Most of us will spend a dispiriting 90,000 hours of our lives at work. That’s a third of the average lifespan; no wonder so many of us want to stick it to the man. Love it or hate it, how we spend our working hours – whether for ourselves, for our families or for a faceless corporation – can have a profound influence on our self-worth, our social circles, and our sense of purpose and identity. But where did work come from? What rights should our employers have to circumscribe our speech? What’s the role of unions in the twenty-first century? Why don’t we have a universal basic income? How do we separate our jobs from our selves? And whatever happened to the four-hour work week? This edition of Griffith Review clocks in for another day at the coalface.
