CLAWS has accumulated so many great links, thanks to our supporters and discussion list members, that we've organized them by section - so now you can go directly to the ones you're most interested in.
Obligatory disclaimer: We don't necessarily agree with all the perspectives represented by the sites we link to. However, we have screened each of them for quality and relevance to our goals and mission.
Thom Hartmann
Hartmann is the author of a compelling book called The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight. He's also written Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights. His work is recommended highly.
Sustainable Ways
This is a well-organized, small website written from a personal perspective and focused on sustainable living. The author, Krystle, believes that finding work you love may be a much more effective way to make a difference for the environment than recycling or eating organic food. An interesting perspective indeed! For questions that may help toward achieving financial freedom and a job you love, see her article Work, Success, and Sustainability: Carving your niche in a sustainable future.
Work Life Book
"...looking variously and sceptically at the notion of work and an over burdening relationship to the 'work ethic'."
Survivalists' Guide to the New Millenium
A very interesting online book written from a spiritual perspective by a person living in a van who has escaped wage slavery indefinitely.
Here's a sample quote: "Don’t make the mistake of identifying yourself with something so small and trivial as an occupation. As a soul, as an inherently intelligent, potentially wise and spiritual being, we are far more than the contents of a resume. We are not a job description. Identify with your soul instead, and with the spiritual progression that is our purpose for existence. In this way you will be able to value right living more than a "career," or so-called "job security." There is no security to be found in death by slow torture (the 20-40 year retirement plan)."
A Finnish CLAWS member, Joutilas, has compiled an interesting group of "idle links": anti-work and pro-leisure web sites. There's also a nice section on "re-thinking."
Don't Get A poem we like.
"...don't succumb to the addiction of employment," says the author. "...give yourself a silver star for every day you don't work."
Why Work?
The "unemployment cybergunk page", providing activities for the employment-challenged.
Anxiety Culture
Witty, irreverent, subversive, extensive, and well maintained. Don't miss "Coercion with a Smile". "Packed with witty and perceptive reflections on our anxiety-rich, work-obsessed culture"
--Sarah Nelson, The Leisure Party
Disenchanted Workers Union
A support group helping people overcome the absurd pro-work mentality, and promoting alternatives to wage slavery. This page hasn't been updated for quite awhile, but it features some interesting stuff.
Work, Labor & Zerowork
by ChuckO "We all know that work sucks, but what are we going to do about it?" Written from an anarchist perspective.
Processed World magazine
If you haven't heard of PW, and you like what you've seen so far on this site, you owe it to yourself to check out PW. Humorous, subversive, straightforward, no-B.S. zine that uses sarcasm, irony, and other subtleties to point out the absurdity of the world of work. Social commentary with a generous helping of attitude to boot. Brilliant!
The Life of a Bum: Against the Work Ethic by Anis Shivani
"The work ethic itself is the problem." We couldn't agree more. This is an article from CounterPunch which compares several authors with liberal perspectives on work (including Barbara Ehrenreich and Juliet Schor) to the radical perspective of Charles Bukowski, in his 1975 book Factotum. "Nineteenth century workers," Shivani states, "...saw "working for a daily wage" as "equivalent to slavery." Only in the twentieth century have Americans become habituated to the concept that they should spend the major part of their lives working for someone else." Indeed!
The Coming Trauma: The End of the Job
News article from the Star Tribune, heralding a jobless future. "In our soon-to-be digital world," the author claims, "we'll have plenty of work to do, but many of us won't have 'jobs'."
Does Work Really Work? by L. Susan Brown Ph.D.
"We need to be and act in ways that affirm our own desires and inclinations," Brown argues. "This does not mean being lazy or slothful...but rather calls for self-discipline. Free work actually demands a great deal of self-discipline, as there is no external force making us work, but only our own internal desire to partake in an activity that motivates our participation."
FutureWork
An international e-mail forum for discussion of how to deal with the new realities created by economic globalization and technological change.
Brave New Work World
Daily news updates on the world of work. Very comprehensive and well-organized, but more oriented toward the mainstream than CLAWS.
WORSHIPPING WORK: Useful Work or Useless Toil - The Future of Human Labor
This article is highly recommended. It's a thought-provoking historical account of the origins of the current work ethic, contrasting our current attitudes with how people viewed work before industrial capitalism. The author, Walter Johnson, asks "What accounts for our strange addiction to work?" He likens the valuing of work for its own sake to a religion, and traces back the origins of the work ethic to "those who have benefited most from our labour."
Here's an intriguing statement from the article: "...in the few remaining hunter-gatherer societies, there is no such thing as a ‘work ethic’, which relentlessly drives people to their tasks."
Free Time! Ludicity and the Anti-Work Ethic
by Laura Martz
"To sustain itself, consumer capitalism relies on...the maintenance of an outdated survival imperative and work ethic." We couldn't agree more.
Personal Solutions, Family Solutions
by John Taylor Gatto
A great article from Natural Life magazine. The author bought rural land cheap and, on his farm, learned "how to do nothing on purpose."
Men of Leisure
A humorous site, with a "Leisure IQ" test, the Top Ten Reasons not to work, and other goodies.
What we wanna know is: where's the "Women of Leisure" site, hmmm?
The work of Ivan Illich
Writings from a brilliant thinker and critic of schooling. He is the author of Shadow Work and Deschooling Society (the entire book is available online from the link above.)
The work of John Taylor Gatto
Yet another deschooling advocate. Don't miss The Nine Assumptions of Modern Schooling.
Holt Associates' Growing Without Schooling
There are questions and answers about homeschooling, books available, and all kinds of interesting stuff.
Ending Corporate Governance: Revoking Our Plutocracy by Richard L. Grossman
"Today, few places on Earth are free from corporate rule." So what would a free and democratic society look like? Grossman has a few ideas.
Office Space
A bunch of frustrated workers at a techie outfit decide to plot against them. The scene where the characters smash the printer is hilarious. Funny and especially recommended for the middle class Silicon Valley types.
American Beauty
A sharp satire of suburban life. It's worth seeing, if only to watch Kevin Spacey's character tell his boss what his job REALLY entails, in no uncertain terms.
Joe Vs. the Volcano
A charming, whimsical 1990 fairy tale about a man (played by Tom Hanks) with a soul-killing job and a tyrannical boss, who discovers that he only has six months to live. He quits his job, tells off his boss and learns to live life to the fullest. The satisfying job-quitting scene is not to be missed!
Working for the Man by Stroboscope Productions
Office woes? Here's good company. As they say, the site "...humorously xplores the horrors and absurdities of the workplace, and provides a much-needed antidote to the doldrums of dealing with a bad boss and a dead-end job." Just don't let your boss catch you reading it...
Living Gently Quarterly
Great online zine dealing with the simple life: "...promoting a voluntary simple and fulfilling lifestyle which enhances personal satisfaction and reduces environmental impacts."
The Simple Living Network
Eco-living and simple living tools, news updates, and lots more. Here's where you can find a "Your Money or Your Life" or a simplicity study group.
The Good Life
A site devoted to carrying on the social justice and simple living advocacy of Helen and Scott Nearing, who are probably the most famous of the homesteader/back-to-the-land folks.
Review of A Living Wage: American Workers and the Making of Consumer Society
by Lawrence Glickman
Jon Bekken, a teacher, writes in his review of Glickman's book that "despite their working-class background, few of my students grasp the injustice of wage slavery or can imagine a world without it." Hmmm...maybe a few of them will find CLAWS on the web.
Transaction Net
Explains how LETS and other currency systems work. Money is, as they put it, "an agreement within a community to use something as a medium of exchange."
Cultural Construction Company
A multifaceted site addressing many areas of cultural criticism. A relevant quote:"In a capitalist society, the illusion that “haves” and “have-nots” occupy their respective positions because of their work ethic and nothing else is a presumption that allows those who control cultural production to feel justified in their control. The house of cards would be jeopardized if that illusion were dispelled."
Noam Chomsky's writings
Chomsky is a linguistics instructor and well-known media critic. He has fascinating things to say on the media and politics.
Z Magazine
A well-done lefty magazine covering all kinds of societal issues. The hardcopy has great political cartoons.
Design & Copyright Notices
This site has incorporated material from the former Leisure Party site.
All material on this web site that is otherwise unattributed is (c) Copyright 1998 - 2004, 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.
