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A review by libraryofmarella_13
Lost in Work: Escaping Capitalism by Amelia Horgan
4.0
“And while the barriers to career advancement or to certain professions for women, for people of colour and for working-class people are often particularly high, what happens to those who do not make it? The system is such that there will always be many more losers than there are winners. Those who are caught in a punitive and cruel benefit system and successive low-paid crap jobs. Aspiration in a world structurally unable to fulfil the aspirations of everyone will leave the unlucky or just those for whatever reason not capable of meeting their aspirations cast adrift.”
I remember this time a teacher of mine said that if we want justice, then we have to work hard for it. If we work hard, we can become successful. Success equals being rich and so on. A few months ago, another teacher of mine said, “Maybe some of you are just resting there and aren’t working.” (For context, we had a free day because they were absent.) After reading this book, I want to throw it at their faces. This book answers those false narrative of working to get to the top and how constantly working is productive.
“As we’ve already seen, work simply does not, as it currently exists, work for the lowest paid. But, as I argue in the rest of the book, the problem of work under capitalism is not just the problem of crap jobs and of an unfair distribution of access to better ones. Even in work that is more secure, more permanent, and better paid, all kinds of problems for workers emerge. The reason for this is that, by and large, we are not able to choose how we work.”
Lost in Work is a non-fiction book about work under capitalism and how it affects everyone especially lower class people. It talks about the history of work and workers and what is work. This book made me question how we define work. What work is worth compensation?
“Homelessness is an acceptable humiliation. Drudgery is another. But selling sex on the other hand is everyone’s business.– Virgine Despentes”
There is a section in this book that I really wished the author continued to push on which was about sex workers and mothers and how they are examples of the inequality when it comes to people defining what work is. There are people in this world that believe that sex workers shouldn’t be paid or that what they do isn’t real work. A lot of them arugue that real work has labor. Sex workers carry an insane amount of emotional and mental labor that people who criticize them can’t even bear. A lot of women who are anti-feminist argue that we never needed feminism or “why did all these women suddenly have to protest, we were fine before, we just stayed at home and took care of the house.” This book clarifies that women used to work 30 hours a day in their household with no proper compensation. Not only that but majority of the women at that time had to endure domestic abuse and still play the loving, doting housewife part.
This book was written during the height of the pandemic and the author also got covid when she was writing this which makes the book more relevant and one that a lot of people can relate to and apply in their life. This was my first non-fiction book and I surprisingly enjoyed it, I don’t normally get attracted to these kind of books because a lot of times they’re boring but I finished 27 percent of it when I first read it which is very impressive for me. This book is intersectional and does take racism, sexism, third world countries, and exploitation into account. I will say though, this book took a lot more braincells to finish and understand and there were some parts that were very much dull but it was necessary. There were also part where I feel like the author could’ve shortend it or not use a lot of big words. All in all, I learned a lot from it and I’d recommed.
I remember this time a teacher of mine said that if we want justice, then we have to work hard for it. If we work hard, we can become successful. Success equals being rich and so on. A few months ago, another teacher of mine said, “Maybe some of you are just resting there and aren’t working.” (For context, we had a free day because they were absent.) After reading this book, I want to throw it at their faces. This book answers those false narrative of working to get to the top and how constantly working is productive.
“As we’ve already seen, work simply does not, as it currently exists, work for the lowest paid. But, as I argue in the rest of the book, the problem of work under capitalism is not just the problem of crap jobs and of an unfair distribution of access to better ones. Even in work that is more secure, more permanent, and better paid, all kinds of problems for workers emerge. The reason for this is that, by and large, we are not able to choose how we work.”
Lost in Work is a non-fiction book about work under capitalism and how it affects everyone especially lower class people. It talks about the history of work and workers and what is work. This book made me question how we define work. What work is worth compensation?
“Homelessness is an acceptable humiliation. Drudgery is another. But selling sex on the other hand is everyone’s business.– Virgine Despentes”
There is a section in this book that I really wished the author continued to push on which was about sex workers and mothers and how they are examples of the inequality when it comes to people defining what work is. There are people in this world that believe that sex workers shouldn’t be paid or that what they do isn’t real work. A lot of them arugue that real work has labor. Sex workers carry an insane amount of emotional and mental labor that people who criticize them can’t even bear. A lot of women who are anti-feminist argue that we never needed feminism or “why did all these women suddenly have to protest, we were fine before, we just stayed at home and took care of the house.” This book clarifies that women used to work 30 hours a day in their household with no proper compensation. Not only that but majority of the women at that time had to endure domestic abuse and still play the loving, doting housewife part.
This book was written during the height of the pandemic and the author also got covid when she was writing this which makes the book more relevant and one that a lot of people can relate to and apply in their life. This was my first non-fiction book and I surprisingly enjoyed it, I don’t normally get attracted to these kind of books because a lot of times they’re boring but I finished 27 percent of it when I first read it which is very impressive for me. This book is intersectional and does take racism, sexism, third world countries, and exploitation into account. I will say though, this book took a lot more braincells to finish and understand and there were some parts that were very much dull but it was necessary. There were also part where I feel like the author could’ve shortend it or not use a lot of big words. All in all, I learned a lot from it and I’d recommed.