André Gorz Quotes | Quotes of famous people

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Famous André Gorz Quotes

“When the production process demands less work and distributes less and less wages, it gradually becomes obvious that the right to an income can no longer be reserved for those who have a job; nor, most importantly, can the level of incomes be made to depend on the quantity of work furnished by each person. Hence the idea of guaranteeing an income to every citizen which is not linked to work, or the quantity of work done.”

André Gorz

p. 203 https://books.google.com/books?id=WbpvDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA203
Critique of Economic Reason, 1988

“At the very point when a privileged fraction of the working class seems to be in a position to acquire multiple skills, to achieve workplace autonomy and continually widen their capacities for action - all of which are things that were ideals of the worker self-management currents within the labour movement - the meaning of this ideal is thus radically altered by the conditions in which it seems destined to be fulfilled. It is not the working class which is achieving these possibilities of self-organization and increasing technological power; it is a small core of privileged workers who are integrated into new-style enterprises at the expense of a mass of people who are marginalized and whose job security is destroyed -people shunted from one form of occasional, unrewarding and uninteresting employment to another, who are often reduced to competing for the privilege of selling personal services (including shoe-shining and house-cleaning) to those who retain a secure income.”

André Gorz

pp, 70-71 https://books.google.com/books?id=WbpvDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA70
Critique of Economic Reason, 1988

“The ideology of work and the ethics of effort therefore become cover for ultra-competitive egoism and careerism: the best succeed, the others have only themselves to blame; hard work should be encouraged and rewarded, which therefore means we should not subsidize the unemployed, the poor and all the other 'layabouts.'”

André Gorz

This ideology (which in Europe finds its most overt expression in Thatcherism) is strictly rational, as far as capitalism is concerned: the aim to motivate a workforce which cannot easily be replaced (for the moment, at least) and control it ideologically for want of a means of controlling it physically. In order to do this, it must preserve the work-force's adherence to the work ethic, destroy the relations of solidarity that could bind it to the less fortunate, and persuade it that by doing as much work as possible it will best serve the collective interest as well as its own private interests. It will thus be necessary to conceal the fact that. there is an increasing structural glut of workers and an increasing structural shortage of secure, full-time jobs; in short, that the economy no longer needs everyone to work - and will do so less and less. And that; as a consequence, the 'society of work' is obsolete: work can no longer serve as the basis for social integration. But, to conceal these facts it is necessary to find alternative explanations for the rise in unemployment" and the decrease in job security. It will thus be asserted that casual labourers and the unemployed are not serious about looking for work; do not possess adequate skills, are encouraged to be idle by over~ generous dole payments and so on. And, it will be added, these people are all paid far too much for the little they are able to do, with the result that the economy, which is groaning under the weight of these excessive burdens, is no longer buoyant enough to create a growing number of jobs. And the conclusion will be reached that, 'To end unemployment, we have to work more.'

pp. 69-70 https://books.google.com/books?id=WbpvDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA69
Critique of Economic Reason, 1988