This new work ethic, in which work is expected to give us something like self-actualization, cannot help but fail.

Labor is required for value to be produced and capital accumulated, but that labor, as we’ve noted, is all too often likely to rebel against the process. Labor, after all, is us: messy, desiring, hungry, lonely, angry, frustrated human beings. We may be free to quit our jobs and find ones that we like better, as the mantra goes, but in practice tha

The women’s movement must realize that work is not liberation. Work in a capitalist system is exploitation and there is no pleasure, pride or creativity in being exploited. Even the “career” is an illusion as far as self-fulfillment is concerned.

The hardest thing about this was that I loved the work. And I wanted to work hard. But doing something you love on a schedule you can’t control can feel the same as doing something you hate. There is a name for this feeling. Psychologists call it reactance.