Welcome
to CLAWS at whywork.org. We're a pro-leisure and anti-wage-slavery
group of people dedicated to exploring the question: why
work? This site provides information, support, and resources
for those looking for alternatives to traditional employment.
We actively promote alternatives to the wage slavery mindset and
what we call "The
Cult of the Job" which automatically equates having a job
with making a living.
If you start asking yourself "why work?" you may see a
connection between wage slavery,
misunderstandings of leisure,
lifestyles based on consumption, corporate
welfare, education
that often amounts to little more than conditioning, and the global
social, environmental, and economic crises we are now facing. We
hope that the materials we feature here will encourage critical
thinking about such things. This site is primarily about ideas
and encouragement, so our focus is more philosophical than practical.
However, ideas and action go hand-in-hand, so we're currently expanding
the "practicality" sections.
WE'RE FEATURED IN
CONSCIOUS CHOICE MAGAZINE!
Writer Patrick McGaugh calls our
views "extreme." His article asks
"Do
you wanna work,
or do you wanna job?"
CLAWS
Features
We feature
essays, book excerpts and articles by Bob
Black, Robert Anton
Wilson, Bertrand Russell,
Buckminster Fuller,
Jean Liedloff and
many other inspiring thinkers.
Don't miss our list of unconventional
replies to the question "So, what do you do for a living?"
Our
spotlight essay of the moment is "We
Don't Want Full Employment, We Want Full Lives!" translated
by Ken Knabb from the Bureau of Public Secrets.
Books: CLAWS recommends Critical
Path by R. Buckminster
Fuller as well as Ishmael
and Beyond
Civilization by Daniel Quinn as good books to start with which
are aligned with the mission and goals of CLAWS. Want to read more?
We have an extensive list of book
recommendations and will be adding more book reviews soon.
Design
& Copyright Notices
This site has incorporated material from the former
Leisure Party site.
Can't see the images on this page? It might be because we don't
use .gif images. Find out why.
All
material on this web site that is otherwise unattributed is (c)
Copyright 1998 - 2003,
D. JoAnne Swanson for Creating Livable Alternatives to Wage Slavery.
Permission is granted to keep one copy of material on this site
on a personal computer for private, home use only.
Requests for reprint of material on this site should be sent to
D. JoAnne Swanson at:
BIBLIOPHILE AT DANGEROUS-MINDS DOT COM
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"Considering
the alternatives, I prefer self-employment to employment. After
all, you usually make a lot more when you work for yourself and
have much more independence. But my real choice is comfortable and
creative unemployment."
- Steve
Solomon
"Perhaps
it is time the 'work ethic' was redefined and its idea reclaimed
from the banal men who invoke it."
- Studs Terkel,
Working
"The United States desperately needs a public discussion that
challenges the prevailing belief that a person's worth and social
contribution can and should be measured primarily (or exclusively)
by his or her income from paid work."
- Katherine McFate, "A Debate we Need," from Philippe Van Parijs'
What's Wrong With a Free Lunch?
"There is more for us in life than the nine to five work
ethic and a life of clocks, finances, and shallow living."
- Tom Brown Jr.,
The Quest
"I would like to see people refusing to
work in any job they felt was wrong. I would like to see work-dodgers:
honourable and brave people who refuse to continue to feed this
monstrous culture."
-
Chris Busby,
in his foreword to Molly Scott Cato's book Seven
Myths About Work
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