Antiwork or the refusal to work in the West
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Recently, I read more and more Global Times which is a Chinese media, because in our shitty world, Chinese media are more qualitative and independent than Western media. And there is this article which drew my attention to the phenomenon of refusal to work or Antiwork which is starting to create problems in the United States. We know there are shortages in America, but it’s not a lack of products or lockdowns. No, America currently lacks 60,000 truckers to transport goods.
Antiwork affect primarily the young people who were already impacted by the Bullshit Jobs, an phenomenon admirably described by the late David Graeber. But here it is the concept of work, whether useful, arduous or well paid that is at issue. We even have a Reddit that is dedicated to Antiwork where people tell of their refusal to work or rather of no longer being captive of a shitty job.
In September 2021, 10 million Americans left their jobs and the trend is not downward. For example, the article says that two years ago Wallmart was offering an annual salary of $ 90,000 as a truck driver and there were few applicants. The young American generation refuses to work regardless of the salary, especially if the work is hard.
The epidemic is arguably one of the reasons behind Antiworkism. Suddenly millions of people realized that they could live another life, than being obsessed with work. Obviously, when you regularly receive federal checks every month, it is much easier. Moreover, if for our parents and grandparents, work was the foundation of a healthy and family life, today, for young people, it is only a prison for the soul and the body and we always wants to escape from our prisons.
The article does not mention the advent of new professions like Streamers and YouTubers. Many people let themselves be dangled by the thousands of dollars earned by a minority of creators on the platform (only 1% of streamers on Twitch earn the equivalent of a minimum wage). The refusal to work goes hand in hand with the available positions. For US SMEs, 51% of them fail to fill their positions.
Obviously, Global Times pleads for his parish. He wonders how the antiwork will impact Biden’s $ 1 trillion plan to “rebuild” America. The reconstruction of a country requires roads, infrastructure, hospitals, that is to say millions of painful and repetitive jobs. Obviously America can count on its mass immigration and it should not be a coincidence that the Democrats let everyone enter the Mexican border, because Mexicans, Venezuelans, Colombians and other Latinos do not have problem with antiwork since they are there to support their family, back in the country.
Obviously, this contrasts with the Chinese people whose work culture has been anchored by the Communist Party, but also gigantic projects like the New Silk Roads. And this is where we must see the reason for the Antiwork and the general gloom in the West. He no longer has his “life drive”, that is to say collective dreams that will uplift the people for a better future.
The collective dream must come from strong and sovereignist political thought. The West’s current collective dream is to tell its people to eat less, to fuck less, to earn less, to deny all their historical, cultural and family values. The dream of Western elites is to make people dream of climatic apocalypses where populations will have to be happy with extreme poverty, forcibly hybridized with mass migrations from Africa, the Indian subcontinent and Latin America.
Everyone would become Antiwork in the face of this prospect!
