Abolish Work

"Abolish Restaurants" Plus "Work, Community, Politics, War"

Paperback, 96 pages

English language

Published Sept. 3, 2014

ISBN:
978-1-60486-340-6
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5 stars (2 reviews)

Available for the first time in a single volume, the two influential and well-circulated pamphlets that comprise Abolish Work offer cutting-edge class analysis and critiques of daily life from the frontlines of the class war accompanied by uncensored, innovative illustrations. “Abolish Restaurants” is an illustrated guide to the daily miseries, stress, boredom, and alienation that restaurant work can entail, as well as the ways in which restaurant workers fight against these. It draws on a range of anticapitalist ideas as well as considerable personal experience. “Work, Community, Politics, War” is a comic book introduction to modern society, identifying both the oppressive and subversive tendencies that exist today with the aim of remaking society. Together, the pieces read alternately like a worker’s diary, a short story, a psychology of everyday life, and a historical account.

2 editions

Delightful and a quick read.

4 stars

It packs a lot into one place, with a lot of really well constructed and fast critiques. Definitely good for those who haven't yet recognised the way that restaurants fit into the capitalist system (because the first two sections focus on the food service sector).

Two things I wasn't fond of, though.

First, the zine design with hyper-crammed text, which was frustrating for a dyslexic person. Sometimes I couldn't figure out where I was in a sentence, meaning I had to go backwards. Genuinely had to read it on the computer because I needed to be able to highlight lines to keep reading properly.

Second, a common issue in anarchist agitprop is provocative phrasing that often shows cracks in solidarity. They talk about people as being 'schizophrenic', implying that this is an inherently bad thing (or implying the people doing this are bad). We don't need to do ableism in …