View source for Social:Refusal of work

{{Short description|Behavior in which a person refuses regular employment}}
'''Refusal of work''' is behavior in which a person refuses regular employment.<ref name="republicart1">"Refusal of work means quite simply: I don't want to go to work because I prefer to sleep. But this laziness is the source of intelligence, of technology, of progress. Autonomy is the self-regulation of the social body in its independence and in its interaction with the disciplinary norm."[http://www.republicart.net/disc/realpublicspaces/berardi01_en.htm "What is the Meaning of Autonomy Today?" by Bifo] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190926001030/http://republicart.net/disc/realpublicspaces/berardi01_en.htm |date=26 September 2019 }}</ref>

As actual behavior, with or without a political or philosophical program, it has been practiced by various subcultures and individuals. It is frequently engaged in by those who [[Philosophy:Critique of work|critique the concept of work]], and it has a long history. Radical political positions have openly advocated refusal of work. From within [[Philosophy:Marxism|Marxism]] it has been advocated by [[Biography:Paul Lafargue|Paul Lafargue]] and the Italian workerist/autonomists (e.g. [[Biography:Antonio Negri|Antonio Negri]], Mario Tronti),<ref name="republicart1"/> the French ultra-left (e.g. Échanges et Mouvement); and within [[Social:Anarchism|anarchism]] (especially [[Philosophy:The Abolition of Work|Bob Black]] and the [[Social:Post-left anarchy|post-left anarchy]] tendency).<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://inspiracy.com/black/|title=Inspiracy presents Bob Black|website=inspiracy.com|access-date=2010-01-10|archive-date=2020-01-17|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200117045745/http://www.inspiracy.com/black/|url-status=live}}</ref>

== Abolition of unfree labour ==
International human rights law does not recognize the refusal of work or right not to work by itself except the right to strike. However the Abolition of Forced Labour Convention adopted by International Labour Organization in 1957 prohibits all forms of [[Social:Forced labour|forced labour]].<ref>Abolition of Forced Labour Convention (No.105), Article 1</ref>

== Concerns over wage slavery ==
{{Main|Social:Wage slavery}}
Wage slavery refers to a situation where a person's livelihood depends on [[Finance:Wage|wage]]s, especially when the dependence is total and immediate.<ref name="merriam-webster.com">{{cite web|url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wage+slave|title=Definition of Wage Slave|website=www.merriam-webster.com|access-date=2019-01-02|archive-date=2017-08-19|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170819041834/https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wage%2Bslave|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.dictionary.com/browse/wage-slave|title=the definition of wage slave|website=www.dictionary.com|access-date=2019-01-02|archive-date=2015-09-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923162925/http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/wage%20slave|url-status=live}}</ref> It is a [[Philosophy:Connotation|negatively connoted]] term used to draw an analogy between [[Social:Slavery|slavery]] and wage labor, and to highlight similarities between owning and employing a person. The term 'wage slavery' has been used to criticize economic exploitation and [[Social:Social stratification|social stratification]], with the former seen primarily as unequal bargaining power between labor and capital (particularly when workers are paid comparatively low wages, e.g. in sweatshops),<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_KdrTfTxqvgC&pg=PA183|title=Democracy's Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy|first=Michael J.|last=Sandel|year=1998|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0674197459|via=Google Books|access-date=2016-07-28|archive-date=2021-12-01|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211201112127/https://books.google.com/books?id=_KdrTfTxqvgC&pg=PA183|url-status=live}}</ref> and the latter as a lack of [[Philosophy:Workers' self-management|workers' self-management]].<ref name="globetrotter.berkeley.edu">{{Cite web |url = http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people2/Chomsky/chomsky-con2.html |title = Conversation with Noam Chomsky, p. 2 of 5 |publisher = Globetrotter.berkeley.edu |access-date = 28 June 2010 |archive-date = 31 May 2019 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190531192200/http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people2/Chomsky/chomsky-con2.html |url-status = live }}</ref><ref name="socialissues.wiseto.com">{{Cite web |url = http://socialissues.wiseto.com/Articles/161500532/ |title = From wage slaves to wage workers: cultural opportunity structures and the evolution of the wage demands of the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor, 1880–1900. Crime |publisher = Socialissues.wiseto.com |date = 30 August 2007 |access-date = 28 June 2010 |url-status = dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090630014918/http://socialissues.wiseto.com/Articles/161500532/ |archive-date = 30 June 2009 }}</ref><ref name="spunk.org">{{cite web|url=http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/russia/sp001861/bolintro.html|title=The Bolsheviks and Workers Control|website=www.spunk.org|access-date=2010-01-10|archive-date=2006-12-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061220120533/http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/russia/sp001861/bolintro.html|url-status=live}}</ref> The criticism of social stratification covers a wider range of employment choices bound by the pressures of a hierarchical social environment (i.e. working for a wage not only under threat of [[Medicine:Starvation|starvation]] or poverty, but also of [[Social:Social stigma|social stigma]] or [[Social:Social status|status]] diminution).<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/fitzhughcan/fitzcan.html |title=Full text of Cannibals All! Or, Slaves Without Masters, by George Fitzhugh (1857) |access-date=2015-06-10 |archive-date=2019-09-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190902191138/https://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/fitzhughcan/fitzcan.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="schalkenbach1">{{Cite web|url=http://schalkenbach.org/library/george.henry/sp15.html|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120716205548/http://schalkenbach.org/library/george.henry/sp15.html|url-status=dead|title=Robert Schalkenbach Foundation|archivedate=16 July 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people2/Chomsky/chomsky-con2.html|title=Conversation with Noam Chomsky, p. 2 of 5|website=globetrotter.berkeley.edu|access-date=2010-01-10|archive-date=2019-05-31|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190531192200/http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people2/Chomsky/chomsky-con2.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

Similarities between wage labor and slavery were noted at least as early as [[Biography:Cicero|Cicero]].<ref name="cicero"/> Before the American Civil War, Southern defenders of African American slavery invoked the concept to favorably compare the condition of their slaves to workers in the North.<ref>{{Cite book |last = Foner |first = Eric |title = Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men |page = xix }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last = Jensen |first = Derrick |title = The Culture of Make Believe |year = 2002 |isbn = 978-1893956285 |url = https://archive.org/details/cultureofmakebel00derr |url-access = registration }}</ref> With the advent of the industrial revolution, thinkers such as Proudhon<ref>{{cite book |last1=Proudhon |first1=Pierre-Joseph |author1link=Pierre-Joseph Proudhon |editor-last1=Kelly |editor-first1=Donald R. |editor-last2=Smith |editor-first2=Bonnie G. |title=Proudhon: What is Property? |year=1994 |publisher={{wipe|Cambridge University Press}} |isbn=978-0521405560 |pages=159–160 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ELTq6WIulyEC |access-date=1 December 2021 |language=en |quote=Concerning this, political economy, speaking for eternal justice, says: 'producing by one's capital is producing by one's tools.' This is what ought to be called 'producing by a slave, by a thief and by a tyrant.' He, the proprietor, produce?... A robber might as well say: 'I produce.' |archive-date=1 December 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211201092204/https://books.google.com/books?id=ELTq6WIulyEC |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/ProProp.html|title=Proudhon, Pierre Joseph. What is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government.|access-date=2010-01-10|archive-date=2013-07-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130704144431/http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/ProProp.html|url-status=live}}</ref> and Marx<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/ch07.htm|title=Economic Manuscripts: Theories of Surplus-Value, Chapter 7|website=www.marxists.org|access-date=2019-01-02|archive-date=2020-03-01|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200301224650/https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/ch07.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> elaborated the comparison between wage labor and slavery in the context of a critique of property not intended for active personal use.

The introduction of wage labor in 18th century Britain was met with resistance—giving rise to the principles of [[Social:Syndicalism|syndicalism]].<ref name="English Working Class p. 599">The Making of the English Working Class, p. 599 {{ISBN?}}</ref><ref name="English Working Class p. 912">The Making of the English Working Class, p. 912</ref><ref name="Geoffrey Ostergaard p. 133">Geoffrey Ostergaard, ''The Tradition of Workers' Control'', p. 133 {{ISBN?}}</ref><ref name="Shop Floor p. 37">Competitive Advantage on the Shop Floor, p. 37</ref> Historically, some labor organizations and individual social activists, have espoused [[Philosophy:Workers' self-management|workers' self-management]] or [[Social:Worker cooperative|worker cooperative]]s as possible alternatives to wage labor.<ref name="socialissues.wiseto.com"/><ref name="Geoffrey Ostergaard p. 133"/>

== Political views ==

[[File:Lafargue 1871.jpg|thumb|upright|Paul Lafargue, author of book critical of work titled: ''The Right to Be Lazy'']]

''The Right to be Lazy'', an essay by Cuban-born {{wipe|France}} revolutionary Marxist [[Biography:Paul Lafargue|Paul Lafargue]], manifests that "When, in our civilized Europe, we would find a trace of the native beauty of man, we must go seek it in the nations where economic prejudices have not yet uprooted the hatred of work&nbsp;... The Greeks in their era of greatness had only contempt for work: their slaves alone were permitted to labor: the free man knew only exercises for the body and mind&nbsp;... The philosophers of antiquity taught contempt for work, that degradation of the free man, the poets sang of idleness, that gift from the Gods."<ref name="theanarchistlibrary.org">{{Cite book|url=http://www.theanarchistlibrary.org/library/paul-lafargue-the-right-to-be-lazy|title=The Right To Be Lazy|via=www.theanarchistlibrary.org|access-date=2022-03-17|archive-date=2022-03-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220314142505/https://www.theanarchistlibrary.org/library/paul-lafargue-the-right-to-be-lazy|url-status=live}}</ref> And so he says "Proletarians, brutalized by the dogma of work, listen to the voice of these philosophers, which has been concealed from you with jealous care: A citizen who gives his labor for money degrades himself to the rank of slaves." (The last sentence paraphrasing [[Biography:Cicero|Cicero]].<ref name="cicero">"...vulgar are the means of livelihood of all hired workmen whom we pay for mere manual labor, not for artistic skill; for in their case the very wage they receive is a pledge of their slavery.''" – De Officiis [http://www.constitution.org/rom/de_officiis.htm] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171019141104/http://www.constitution.org/rom/de_officiis.htm|date=2017-10-19}}''</ref>)

Raoul Vaneigem, theorist of the post-surrealist [[Philosophy:Situationist International|Situationist International]] which was influential in the May 68 events in France, wrote ''The Book of Pleasures''. In it he says that "You reverse the perspective of power by returning to pleasure the energies stolen by work and constraint&nbsp;... As sure as work kills pleasure, pleasure kills work. If you are not resigned to dying of disgust, then you will be happy enough to rid your life of the odious need to work, to give orders (and obey them), to lose and to win, to keep up appearances, and to judge and be judged."<ref>[http://www.scenewash.org/lobbies/chainthinker/situationist/vaneigem/bop/bop.html ''The book of pleasures''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200305202450/http://www.scenewash.org/lobbies/chainthinker/situationist/vaneigem/bop/bop.html |date=5 March 2020 }} by Raoul Vaneigem</ref>

[[Social:Autonomism|Autonomist]] philosopher Bifo defines refusal of work as not "so much the obvious fact that workers do not like to be exploited, but something more. It means that the capitalist restructuring, the technological change, and the general transformation of social institutions are produced by the daily action of withdrawal from exploitation, of rejection of the obligation to produce surplus value, and to increase the value of capital, reducing the value of life."<ref name="republicart1"/> More simply he states "Refusal of work means&nbsp;... I don't want to go to work because I prefer to sleep. But this laziness is the source of intelligence, of technology, of progress. Autonomy is the self-regulation of the social body in its independence and in its interaction with the disciplinary norm."<ref name="republicart1"/>

As a social development Bifo remembers,<ref name="republicart1"/><blockquote>that one of the strong ideas of the movement of autonomy proletarians during the 70s was the idea "precariousness is good". Job precariousness is a form of autonomy from steady regular work, lasting an entire life. In the 1970s many people used to work for a few months, then to go away for a journey, then back to work for a while. This was possible in times of almost full employment and in times of egalitarian culture. This situation allowed people to work in their own interest and not in the interest of capitalists, but quite obviously this could not last forever, and the neoliberal offensive of the 1980s was aimed to reverse the rapport de force."</blockquote>As a response to these developments his view is that "the dissemination of self-organized knowledge can create a social framework containing infinite autonomous and self-reliant worlds."<ref name="republicart1" />

From this possibility of [[Social:Self-determination|self-determination]] even the notion of [[Philosophy:Workers' self-management|workers' self-management]] is seen as problematic since "Far from the emergence of proletarian power,&nbsp;... this self-management as a moment of the self-harnessing of the workers to capitalist production in the period of real subsumption&nbsp;... Mistaking the individual capitalist (who, in real subsumption disappears into the collective body of share ownership on one side, and hired management on the other) rather than the enterprise as the problem,&nbsp;... the workers themselves became a collective capitalist, taking on responsibility for the exploitation of their own labor. Thus, far from breaking with 'work',&nbsp;... the workers maintained the practice of clocking-in, continued to organize themselves and the community around the needs of the factory, paid themselves from profits arising from the sale of watches, maintained determined relations between individual work done and wage, and continued to wear their work shirts throughout the process."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://libcom.org/library/deleuze-marx-politics-nicholas-thoburn-5|title=5. The Refusal of Work|website=libcom.org|access-date=2007-08-29|archive-date=2019-08-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190824001837/http://libcom.org/library/deleuze-marx-politics-nicholas-thoburn-5|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[Biography:André Gorz|André Gorz]] was an Austrian and {{wipe|France}} [[Philosophy:Social philosophy|social philosopher]]. Also a [[Engineering:Journalist|journalist]], he co-founded ''Le Nouvel Observateur'' weekly in 1964. A supporter of [[Biography:Jean-Paul Sartre|Jean-Paul Sartre]]'s [[Philosophy:Existentialism|existentialist]] version of [[Philosophy:Marxism|Marxism]] after World War Two, in the aftermath of the May '68 student riots, he became more concerned with [[Earth:Political ecology|political ecology]].<ref>Willy Gianinazzi, ''André Gorz: A life'', London: Seagull Books, 2022.</ref> His central theme was [[Social:Wage labour|wage labour]] issues such as liberation from work, the just distribution of work, [[Philosophy:Social alienation|social alienation]], and a [[Social:Basic income|guaranteed basic income]].<ref>André Gorz, [http://societal.org/docs/55.htm Pour un revenu inconditionnel suffisant] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200426145421/http://societal.org/docs/55.htm |date=26 April 2020 }}, published in Transversales/Science-Culture (n° 3, 3e trimestre 2002) {{in lang|fr}}</ref>

=== Anarchism ===

[[Image:Bob Black (2011 BAAB).JPG|thumb|Bob Black, contemporary American anarchist associated with the post-left anarchy tendency]]

Bob Black's 1986 essay ''[[Philosophy:The Abolition of Work|The Abolition of Work]]'' proposes a "life based on play" to replace work. He argues that work degrades workers through discipline and habituation, and equates work to social control and mass murder.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Seyferth |first1=Peter |chapter=Anti-Work: A Stab in the Heart of Capitalism |title=Routledge Handbook of Radical Politics |date=2019 |isbn=978-1-315-61988-0 |publisher=Routledge |chapter-url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315619880-31/anti-work-peter-seyferth |page=384 |doi=10.4324/9781315619880-31 |s2cid=242759065 |access-date=2023-07-29 |archive-date=2023-01-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230118052059/https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315619880-31/anti-work-peter-seyferth |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 2022, ''Green Theory & Praxis Journal'' published a Total Liberation Pathway which involved "an abolition of compulsory work for all beings." Building on scholar Jason Hribal's description of animals as part of the working class and industries' labels of "working ecosystems" and "energy slaves," the proposal sought to free all animals, ecosystems, plants, minerals, and the planet Earth from exploitation. As part of this transformation, humans would drastically reduce their workweek and transform it into voluntary and self-managed hobbies.<ref>{{cite journal|first=Dan|last=Fischer|title=Let Nature Play: A Possible Pathway of Total Liberation and Earth Restoration|journal=Green Theory & Praxis|date=3 April 2022|volume=14|issue=1|pages=8–29|url=http://greentheoryandpraxisjournal.org/gtpj-volume-14-issue-1-3-april-2022/|access-date=2022-04-12|archive-date=2022-04-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220404160154/http://greentheoryandpraxisjournal.org/gtpj-volume-14-issue-1-3-april-2022/|url-status=dead}}.</ref>

== Stigmatization of people who don't work ==
Those who engage in refusal of work break one of the most powerful social norms of contemporary society. Hence they frequently receive harassment from people, sometimes irrespective of whether they made the choice to leave work behind or not. In [[Place:Nazi Germany|Nazi Germany]] the so-called, "work-shy" individuals were rounded up and imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps as [[Black triangle (badge)|black triangle]] prisoners in the so-called "Aktion Arbeitsscheu Reich".<ref>{{cite book|last1=Gellately|first1=Robert|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1toqgWg8ROUC&q=work-shy+nazi&pg=PA12|title=Social Outsiders in Nazi Germany|last2=Stoltzfus|first2=Nathan|date=2001|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0691086842|page=12|language=en|access-date=2020-11-19|archive-date=2021-12-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211204081015/https://books.google.com/books?id=1toqgWg8ROUC&q=work-shy+nazi&pg=PA12|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Schulle|first1=Diana|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JhYb73CHmt8C&q=work-shy+nazi&pg=PA146|title=Jews in Nazi Berlin: From Kristallnacht to Liberation|date=2009|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0226521596|editor1-last=Meyer|editor1-first=Beate|page=146|language=en|editor2-last=Simon|editor2-first=Hermann|editor3-last=Schütz|editor3-first=Chana|access-date=2020-11-19|archive-date=2021-12-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211204081015/https://books.google.com/books?id=JhYb73CHmt8C&q=work-shy+nazi&pg=PA146|url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Other derogatory terms and their history ===
==== Cynic philosophical school ====
[[Philosophy:Cynicism|Cynicism]] ({{lang-el|κυνισμός}}), in its original form, refers to the beliefs of an ancient school of Greek philosophers known as the Cynics ({{lang-el|Κυνικοί}}, {{lang-la|Cynici}}). Their philosophy was that the [[Philosophy:Meaning of life|purpose of life]] was to live a life of [[Philosophy:Virtue|Virtue]] in agreement with [[Earth:Nature|Nature]]. This meant rejecting all conventional desires for wealth, power, health, and fame, and by living a [[Finance:Simple living|simple life]] free from all possessions. They believed that the [[Philosophy:World|world]] belonged equally to everyone, and that [[Social:Suffering|suffering]] was caused by false judgments of what was valuable and by the worthless [[Philosophy:Tradition|customs]] and [[Philosophy:Convention (norm)|conventions]] which surrounded [[Organization:Society|society]].

[[Image:Gerome - Diogenes.jpg|left|thumb|Diogenes of Sinope – depicted by Jean-Léon Gérôme]]
The first philosopher to outline these themes was [[Biography:Antisthenes|Antisthenes]], who had been a pupil of [[Biography:Socrates|Socrates]] in the late 5th century BCE. He was followed by Diogenes of Sinope, who lived in a tub on the streets of [[Place:Athens|Athens]]. Diogenes took Cynicism to its [[Philosophy:Logical extreme|logical extreme]]s, and came to be seen as the archetypal Cynic philosopher. He was followed by [[Biography:Crates of Thebes|Crates of Thebes]] who gave away a large fortune so he could live a life of Cynic poverty in Athens. Cynicism spread with the rise of Imperial Rome in the 1st century, and Cynics could be found begging and preaching throughout the cities of the Empire. It finally disappeared in the late 5th century, although many of its ascetic and rhetorical ideas were adopted by [[Religion:Early Christianity|early Christianity]]. The name Cynic derives from the [[Social:Ancient Greek|Greek]] word κυνικός, ''kynikos'', "dog-like" and that from κύων, ''kyôn'', "[[Biology:Dog|dog]]" (genitive: ''kynos'').<ref>{{cite web|title=κυ^νικός , ή, όν, (κύων)|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D%2360864|access-date=3 December 2021|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu|archive-date=4 December 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211204081016/https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D%2360864|url-status=live}}</ref>

It seems certain that the word ''dog'' was also thrown at the first Cynics as an insult for their shameless rejection of conventional manners, and their decision to live on the streets. Diogenes, in particular, was referred to as ''the Dog''.<ref>An obscure reference to "the Dog" in Aristotle's ''Rhetoric'' (3.10.1411a25) is generally agreed to be the first reference to Diogenes.</ref>

==== "Slackers" ====
The term slacker is commonly used to refer to a person who avoids work (especially British English), or (primarily in North American English) an educated person who is viewed as an [[Social:Underachiever|underachiever]].<ref name="dictionarycom">{{cite web|year=2006|title=slacker|url=http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/slacker|publisher=Random House, Inc.|access-date=2010-01-10|archive-date=2016-03-03|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303214234/http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/slacker|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|author=Compact Oxford English Dictionary|title=slacker|url=http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/slacker?view=get|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131021090734/http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/slacker?view=get |archive-date=2013-10-21 }}</ref>

While use of the term ''slacker'' dates back to about 1790 or 1898 depending on the source, it gained some recognition during the British Gezira Scheme, when Sudanese labourers protested their relative powerlessness by working lethargically, a form of protest known as 'slacking'.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Bernal|first1=V.|year=1997|title=Colonial Moral Economy and the Discipline of Development: The Gezira Scheme and "Modern" Sudan|journal=Cultural Anthropology|volume=12|issue=4|pages=447–479|doi=10.1525/can.1997.12.4.447}}</ref> The term achieved a boost in popularity after its use in the films ''Back to the Future'' and ''Slacker''.<ref name="dictionarycom" /><ref>{{cite web|title=Online Etymology Dictionary, slack (adj.)|url=http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=slacker&searchmode=none|publisher=Douglas Harper|access-date=2010-01-10|archive-date=2017-07-29|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170729232316/http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=slacker&searchmode=none|url-status=live}}</ref>

==== NEET ====
NEET is an acronym for the government classification for people currently "Not in Employment, Education or Training". It was first used in the {{wipe|United Kingdom}} but its use has spread to other countries, including the {{wipe|United States}}, {{wipe|Japan}}, {{wipe|China}}, and {{wipe|South Korea}}.

In the United Kingdom, the classification comprises people aged between 16 and 24 (some 16-year-olds are still of [[Social:Compulsory education|compulsory education]] age). In Japan, the classification comprises people aged between 15 and 34 who are unemployed, unmarried, not enrolled in school or engaged in [[Social:Homemaking|housework]], and not seeking work or the technical training needed for work. The "NEET group" is not a uniform set of individuals but consists of those who will be NEET for a short time while essentially testing out a variety of opportunities and those who have major and often multiple [[Medicine:Mental disorder|issues]] and are at long term risk of remaining disengaged.

In {{wipe|Brazil}}, "nem-nem" (short of '''''nem''' estudam '''nem''' trabalham'' (neither study nor work) is a term with similar meaning.<ref>{{cite web|date=27 July 2014|title=Dois em cada dez jovens brasileiros nem estudam e nem trabalham|url=http://g1.globo.com/fantastico/noticia/2014/07/dois-em-cada-dez-jovens-brasileiros-nao-estudam-e-nem-trabalham.html|website=Fantástico|access-date=22 November 2014|archive-date=15 November 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211115073106/http://g1.globo.com/fantastico/noticia/2014/07/dois-em-cada-dez-jovens-brasileiros-nao-estudam-e-nem-trabalham.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

In Spanish-speaking countries, "ni-ni" (short of '''''ni''' estudia '''ni''' trabaja'') is also applied.

==== "Freeters" and parasite singles ====
{{nihongo|Freeter|フリーター|furītā}} (other spellings below) is a Japanese expression for people between the age of 15 and 34 who lack full-time employment or are unemployed, excluding homemakers and students. They may also be described as ''underemployed'' or freelance workers. These people do not start a career after high school or university but instead usually live as so-called parasite singles with their parents and earn some money with low skilled and low paid jobs.

The word ''freeter'' or ''freeta'' was first used around 1987 or 1988 and is thought to be an amalgamation of the English word ''free'' (or perhaps ''freelance'') and the [[Social:German language|German]] word ''Arbeiter'' ("worker").<ref>{{cite web|date=15 June 2004|title=A Way with Words – freeter|url=https://www.waywordradio.org/freeter/|website=www.waywordradio.org|access-date=2 January 2019|archive-date=3 December 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211203134152/https://www.waywordradio.org/freeter/|url-status=live}}</ref>

{{nihongo|Parasite single|パラサイトシングル|parasaito shinguru}} is a [[Social:Japanese language|Japanese]] term for a [[Single person|single person]] who lives with their parents until their late twenties or early thirties in order to enjoy a carefree and comfortable life. In English, the expression "sponge" or "basement dweller" may sometimes be used.

The expression is mainly used in reference to Japanese society, but similar phenomena can also be found in other countries worldwide. In Italy, 30-something singles still relying on their mothers are joked about, being called ''Bamboccioni'' (literally: grown-up babies) and in Germany they are known as ''Nesthocker'' (German for an ''altricial'' bird), who are still living at ''{{ill|Hotel Mama|de|Hotel Mama|vertical-align=sup}}''.

Such behaviour is considered normal in Greece, both because of the traditional strong family ties and because of the low wages.<ref>{{cite web|title=ΤΑ ΝΕΑ|url=https://www.tanea.gr/|website=ΤΑ ΝΕΑ|access-date=2019-01-02|archive-date=2021-12-02|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211202044425/https://www.tanea.gr/|url-status=live}}</ref>

==== Welfare queens ====
A Welfare queen is a derogatory term for a person, almost exclusively female and usually a single mother, who lives primarily from welfare and other public assistance funds. The term implies that the person collects welfare, charity, or other handouts either fraudulently or excessively and that the person intentionally chooses to live "on the dole" as opposed to seeking gainful employment, ostensibly due to laziness.

==== Vagrancy ====
A vagrant is derogatory term for a person in a situation of poverty, who wanders from place to place without a home or regular employment or [[Finance:Income|income]]. Many towns in the developed world have shelters for vagrants. Common terminology is a tramp or a 'gentleman of the road'.

Laws against vagrancy in the {{wipe|United States}} have partly been invalidated as violative of the [[Social:Due process|due process]] clauses of the U.S. Constitution.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/vagrancy|title=Vagrancy|website=LII / Legal Information Institute|access-date=2017-06-27|archive-date=2021-12-02|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211202185505/https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/vagrancy|url-status=live}}</ref> However, the FBI report on crime in the United States for 2005 lists 24,359 vagrancy violations.<ref>Table 43 – Crime in the United States 2005 http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/table_43.html {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210922092034/http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/table_43.html |date=2021-09-22 }}</ref>

===="Hobos", "tramps", and "bums"====
[[File:Hobos2.jpg|thumb|upright|Two hobos walking along railroad tracks, after being put off a train. One is carrying a bindle.]]

A hobo is a migratory worker or homeless vagabond, often penniless.<ref>[http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hobo Definition of 'hobo'] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211117024203/http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hobo |date=2021-11-17 }} from the Merriam-Webster website</ref> The term originated in the western—probably northwestern—United States during the last decade of the 19th century.<ref name="oup">{{cite web|date=12 November 2008|title=On Hobos, Hautboys, and Other Beaus|url=http://blog.oup.com/2008/11/hobo/|access-date=5 August 2009|work=OUPblog|publisher=[[Organization:Oxford University Press|Oxford University Press]]|archive-date=11 April 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120411134104/http://blog.oup.com/2008/11/hobo/|url-status=live}}</ref> Unlike tramps, who worked only when they were forced to, and bums, who did not work at all, hobos were workers who wandered.<ref name="oup" /><ref name="Mencken1945">{{cite book|last=Mencken|first=Henry Louis|title=The American Language: An Inquiry Into the Development of English in the United States|publisher=A.A. Knopf|year=1945|isbn=978-0394400754|page=581|chapter=American Slang|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zh7Ma1SCthQC&pg=PA581|access-date=2018-11-13|archive-date=2020-08-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200820040559/https://books.google.com/books?id=zh7Ma1SCthQC&pg=PA581|url-status=live}}</ref>

In British English and traditional American English usage, a tramp is a long term [[Social:Homelessness|homeless]] person who travels from place to place as an itinerant vagrant, traditionally walking or hiking all year round.

While some tramps may do odd jobs from time to time, unlike other temporarily homeless people they do not seek out regular work and support themselves by other means such as begging or scavenging. This is in contrast to:
* bum, a stationary homeless person who does not work, and who begs or steals for a living in one place.
* hobo, a homeless person who travels from place to place looking for work, often by "freighthopping", illegally catching rides on freight trains
* [[Social:Schnorrer|Schnorrer]], a [[Social:Yiddish|Yiddish]] term for a person who travels from city to city begging.

Both terms, "tramp" and "hobo" (and the distinction between them), were in common use between the 1880s and the 1940s. Their populations and the usage of the terms increased during the [[Finance:Great Depression|Great Depression]].

Like "hobo" and "bum", the word "tramp" is considered vulgar in American English usage, having been subsumed in more polite contexts by words such as "homeless person." In colloquial American English, the word "tramp" can also mean a sexually promiscuous female or even prostitute. Tramps used to be known [[Social:Euphemism|euphemistically]] in England and Wales as "gentlemen of the road".

Tramp is derived from the [[Social:Middle English|Middle English]] as a verb meaning to "walk with heavy footsteps", and to go hiking. Bart Kennedy, a self-described tramp of 1900 US, once said "I listen to the tramp, tramp of my feet, and wonder where I was going, and why I was going."<ref>Bart Kennedy, ''A Man Adrift'', [https://archive.org/stream/manadriftbeingle00kennrich#page/160/mode/2up p. 161], Chicago, H.S. Stone, 1900.</ref>

==== "Gutter punks" ====
A gutter punk is a [[Social:Homelessness|homeless]] or transient individual, often through means of freighthopping or [[Social:Hitchhiking|hitchhiking]]. Gutter punks are often juveniles who are in some way associated with the anarcho-punk subculture.<ref name="LAT052907">{{cite news|last1=Glionna|first1=John M.|date=29 May 2007|title=There's not a lot of love in the Haight|work={{wipe|Los Angeles Times}}|url=https://www.latimes.com/travel/la-trw-haight29may29-story.html|access-date=4 December 2021|archive-date=17 May 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210517002347/https://www.latimes.com/travel/la-trw-haight29may29-story.html|url-status=live}}</ref> In certain regions, gutter punks are notorious for panhandling and often display cardboard signs that make statements about their lifestyles.<ref name="LAT052907" /> Gutter punks are generally characterized as being voluntarily unemployed.<ref name="LAT052907" />

== See also ==
{{cols|colwidth=30em}}
* [[Engineering:Automation|Automation]]
* Counterculture
* [[Philosophy:Critique of political economy|Critique of political economy]]
* [[Philosophy:Critique of work|Critique of work]]
* [[Finance:Decent work|Decent work]]
* Great Resignation
* [[Biology:Hunter-gatherer|Hunter-gatherer]]
* Interpassivity
* Money-rich, time-poor
* [[Engineering:Post-work society|Post-work society]]
* Pseudowork
* r/antiwork
* Tang ping ("lying flat")
* Unfree labour
* [[Philosophy:Universal basic income|Universal basic income]]
* "''From each according to his ability, to each according to his need''"
* "''He who does not work, neither shall he eat''"
{{colend}}

== Literature ==
* George M. Alliger: ''Anti-Work: Psychological Investigations Into Its Truths, Problems, and Solutions'', {{ISBN|978-0367758592}}, 2022.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Alliger|first=George|title=Anti-Work: Psychological Investigations into Its Truths, Problems, and Solutions|url=https://anti-work.org/|access-date=21 September 2021|website=|language=en|archive-date=1 December 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211201112138/https://anti-work.org/|url-status=live}}</ref>

== References ==
{{Reflist|colwidth=35em}}

==External links==
* [http://theanarchistlibrary.org/category/topic/anti-work Anti-work texts at the Anarchist Library]


{{DEFAULTSORT:Refusal Of Work}}
[[Category:Anarchist theory]]

{{Sourceattribution|Refusal of work}}