James A. Chamberlain - Böcker

This book explores how capitalism uses and abuses life, and presents communities of life as a practical means of resistance. In particular, the book shows how capitalism exploits life's capacity for self-production across myriad species, enlists us in environmentally damaging behaviour, inflicts immense physical and mental suffering in unjust and avoidable ways, and undermines the ethical quality of life for all. The best chance to find meaning in this context, James A. Chamberlain argues, is resistance, and the affirmation of communities of life. The book proposes eight theses on communities of life, including: the orientation of communities of life to satisfy the needs of all beings that constitute them, and to the growth of life rather than economic growth; the abolition of private property in favour of various forms of shared ownership; post-work politics; and the need to recognize the interdependence of life to enact multi-species communities.

This revolutionary book presents a new conception of community and the struggle against capitalism. In Undoing Work, Rethinking Community, James A. Chamberlain argues that paid work and the civic duty to perform it substantially undermines freedom and justice. Chamberlain believes that to seize back our time and transform our society, we must abandon the deep-seated view that community is constructed by work, whether paid or not. Chamberlain focuses on the regimes of flexibility and the unconditional basic income, arguing that while both offer prospects for greater freedom and justice, they also incur the risk of shoring up the work society rather than challenging it. To transform the work society, he shows that we must also reconfigure the place of paid work in our lives and rethink the meaning of community at a deeper level. Throughout, he speaks to a broad readership, and his focus on freedom and social justice will interest scholars and activists alike. Chamberlain offers a range of strategies that will allow us to uncouple our deepest human values from the notion that worth is generated only through labor.