Zed Books Publisher of Selling the Work Ethic.

Work and production have become ends in themselves. Material affluence is accompanied by increasing levels of stress, insecurity, depression, crime, and drug taking. Escalating production and consumption are destroying the environment on which life itself depends. Yet people are so concerned to keep their jobs that they are willing to do what their employers require of them even if they believe it is wrong or environmentally destructive.

The social benefit of having the majority of able-bodied people in a society working hard all week goes unquestioned, particularly by those who work hardest. Few people today can imagine a society that does not revolve around work. How did paid work come to be so central to our lives? Why is it that so many people wouldn't know what to do with themselves or who they were if they did not have their jobs?

In this major new book, Sharon Beder unearths the origins and the practices of a triumphant culture of work in which the wealthy are respected and inequality is justified. Dr Beder shows that these values are neither natural nor inevitable. They have been actively promoted -- through religious preaching, corporate propaganda, the education system, and socialisation -- by those who benefit most from them.

Selling The Work Ethic provides an absorbing account and critique of this central aspect of modern capitalist society. Prompted by her conviction that humanity needs to unlearn and change these powerfully held but now pathological values if we are to reverse the declining quality of life in industrial society, Dr Beder illuminates the impasse we are now in.

Critical Praise for Sharon Beder's previous book 'Global Spin'

'Beder's analysis is comprehensive, steely and clinical.' - Harold Pinter, naming it as one of his favourite books of the year, The Guardian

'If you beg, steal, borrow or buy only one book this year, make it this one - it is the most important contribution to the environmental debate I have read.' - David Edwards, The Ecologist

'It is hard to find words sufficiently enthusiastic to describe Sharon Beder's new book... This is a must read, not just for environmentalists, but for everyone who doesn't have a vested interest in the continued destruction of our planet.' - Allen Myers, Green Left Weekly p>'If you care a fig for either democracy or the environment then Global Spin is a book for you. It is a thorough - and thoroughly shocking - account of the sophisticated techniques being used around the world to undermine environmentalism and reset the agenda to status quo.' - New Internationalist

Table of Contents of Selling the Work Ethic:

1. Introduction

   Part 1 - Work, Wealth and Inequity

2. The Virtue of Work and Wealth
3. Work, Status and Success
4. Justifying Wealth
5. Legitimising Inequality

   Part 2 - Motivating Work - Coercion and Persuasion

6. Increasing Productivity
7. Work and Identity
8. Work Ethic in Crisis?
9. Keeping the Unemployed Down
10. Welfare to Workfare

    Part 3 - Motivating Work - Conditioning

11. Teaching Work Values
12. Work, Consumption and Status
13. Long Hours and Little Leisure
14. Conclusion

    Tables Notes Bibliography Index
    Royal 304pp
    1 85649 884 0 £ 49.95 $ 69.95
    1 85649 885 9 £ 15.95 $ 25.00
    

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