Philosophy vs Work

Critical Historicity; an Alternative to Ideology?

Hey everyone, I found myself in the rare position of having a little extra time and some prior research that felt particularly relevant to the current moment. Wait, which current moment you ask? Good question! The firehose of crises vomiting from the White House and far right governments across the world have produced no shortage of current moments of concern. In this regard, I’d like to speak directly to the Trump admins’ latest Orwellian attempt to whitewash US history by imposing their ideologies on the Smithsonian.  We're talking (briefly) about the Masters of Suspicion; Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche, and a little smattering of Foucault and Deleuze, as regards using critical theory to combat ideological thinking. This is a short one I wanted to get out before heading to Dragoncon - If you'll be at Dragoncon, or in Atlanta over Labor Day weekend, hit me up through the comments section of whatever platform you're listening on, or through the PvW website, Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/PhilosophyvsWork], or Discord [https://discord.com/api/webhooks/1409534895042072687/696vKtFGF2s3FlIUcrlmH2sFX_XBiTGy2Kh5jqJu6_QOPReSHAquRZeb43l4iwzqQZik]!  Obligatory bibliography, or books (and articles) you may also want to check out: Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus (Notes Towards an Investigation)”, in Lenin and Philosophy, and Other Essays. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972 Deleuze, Gilles, Félix Guattari, Hugh Tomlinson, and Graham Burchell. What Is Philosophy? New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. Foucault, Michel. “Human Nature: Justice Versus Power, Noam Chomsky debates with Michel Foucault 1971 [http://www.chomsky.info/debates/1971xxxx.htm]” Transcript,  Freud, Sigmund, James Strachey, and Peter Gay. 1989. “The Future of an Illusion”. New York: Norton. Freud, Sigmund, “On Narcissism: an Introduction”, in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. ed. and tr. James Strachey with Anna Freud, Carrie Lee Rothgeb, and Angela Richards London: Hogarth Press, 1900. pp.73-102.  Marx, Karl, Friedrich Engels, and Robert C. Tucker. The Marx-Engels Reader. New York: Norton, 1978. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, Thomas Common, Helen Zimmern, Horace Barnett Samuel, J. M. Kennedy, and Clifton Fadiman. The Philosophy of Nietzsche. New York: Modern library, 1954. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, and R. J. Hollingdale. Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is. Harmondsworth, Eng: Penguin Books, 1979. Message Us! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/2358531/open_sms] Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2358531/support]

Socialist Humanism; the Humanist Side of Marx and the Old/New Left

Hello again, been a minute. In this episode, following along with Weeks' argument in The Problem with Work, we take a look at Socialist Humanism, the ties to productivism Weeks (and I) have issues with, we get a bit into psychologist-philosopher Erich Fromm, the (old) New Left, and humanism in Marx' early works. Hope you're up for a long episode!  Join the conversation on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/PhilosophyvsWork]! Obligatory bibliography, or books (and articles) you may also want to check out: Celikates, Robin and Jeffrey Flynn. “Critical Theory [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/critical-theory/] (Frankfurt School).” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2023.  citing “Fromm 1936 [2020, 39, 41]” Weeks, Kathi. 2011. The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries. Durham: Duke University Press. P.85 Marshall, Alfred. Principles of Economics [https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/principles-economics-1305/fulltext ], 1890.  Marx, Karl, Ernest Mandel, and Friedrich Engels. 1976. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Volume 1. Translated by Ben Fowkes. [London]: Penguin Books in association with New Left Review. P.137 Marx, Karl. Early Writings. Harmondsworth: Penguin in association with New Left Review, 1992. p.322 Marx, Karl. Grundrisse [ https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch03.htm#p196]. Marxists.org. #alienation #labor #work #Marx #Socialism #Humanism #politics #commodities #money #profit #wages #value #ethics Message Us! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/2358531/open_sms] Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2358531/support]

Art, Power, and Strange Economies

Yet another delay on getting to Week's "Refusal of Work," but I'm going to blame this one on current affairs and the drinking-from-the-fire-hose that is the Trump news cycle. Following the massive No Kings protests, I thought it best to address the outpouring of frustration, righteous indignation, anger, outrage, and fear (not to mention the stark juxtaposition sad-Trump's big boy parade), and talk about the stranger economics of affects.  We’re going to be discussing some authors that haven’t come up yet, namely Teresa Brennan, an Australian feminist philosopher, and Sara Ahmed, a British-Australian philosopher working in intersectionality – feminism, queer theory, critical race theory, discrimination, oppression, racism, sexism, etc.). We’ll also be leaning on some authors we’ve addressed before, like Deleuze and Guattari, Benjamin, Bataille, and, yes, even Marx (a little). Join the conversation on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/PhilosophyvsWork]! Obligatory bibliography, or books (and articles) you may also want to check out (man, it's a list this time!): Ahmed, Sara. 2004. "Affective Economies [http://cr.middlebury.edu/amlit_civ/allen/2012%20backup/scholarship/affect%20theory/22.2ahmed.pdf]". Social Text. 22, no. 2: 117-139.  Ahmed, Sara. 2006. "ORIENTATIONS: Toward a Queer Phenomenology [http://muse.jhu.edu.librarylink.uncc.edu/article/202832/pdf]". GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. 12, no. 4: 543-574.  Ahmed, Sara. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. 2015.  Bataille, Georges, and Robert Hurley. The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy. 1. New York, NY: Zone Books, 2007 Benjamin, Walter, Harry Zohn, Hannah Arendt, and Leon Wieseltier. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” in Illuminations: [Essays and Reflections]. New York: Schocken Books, 2013. Brennan, Teresa. The Transmission of Affect. Cornell University Press, 2014. Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2009. Deleuze, Gilles, Félix Guattari, Hugh Tomlinson, and Graham Burchell. What Is Philosophy? 2015.  Marx, Karl. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. London, UK: Penguin, 1992. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, and Thomas Common. The Gay Science. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, 2006.  Rajchman, John. The Deleuze Connections. Cambridge, Mass. [u.a.]: MIT Press, 2009. Surin, Kenneth. Revised Edition Edited by Adrian Parr. "Socius [http://deleuze.enacademic.com/160/socius]."  Recommended: "Ouch! That Feels Great [https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/ouch-that-feels-great/]" Hidden Brain 6/9/25.  Message Us! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/2358531/open_sms] Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2358531/support]

Socialism's Failures: Modernization and Productivist Marxism

Okay, so this episode was initially going to cover an area Weeks identifies as failures of Productivist Marxism; Socialist Modernization and Socialist Humanism, but we're going to be addressing the latter in the next episode. This one ran long enough as is. We're also going to be taking a minute to address, and correct, a mistake I made in the last episode as regards the conservative, capitalist approach to the if, then clause regarding waged work and profit maximazation that has some surprising implications, and we'll take look down the rabit hole of progressive taxation and the Trump tax cuts. We've, um, got a lot to go over.  Join the conversation on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/PhilosophyvsWork]! Obligatory bibliography, or books (and articles) you may also want to check out: Klein, Ezra, and Derek Thompson, Abundance. Avid Reader Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, 2025.  Tucker, Robert C., Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels. 1978. The Marx-Engels Reader. Second edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. P.538  Weeks, Kathi. 2011. The Problem with Work : Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries. Durham: Duke University Press. Links: "Current Population Reports; Consumer Income [https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/1953/demographics/p60-011.pdf]” U.S. Department of Commerce. May 1953   "Historical U.S. Federal Individual Income Tax Rates & Brackets, 1862-2021 [https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/historical-income-tax-rates-brackets/]” 8/24/2021. Tax Foundation  Fry, Richard. “Are You in the American Middle Class [https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/16/are-you-in-the-american-middle-class]? Find out with Our Income Calculator.” Pew Research Center, September 16, 2024. Picci, Aimee. “Do you know what you pay in taxes? Here's who pays the most and least to the IRS. [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tax-day-2025-heres-what-americans-pay-to-the-irs/]” 4/15/2025  York, Erica. “Summary of the Latest Federal Income Tax Data, 2024 Update. [https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-income-tax-data-2024/]” 3/13/2024. Tax Foundation  Message Us! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/2358531/open_sms] Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2358531/support]

Becoming Victim

Hey all, welcome back. There's a ton to go over from what's been going on on my end lately, what's been happening with the economy, we talk a little about 'where have all the Leftists gone?' (queue Paula Cole), and, for the bulk of the episode, we return to Kathi Weeks' The Problem with Work. For part 3, we're focusing on Weber's primitive construction of subjectivities, what the structures of Capitalism and the Work Ethic do, the antinomy of systems of inclusion and exclusion, and we start digging a little into Marx' Capital to help explain the significance of sacrifice and exchange in the system of waged labor, that identifies this movement from being made subject to being made victim. I hope you're up for a long episode!  Join the conversation on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/PhilosophyvsWork]! Obligatory bibliography, or books (and articles) you may also want to check out: Dictionary of Untranslatables : A Philosophical Lexicon. . Translated by Steven Rendall. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Lawlor, Leonard, and John Nale, eds. “Subjectification.” Chapter. In The Cambridge Foucault Lexicon, 496–502. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. P.496  Tucker, Robert C., Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels. "Capital, Volume One."The Marx-Engels Reader. New York: Norton, 1978. p.321., also “Wage, Labor, and Capital.” Pp.204-5. My emphasis.  Weber, Max. 2012. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Lexington, Ky.: Renaissance Classics. Weeks, Kathi. 2011. The Problem with Work : Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries. Durham: Duke University Press. Links to check out: “FACT SHEET the HISTORY of the TIPPED MINIMUM WAGE a Civil Rights Issue [https://civilrightsdocs.info/pdf/minimumwage/History-Tipped-Minimum-Wage.pdf].” Oct. 2018. Sacrifice [https://www.etymonline.com/word/victim; https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=sacrifice] and Prostitution [https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=prostitution]. Etymonline.  Schmidtz, David and Peter Boettke, "Friedrich Hayek [https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2025/entries/friedrich-hayek/]", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2025 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.) #Work #Commodities #Feminism #SexWork #Trump #Hayek #Marx #Weber #Sacrifice #Exchange #Victim #WorkEthic #Feminism #FarLeft #Leftism #Progressive #Socialism #Existentialism #BadFaith #Capitalism #Structuralism #Democrats #Neoliberalism #PrivateEquity Message Us! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/2358531/open_sms] Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2358531/support]