Autobiography, philosophical inquiry, confession—The Traitor is an unclassifiable and unforgettable book from one of France’s most inspiring social critics. Written when André Gorz was 32 and rising to prominence in the Parisian existentialist milieu, The Traitor starts from an acute personal crisis, “a state of absolute subjective misery,” rooted in social and political alienation. Using psychoanalysis and Marxism, Gorz explores the origins and symptoms of this crisis and struggles towards a resolution which he finds at last in political commitment and self-affirmation. Few personal documents have ever been so rigorously analytical; few philosophical texts so vividly illuminated by the honest recall of painful experience. Gorz’s father was Jewish, his mother Catholic: his tormented childhood in Austria during the Anschluss, when he took refuge first in religious asceticism, then in a self-destructive identification with Nazism, is scrupulously recorded. So, too, is his adolescent exile in Switzerland, his early encounters with Sartre—who, as “Morel”, is a constant reference point—and the conflicts of his first love affairs. Sartre called The Traitor “an invitation to life.” It remains the most intimate and profound book to emerge from the existentialist movement, while providing remarkable insights into André Gorz’s subsequent work.
André Gorz’s earlier books—from Ecology as Politics to Farewell to the Working Class and Paths to Paradise—have informed and inspired the most radical currents in Green movements in Europe and America over the last two decades. In Critique of Economic Reason, he offers his fullest account to date of the terminal crisis of a system where every activity and aspiration has been subjected to the rule of the market. By carefully delineating the existential and cultural limits of economic rationality, he emphasizes the urgent need to create a society which rejects the work ethic in favor of an emancipatory ethic of free time. At the heart of his alternative is an advocacy not of “full employment,” but of an equal distribution of the diminishing amount of necessary paid work. He presents a practical strategy for reducing the working week, and develops a radical version of a guaranteed wage for all. Above all, he argues that a utopian vision is now the only realistic proposal, and that “economic reason must be returned to its true—that is subordinate—place.”
In this major new book, André Gorz expands on the political implications of his prescient and influential Paths to Paradise and Critique of Economic Reason. Against the background of technological developments which have transformed the nature of work and the structure of the workforce, Gorz explores the new political agendas facing both left and right. Each is in disarray: the right, torn between the demands of capital and the ‘traditional values’ of its supporters, can only offer illusory solutions, while the left either capitulates to these or remains tempted by regressive, ‘fundamentalist’ projects inappropriate to complex modern societies. Identifying the grave risks posed by a dual society with a hyperactive minority of full-time workers confronting a silenced majority who are, at best, precariously employed, Gorz proposes a new definition of a key social conflict within Western societies in terms of the distribution of work and the form and content of non-working time. Taking into account changing cultural attitudes to work, he re-examines socialism’s historical project—which, he contends, has always properly been to lay down the rules and limits within which economic raitonality may be permitted to function, not to create some statist, productivist countersystem. Above all, he offers a vital fresh perspective for the left, whose objective, in his view, must be to extend the sphere to autonomous human activity, and increase the possibilities for individual self-fulfilment.
Andre Gorz, to my mind the greatest of modern French social thinkers, dares to venture where no one really has before. Fighters for democratic socialism and an ecological society have each recognized the handwriting on the wall: modern society cannot continue on its present path. Neither group, however, has even begun to recognize the other's value, beyond being little more than a tactical means towards achieving their own ends. Gorz, in this exciting and penetrating gem of a book, addresses precisely this question, and offers a connection between the political and the ecological.In an age of crisis the realist becomes visionary and the visionary the rational architect of the future. Andre Gorz is just that. The present decade will be a debacle for progressive change unless our creative efforts move towards linking our concerns with the quality of life to those of economic and political structure. Andre Gorz, as this little volume bears witness, has taken up where Herbert Marcuse left off. 'The only things worthy of each,' Gorz says, 'are those which are good for all.' This book is worthy indeed of each.
Autobiography, philosophical inquiry, confession—The Traitor is an unclassifiable and unforgettable book from one of France’s most inspiring social critics. Written when André Gorz was 32 and rising to prominence in the Parisian existentialist milieu, The Traitor starts from an acute personal crisis, “a state of absolute subjective misery,” rooted in social and political alienation. Using psychoanalysis and Marxism, Gorz explores the origins and symptoms of this crisis and struggles towards a resolution which he finds at last in political commitment and self-affirmation. Few personal documents have ever been so rigorously analytical; few philosophical texts so vividly illuminated by the honest recall of painful experience. Gorz’s father was Jewish, his mother Catholic: his tormented childhood in Austria during the Anschluss, when he took refuge first in religious asceticism, then in a self-destructive identification with Nazism, is scrupulously recorded. So, too, is his adolescent exile in Switzerland, his early encounters with Sartre—who, as “Morel”, is a constant reference point—and the conflicts of his first love affairs. Sartre called The Traitor “an invitation to life.” It remains the most intimate and profound book to emerge from the existentialist movement, while providing remarkable insights into André Gorz’s subsequent work.
André Gorz’s earlier books—from Ecology as Politics to Farewell to the Working Class and Paths to Paradise—have informed and inspired the most radical currents in Green movements in Europe and America over the last two decades. In Critique of Economic Reason, he offers his fullest account to date of the terminal crisis of a system where every activity and aspiration has been subjected to the rule of the market. By carefully delineating the existential and cultural limits of economic rationality, he emphasizes the urgent need to create a society which rejects the work ethic in favor of an emancipatory ethic of free time. At the heart of his alternative is an advocacy not of “full employment,” but of an equal distribution of the diminishing amount of necessary paid work. He presents a practical strategy for reducing the working week, and develops a radical version of a guaranteed wage for all. Above all, he argues that a utopian vision is now the only realistic proposal, and that “economic reason must be returned to its true—that is subordinate—place.”
In this major new book, André Gorz expands on the political implications of his prescient and influential Paths to Paradise and Critique of Economic Reason. Against the background of technological developments which have transformed the nature of work and the structure of the workforce, Gorz explores the new political agendas facing both left and right. Each is in disarray: the right, torn between the demands of capital and the ‘traditional values’ of its supporters, can only offer illusory solutions, while the left either capitulates to these or remains tempted by regressive, ‘fundamentalist’ projects inappropriate to complex modern societies. Identifying the grave risks posed by a dual society with a hyperactive minority of full-time workers confronting a silenced majority who are, at best, precariously employed, Gorz proposes a new definition of a key social conflict within Western societies in terms of the distribution of work and the form and content of non-working time. Taking into account changing cultural attitudes to work, he re-examines socialism’s historical project—which, he contends, has always properly been to lay down the rules and limits within which economic raitonality may be permitted to function, not to create some statist, productivist countersystem. Above all, he offers a vital fresh perspective for the left, whose objective, in his view, must be to extend the sphere to autonomous human activity, and increase the possibilities for individual self-fulfilment.
This book combines theory with history to look into a dozen episodes of struggle over the concrete and situated terms of world ordering, and it finds reasons to think that the contemporary 'movement of movements' against neo-liberal globalization has deeper roots and a broader history than is usually recognized. Informed by case studies from the US, the UK, France, South Africa, Algeria, the Philippines and Jamaica, A History of World Order and Resistance examines how men and women are sometimes subjectified by world ordering, and how they sometimes make themselves true subjects of their own global history. The author, an expert on resistance to world ordering, situates the contemporary 'movement of movements' against neo-liberal globalization in a broader historical framework to argue that resistance to world ordering has not only developed its very own, unalienating, mode of relation to the world economy, but also sustained it over two hundred years, without political mediation or representations. Herein lies the heart of the on-going world revolution against capital. The book concludes with a radical polemic against the political organization of the multitude. A History of World Order and Resistance will be of interest to students and scholars of political theory, international political economy and globalization.
In Transmedia Work ̧ Karin Fast and André Jansson explore several key questions that frame the study of the social and cultural implications of a digital, connected workforce. How might we understand ‘privilege’ and ‘precariousness’ in today’s digitalized work market? What does it mean to be a privileged worker under the so-called connectivity imperative? What are the social and cultural forces that normalize the appropriation of new media in, and beyond, the workplace? These key questions come together in the notion of transmedia work – a term through which a social critique of work under digital modernity can be formulated. Transmedia work refers to the rise of a new social condition that saturates many different types of work, with various outcomes. In some social groups, and in certain professions, transmedia work is wholeheartedly embraced, while it is questioned and resisted elsewhere. There are also variations in terms of control; who can maintain a sense of mastery over transmedia work and who cannot? Through interviews with cultural workers, expatriates, and mobile business workers, and ancillary empirical data such as corporate technology and coworking discourse, Transmedia Work is an important addition to the study of mediatization and digital culture.
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third International COST 237 Workshop, held in Barcelona, Spain, in November 1996. The 15 revised full papers presented in the volume were carefully selected from a total of 34 submissions by COST project participants as well as from outside. The papers are organized in sections on multipeer and group communication, quality of service, applications and teleservices, multimedia protocols and platforms, and performance studies.
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