Inside the rise of antiwork

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Full title: Inside the rise of 'antiwork,' a worker's strike that wants to turn the labor shortage into a new American Dream

Larry had a vision after he graduated college: He and his then-wife were going to be a "power couple." They were going to actualize their American dream. They'd buy a house in the suburbs and go on vacation every two years.

That vision of the perfect life eventually shattered. His then-wife saw through the illusion of work, he said, and quit to take care of their children and her elderly father. It took him a little longer to get there.

"It's something that someone else planted in our minds," Larry, whose last name is known to Insider, said.

Now, Larry, 52, doesn't work. By the time the pandemic hit, he was ready for a change. He left his job as a maintenance technician in South Carolina to be with his ex-wife and children in Colorado. When he got laid off from a seasonal job there, he moved back to South Carolina to be with his mother. Now he lives simply, in a 20-foot trailer in her backyard.

"I really don't have any expenses. I don't need any money. I can survive without money," he said.

Larry is a part of something that's growing: People who are opting out of working.

Some of them call it "antiwork." It's a trend bolstered by younger workers, as Gen Zers make their mark on the labor market. In America, it looks similar to similar youth-led movements against work in other countries, especially China, where young people are "lying flat" by decentering a drive to constantly be more productive and competitive at work, and instead find happiness in their own lives and relaxation. 

"I don't really want to work anymore," Larry said. He added: "I don't want to have any meetings, no deadlines, no goals, no quarter, no seminar. I don't want none of that stuff no more."

A rising disillusion with the state of work has spawned millions of Larrys over the last year. People have been quitting their jobs at record rates for six months in a row now — and many aren't going back. That's because, for some, work doesn't seem to be worth it anymore. Wages have been on the decline for decades while student debt rises. The added $2.1 trillion to their collective wealth as millions of Americans were unemployed. Inequality widened.

The stories of those in the antiwork movement provide some answers to why there's an ongoing labor shortage. Whether bosses realize it or not, workers are effectively striking for better conditions — and it might just work.

A million strong — and growing 

The Reddit group "r/antiwork" has garnered a million followers since it first began in 2013; half of these joined just in October 2021 alone. That means that tens of thousands of people — if not more — visit the group daily. As expressed on the subreddit, antiwork is about embracing a work-free lifestyle, and finding community in pushing back against exploitative working conditions. 

"A lot of people mistake antiwork for being lazy, and like nothing has to ever get done," one moderator of the subreddit, who goes by u/rockcellist, told Insider. 

"But the truth of the matter about antiwork — and everything surrounding it — is that obviously things have to get done, but the current structure in which things get done and the way that capital flows as they get done is unfair and should be nonexistent." 

Kade, a Gen Z worker in Kansas, is one of the people who turned to r/antiwork and posted after he quit his job as a service worker. He had been considering quitting for a while, but he was pushed over the edge after his boss posted a sign telling workers they couldn't use their phones during shifts — and, if they were caught with their phones, management could confiscate them. 

"I never really see anybody not doing work and on their phone," Kade said. He added that he didn't think management should have the right to take his personal property.

Kade said he first started seeing posts from r/antiwork a few months ago, and that reading people's accounts of quitting — and learning about the ways they're rethinking work — factored into his own decision to quit. He's already had at least one interview for a new job, and has a little bit of savings built up to keep him afloat in the meantime.

"I think it felt like I could be like a bigger part of a movement," Kade said. "I didn't want to put up with this stuff." 

It's also where Kaytlynn Nicholson, a fellow Gen Zer, went to post after she quit her job in food service to pursue woodworking full-time. 

 The group helped her see that she's not alone — she had thought issues like understaffing and long hours were just at her workplace.

"I realized that that's happening everywhere — companies are saying, 'Hey, you know, there's a labor shortage, but they're not hiring people and they're just overworking their current employees,'" Nicholson said. "I think that it's good to know that — that you don't have to take that." 

According to Nicholson, she told her boss she couldn't work on a certain day because she needed to bring her car in for repairs. Her boss said if she didn't show up, she'd be fired. She didn't show up.

Focusing on woodworking has been fulfilling, she said. "People used to actually build their own stuff and do a lot of stuff at home. I think that that stuff isn't really appreciated as much anymore as it should be." 

'Employers just aren't going to have people to run their businesses'

Like many aspects of the economy, the rising sentiment against working in the conditions crafted over the past couple of decades has been jolted by the pandemic. Low-wage workers were labeled essential, but even their small hazard pay hikes ended after a few months

Some employers seem shocked by shortages, and by workers turning the table and ghosting them. 

Insider's Grace Dean reported that a BBQ restaurant in Florida shuttered after only being able to retain four employees.

"Damn you pandemic and the political machine for making [it] more appealing to not work than to be an active part of the workforce in our country," the owner wrote in a Facebook post, referring to the enhanced unemployment benefits that Congress approved during the crisis. Research has consistently shown that the extra $300 or $600 per week from unemployment insurance has had little impact on employment.

But the rise of antiwork doesn't come as a surprise to Steve Rowland, the host of Retail Warzone, a podcast chronicling retail workers' "horror stories."

"One of the things that really kind of pushed it that way was all the stupid signs that were getting hung up on the doors: ''Nobody wants to work, unemployment benefits, et cetera, et cetera," Rowland said. "​​I think that when that started happening, it forced people to kind of educate themselves on what's going on." 

The newest generation reshaping the workforce may also play a pivotal role in the rise of demanding better conditions.

"I think that it has a lot to do with Gen Z," Kade said. "They just don't put up with employers' crap anymore."

Either way, workers say that employers should take heed. Rowland predicts that, come December, there could be a massive shift, as the pandemic, supply chain issues, and unruly customers come to a head. 

"It's going to be about a workforce that is finally going to be like 'we've had enough,'" Rowland said. 

And, Kade said, if people keep quitting at this rate, "employers just aren't going to have people to run their businesses and they're going to go bankrupt or have to shut down — or change their ways."

For now, though, Larry has found some liberation.

"When you go to this stage in your life where you're not working anymore, and you really don't care about some things, it's freedom. It really is freedom."

There are 19 Comments

how long can it be kept up though? Is everyone just on unemployment, or living off of some family member's wages? This will crash really predictably if they dont have ways to keep themselves afloat (that go beyond investing, artisanal aspirations, and other minor money making scams that just leech small amounts off the wealthy).

What next?
(probably, the rich ones retire, everyone else goes back to work and feels their helplessness even more strongly...)

how long can it be kept up though? Is everyone just gonna work forever, or provide for a family with their wages? This will crash really predictably if they dont have ways to keep themselves afloat (that go beyond investing, artisanal aspirations, and other minor money making scams that just leech small amounts off the wealthy, like employment).
What next?
(probably, the rich ones retire, everyone else goes back to work and feels their helplessness even more strongly...)

Being employed is being leeched by the wealthy, not otherwise. The little money they give you as salary is a fraction of their capital and it's all cover in their profit schemes.

But sure, what the commenter above you is also not understanding is that the need for money is where some radical milieu can fail, as if you don't allow people (starting with yourself) the autonomy to avoid work, then this radicality is just fluff...

no, there are many services that entrepreneurial spirits can offer the wealthy that may be called scams by some people, except by the duped clients, and yet this often wicks a small fraction of their large fortunes. it’s a living, nevertheless.

i’m reminded of the recent Korean movie “Parasite”. they scamming and leeching from this rich household and family, and yet this is still demeaning and undignified way to live even during the period where they thought they were getting the upper hand in the deal. the rich family was also unhappy and miserable. jobs and the economy played a part in both of their misery. the only upturning or upheaval occurs at the moment of the murders. a revolution would imagine this scene multiplied in a massive scale. yet a single murdered wealthy family did not upturn the class relation, maybe laying flat and not working for them could do for a while, maybe the ambitious overachieving wealthy people could lie down for a really long time as well given their bank accounts, but they keep working

member when anarchist hobos were the only ones who spoke of this topic? i member!

something something bob black might be a punchable snitch but he had a point about this stuff!

The kids are already petitioning the powers to strike Bob Black from their sidebars and historical memory.

...though sadly he's become a science cuck in his old age(he always had that blind spot for scientific materialism unlike Wolfi)

He just got his revenge against a leftist antisemitic junky(is Jim dead yet?) Fine by me.

just because you're fine with something, doesn't make that something in to not a something.
or is reasoning for "cucks" too?

Being a snitch. The term snitch means something that that does not correspond at all to what The Bob did back in '96.

Thanks but I'm not gonna sleep with you, Ziggy. Let it go.

That’s Dr.Ziggy to you, Bob. SirBenway didn’t spend 10 years in fake royal medical school to be addressed incorrectly.

It sucks to have health issues that stop you from rocking this lifestylist bullshit. I used to be a traveler kid and I’m 90% sure that the issues keeping me off the road now all originated in that period… oops

your health issues stop you from...taking a break? from...taking it easy? from lying down for nap?

you're too sick to not work?

"sorry boss, i have to take the day off, i'm too ill to stop working!"

… to live out of a backpack, as a squatter with no running water, as I did for much of my adolescence… yes. It sucks, I miss it, I also feel it must have accelerated my aging much more than working during those years might have, as much as I understand the negative political implications of all the modern conveniences, not to mention the time I would have lost not, you know, kicking around train yards and dumpsters and such. Just a hunch

but this article is not about squatters nor oogles, it's about normies who are having their first critical thoughts towards work

If people are serious about cutting back on paid "work" (that often produces little of value), they are going to need to replace as much as possible of economic activity with production for their own use. I am never employed but always on good bikes, using good equipment, etc unless in a place where everything needs to be expendable. Production for my own use from cheaper starting points makes this possible. I spend hundreds of hours and a few hundred dollars on a bike, and people think I am on a $3,000+ machine.

Now consider a house where one person is good at preparing food from bulk ingredients(so everyone can have cheap food), another at mechanical things (so all have cheap cars and bikes that keep working and are readily repaired when not), another good with electrical and electronics, and so on. Nobody will have to work nearly as many hours outside the house. This is in fact a different economic model, one reserving factory work for things difficult to make any other way such as steel tubing to weld into a custom bike or car frame.

Note that just as gardeners may make food from the soil, sun, and rain, there are hobby blacksmiths who make iron and steel goods (notably traditionally made Samarai swords) from ore and charcoal, in some cases even digging the ore themselves. Making a "bloom" of raw iron can be the culmination of a week of work by a whole crew but puts to rest the idea that iron is something only factories can make. From those humble beginnings can arise a sword worth over $100,000 to a collector, or perhaps a hundred pounds of practical ironwork. Oh yeah-the blacksmiths of old started out by making all their own tools, as did the machinists of the 1700's or so.

Yes, as i've mentioned before, rather than being a cog in the machine, be an autonomous self-realized spanner reeping the machines produce, thus making a detour around wage slavery and the pursuit of the consumerist symbolic ego status identity.
I've had cars, aka ---A to B-mobiles--- which were given to me and only needed a little nous to get running, umm, State education as mentioned, totally inadequate and should be abolished, as it only serves as indoctrination into the investment corporate identity.

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