Humanism and the Sociology of Post-Work

Mercer, Samuel J.R. (2021) Humanism and the Sociology of Post-Work. Economy and Society, 50 (4). ISSN 0308-5147

Text Samuel J R Mercer - Humanism and the Sociology of Post-Work.docx - Accepted Version Download (61kB)

Abstract

This paper tracks and exposes the persistence of a ‘theoretical humanism’ through the contemporary sociological imagination of a social future beyond and without work. Building on the work of Louis Althusser (1996) and the critical appraisal of his anti-humanist epistemological intervention on the pages of Economy and Society, this paper argues that the critique of theoretical humanism reveals particular theoretical shortcomings and oversights in this emerging sociology of post-work. In both the definition of its epistemological boundaries and in its advocation of a politics reflective of these boundaries, this paper argues that the sociology of post-work reproduces an anthropological and moralistic ideological discourse of the working human subject, behind which it eclipses a material sociological analysis of the problems with work today.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information and Comments:	This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Economy and Society. The final version is available from: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03085147.2021.1938881
Keywords:	Marx; Althusser; humanism; work; postcapitalism; post-work
Faculty / Department:	Faculty of Education and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences
Depositing User:	Samuel Mercer
Date Deposited:	19 May 2021 08:54
Last Modified:	14 Dec 2022 15:54
URI:	https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/3290

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