually like finding, you know, making sure that you hate your work because you should, and then figuring out how to live your life with that in mind.

And I think what one of the really hard parts about this is for people who like kind of like their job people who are like you, who like either like their job or think it's like kind of important or like they're special to have it, right, it's like, oh, you're like, I'm lucky to have such a good job, because like, when you're stuck in that mindset, you can often put in like a lot of extra unpaid labor because you think it's important because you're like, oh, no,

this is worth doing because it's gonna have some like benefits to the world. So you end up like putting in actually more work that you you don't actually get paid for, and like it's about trying to like kill that instinct as well. So that's a whole, a whole way to think about like working, because like we're gonna be stuck. A lot of people are gonna started doing it for for for a while. So how can you kind of reframe what we do on the job and how kind of jobs live in our minds when we

are at home. And I think the best thing about what you've said, in my opinion, is the idea that like this is not the importance is not on whether or not this this causes everyone to stop having to work immediately, Like whether or not it leads to you know, directly to Like, the measure of success of this movement isn't that nobody ever has to work again. That's a

that's a long term goal. The measure of the success of this movement is that people accept in mass that no, the American dream as it's sold to people is not a good thing too. It's not a thing. To aspire to work is bullshit, and we should aspire to a

society that doesn't do it. It's getting back, honestly, like it's getting back to some of the ship that people were talking about in like when The Jetsons was on TV, the idea that like, well, with labor saving devices, the like a hard work week will be four hours and like that's the way life will be for everybody, and like um, and the it's the acceptance that like, no,

a better future involves me not having it. No one having to spend forty hours a week of their limited human life working at a fucking sonic or like listening to some middle manager brate them for not answering phones fast enough. Um, that doesn't exist for any human being in a world that is achievable and better than the one that we live in. Like convincing people of that

and getting that to be widely accepted. Is I think what I think what is what I would consider the terms of victory in in this particular struggle kind of moving on from this side of things into like the Great designation and the other kind of things that people are doing. So um, in August alone, four point three million Americans voluntarily left their jobs um and the rate of people quitting increased to a a decent a decent record high of like a two point nine percent, according

to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. So and this this, this, this has been a growing trend. You can look at like I think June was like a like a little under four million. August was four point three. It's like it was, you know, it's it's ramping. I I don't know what if. I don't know if we have data for September or October. Yet this was the most recent one I could find. UM. So yeah, like it's stuff, stuff is, stuff is going up. People are because because

people are like a big part of the antibo. It's like, yeah, if your job sucks, you can quit it and probably find another one that pays better. In decent time, especially especially especially right now, Like right now, if your job is really terrible, you have a decent chance of finding a better one. Um. This wasn't the case like two

years ago. Um, it is the case that at this moment, so a lot of the anti works SPB and it's like, yeah, quit your job, like say funck you to your boss and leave because if they're being shitty then they don't deserve to have you. Um. So resigning has been been a big part of this, and there has there has been attempts at other kind of organized stuff and this kind of falls into in my opinion, this kind of falls into the same kind of traps as sole internet

organizing kind of always does. So the big thing that they're organizing for is called Black Friday Blackout, which is about kind of trying to get everyone to as many people as possible to not work Black Friday, um and not buy anything on Black Friday. Um So, like a post from the subburnt here is like spread the word call in sick if you're forced to work black on Black Friday, spend time with your family instead, remain at home and participate in your favorite activity on Friday November.

Talk to your family and friends about about your work life struggles, pass up flyers, join our slash anti work. Um, so this is you know, I think this kind of falls into the same like you know, general strike organized

online stuff that we talked about before. How kind of like a lack of like real like in person solidarity and like non internet you know, networking and organizing results and stuff like this just you know, like proposed like one day strikes or actions that are ultimately kind of non effectual, right, Like they can be like a good symbol sometimes, but like you know, they're not. It's it's it's not. It's not really gonna matter that much, even

even if it works. Well, what I think it'd be cool if literally no store was open on Black Frida because everyone quit. Yeah, that would be rad. But that's that's not I don't that's not gonna really happen. Um, it would be fun if it did, but like realistically, it's it's not, it's not gonna happen. And there is people on the sub who also point this out. There there there there was there was a reply to this post that was like, oh, look, another online call for

a general strike with no union support whatsoever. Don't worry y'all, this one's this one is definitely gonna work. Um, So it's like, yeah, like there's a lot of people in the sub also recognize that like without like actual like organizing support um and in person stuff and you know, networks to support people will on like you know, lengthy strikes. These types of things are kind of are mostly symbolic actions that will have you know, in the end, little

little impact. Um. They may make you feel powerful as you're doing them, which is you know, which is good. That is a lot of activism is actually just just

about you feeling powerful in that moment um. But you know, as as an end goals, remember it's important to be remember to think like it's not it's that this isn't you know, this isn't gonna reach whatever anti work utopia, which I I know people people organizing it aren't thinking that, but you know, it's it's it's important to keep this within context of like the limits of even of of

online organizing. You know, so a lot a lot of people like recommend you know, focusing on organizing your own workplace and community, um, discussing you know, discussing having discussions with with unions kind of in in your area. Um, and yeah, a part of part of, part of kind of the part of the reply to to this original like a black Friday blackout post that that someone that someone wrote was was seriously though, I would love for

an actual gent general strike to kick off. But these online calls for general strikes, it's no union involvement, no demands, no supports for strikers of any kind, no nothing whatsoever beyond social media hashtags, don't do anything. Focus on organizing or workplace any community discussed with unions which might be sympathetic to what criteria, uh, what criteria they might need from such a drastic action. There's a lot of unions on strike right now, so if there ever was the

time to kick one off, it's now. Most general strikes in the past started off with specific strikes that started pulling in other union unions and solidarity than anything else. Focus on that and we might get somewhere. I think. Is it's a decent Is a decent advice for the people who are really dedicated onto this kind of like

general strike thing is Yeah? That is? That is? That is um, pretty pretty good advice in in my opinion, I want to see something kind of briefly just in general about general strikes, because I think we've talked about it a lot on here, but they're really really hard. I mean, there there, there's there's an example, like and like just to just to get a picture of like

how how actually hard it is to pull off. There was there was one in Sudan in in summer nineteen and you know, I mean this is this is in the middle of the revolution, right, the the Sudan is incredibly highly organized, as incredibly miility, and people have been like you know, I mean, people like the like the chance in the street is like you cannot kill us, were already dead, like you know they and you know, and and it's the whole revolution is being led by

the Student Professional Association, which is an association of like seventeen trade unions. Right, so this this is a population that is enormously better organized than like anything really that

exists in the US. And you know, in in the middle of the summer of the army opens fire and starts killing protesters, and so they call general strike and you know, the turnout is massive, right, they have millions, millions upon millions of people show up to the strike and on day one, it's success, and then on day two of the strike, people start having to pull out, especially people in the in formal sector, because even with the level of organization they have, they can't support everyone.

And by about day three, most of the strike is collapsed because even even with levels of organization they had, even with you know, the coordination, even with the fact that they're in the middle of revolution, they just they couldn't support particularly people in the informal sector. So this stuff is really really really hard, and yeah, it is even it is definitely hard. Yeah, like even even highly organized, highly motivated people who are you know, like literally willing

to fight to the death will lose. And that's that's something that you have to sort of keep in mind when you're talking about this, because a lot of people are more focused on kind of their individual resignations, finding other ways of making money, and just slacking off at work in general, because those are a lot a lot easier than trying to organize a general, a mass general

strike right now. And I think one of the really optimistic things about this whole anti work thing, including including the sub run, is that it has made some big executives kind of nervous um there was a fantastic article by Yahoo Finance. Now by fantastic, I mean funny for me. You know, they did not think it was as funny. Um about they talked with like the Golden Sacks CEO of and uh and they pointed to the anti work subredit of being what was the what was the phrase, um,

a long run risk to to labor force participation? Good? This is see that that When I first read that in the article, I just like flashed to my head in my head to that scene from Starship Troopers where Neil Patrick Harris puts his hand on the brain bug it goes it's afraid. Yeah. Yeah, he said, uh, we see some risk that workers were elected will elect to maintain out of the workforce for longer, provided they can

afford to do so. U of pretty pretty good stuff and I think stuff and everything it's worth mentioning that hasn't been talked about very much? Is that? So this is actually kind of working in some sense, Like the last few months general, last few months particular have seen basically like the highest levels of wage increases that we've

seen in decades. So you know, like, yeah, we haven't overthrown capitalism yet, but like if you can keep quitting your job, keep quitting your job at at your regular job, work less, keep doing it, it's working. Yeah, this is stuff I wish we need to in the future. I would like us to be focusing more on stuff like that, like this that is legitimately, as you point out, Chris, there's a lot of reasons to be very optimistic about about some of the numbers that we're getting from what

is happening to labor right now. Um, and it is important as we all like right now we're all miserable because we're sweating through the written house case, it is important to talk about stuff like that that like, yeah, some ship people is doing is is hitting the home. Some motherfucker's have found the glowy vulnerable spot on the Boss Monster and it's it's yeah, it's just not working. Yeah.

Like again, as we started the series with, like yeah, general Strike is is kind of the best available solution, um or a path to a solution that I can find. Um But anyway, uh what what what what what? What? I think I think that that does it for us today? I know, Chris special special like sequel stuff happening. Uh so tune in tomorrow. For our and like like all of the best sequels, this one will be directed by

James Cameron Um. So we're all very excited to bring our pal James onto the pod, to bring our pal James and the reanimated corpse of Stan Winston Um. It's going to be amazing, So check it out by everybody. It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.