Workers are Quitting: New Book on Anti-Work Examines Whether All Work Might be Bad

HOUSTON - Dec. 10, 2021 - PRLog -- Imprint: Routledge
On sale: Now
Pages: 284
ISBN 9780367758592

From the "Great Resignation," to forums filled with those who report dreading their jobs, attitudes toward work are rapidly changing. In fact, there is a current movement toward anti-work: the idea that all work, in and of itself, is primarily a bad thing.

Anti-work, however, has been with us a long time. Ancient writings provide insights into it. And many modern thinkers from around the world have offered startling propositions on the negative character of employment. In his new book, Anti-Work: Psychological Investigations into Its Truths, Problems, and Solutions (Routledge Publishing; original imprint; $34.95; release date November 30, 2021), work psychologist George M. Alliger offers not only the first distillation of anti-work thinking into a set of tenets, but an examination of the psychological dynamics of worker discomfort and resistance.

Topics addressed within this framework include the asymmetric nature of employment, working from home, precarious work, bosses, the merit debate, unions and cooperatives, initial inequality, and psychological responses available to individuals in confronting the challenges of work. The last section of the book offers relevant lessons drawn from parables, koans, and tales.

This book is written for general readership as well as academic; no knowledge of academic psychology is presupposed.

GEORGE M. ALLIGER, Ph.D. has worked for decades assisting organizations and workers to better understand the nature of the work they do. He is a fellow of the Society for Industrial/Organizational Psychology, an editor of The Handbook of Work Psychology, and author of over 60 peer-reviewed articles.

"Drawing from thinkers as varied and vital as Simone Weil and Frédéric Lordon, Karl Marx and Frederick Taylor, Buddhist sages and Hasidic masters, George Alliger has written an eloquent and insightful series of reflections on the culture of work. Not only does Alliger offer a compelling meditation on how we worked yesterday and how we work today, but also proposes, in clear and cogent language, how we might all, by a more human and humane approach, work better in the future." – Prof. Robert Zaretsky, The Honors College, University of Houston

For more information: https://anti-work.org