THE OVERWORKED AMERICAN
The Unexpected Decline of Leisure
by Juliet B. Schor
Work. Work. Fuck work. This path breaking book explains why, contrary to all expectations, Americans are working harder than ever. Juliet Schor presents the astonishing news that over the past twenty years our working hours have increased by the equivalent of one month per year - a dramatic spurt that has hit everybody: men and women, professionals as well as low-paid
workers. Why are we - unlike every other industrialized Western nation - repeatedly "choosing" money over time? And what can we do to get off the treadmill?
The author says, "One of capitalism's most durable myths is that it has reduced human toil. This myth is typically defended by a comparison of the modern forty-hour week with its seventy- or eighty-hour counterpart in the nineteenth century. The implicit - but rarely articulated - assumption is that the eighty hour standard has prevailed for centuries. The comparison conjures up the dreary life of medieval peasants, toiling steadily from dawn to dusk.
"These images are backward projections of modern work patterns. And they are false. Before capitalism, most people did not work very long hours at all. The tempo of life was slow, even leisurely; the pace of work relaxed. Our ancestors may not have been rich, but they had an abundance of leisure. When capitalism raised their income, it also took away their time."
In chapters like "Time Squeeze: The Extra Month of Work," " 'A Life at Hard Labor': Capitalism and Working Hours," "Overwork in the House-hold," and "The Insidious Cycle of Work-and-Spend," Schor cuts through consumerist
propaganda about how "rich" we Americans are and shows just how much of our lives are wasted in wage and debt slavery. The Overworked American is an important book which should be read by everyone who values freedom.
1992, 5 x 8, 269 pp, indexed, soft cover.
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