• Public

  • Public
  • Network
  • Groups
  • Featured
  • Popular
  • People

A highlighted portion reads "in my new book, Hijacked, I argue that neoliberalism revives the conser- vative work ethic, which tells workers that they owe their employers relentless toil and unquestioning obedience. It tells employers that they have exclusive rights to govern their employees and organize work for maximum profit. And it tells the state to entrench the authority of these executives through laws that treat labor as nothing more than a commodity. To reinforce the com- modification of labor, the conservative work ethic instructs the state to mini- mize workers' access to subsistence from sources other than wage labor, Including publicly provided goods, social insurance, and welfare benefits. The connection between neoliberalism and the conservative work ethic might not be obvious at first. Neoliberals define their position in terms of a libertarian preference for "voluntary" market orderings over state action, purportedly leaving individuals free to pursue their own conception of the good."