Work Won't Love You Back

'An extremely timely analysis of how we arrived at ... brutal inequalities and of some of the ways in which a deliberately atomised workforce is beginning to organise to challenge them.' -- The Observer 'A timely reminder. ... What [Jaffe] hopes is that people who have a nagging sense that their job kind of sucks, they don't love it will realise they are not alone. But they can do something about it, for instance joining a union or pushing for fewer hours.' -- Financial Times 'Wry, passionate, and at times heartrending. ... Jaffe explores the labor of love myth ... and reminds us that none of this is immovable; change is always possible.' -- Teen Vogue ' Work Won't Love You Back brilliantly chronicles the transformation of work into a labour of love, demonstrating how this seemingly benign narrative is wreaking havoc on our lives, communities and planet. By pulling apart the myth that work is love, Jaffe shows us that we can reimagine futures built on care, rather than exploitation. A tremendous contribution.' -- Naomi Klein, author of 'On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal' 'This groundbreaking book will completely change how you think about work. Bringing together sharp analysis and compelling interviews, Sarah Jaffe arms us to revolt against the exploitation that workers endure in the guise of the lover's sacrifice.' -- Paul Mason, author of 'PostCapitalism: A Guide to Our Future' 'As the world of work changes drastically before our eyes, this book could not be more timely. Jaffe does a fantastic job of bringing her argument to life through interviews with workers from across the class spectrum. A brilliant and persuasive book from one of the left's most insightful and thought-provoking writers.' -- Grace Blakeley, author of 'The Corona Crash' and 'Stolen: How to Save the World from Financialisation' 'We're supposed to love our jobs. Yet work is one of the biggest sources of unhappiness in modern life. Sarah Jaffe's smart, witty new book explodes the myth of enthusiastic workers, revealing that work always demands love from the people it most brutally exploits, and reminding us that the workplace has always been a place of struggle. This is a searingly intelligent, militant book from one of the sharpest journalists working today.' -- Richard Seymour, author of 'The Twittering Machine' 'Jaffe writes with absolute clarity on how work has taken over our lives. She charts--with brilliant precision--how we got here, what it has done to us and why resistance is mandatory. This is an urgent read for anyone concerned with freedom in the twenty-first century.' -- Dalia Gebrial, journalist and co-editor of 'Decolonising the University' 'Sarah Jaffe's sharp-eyed analysis is a necessary tonic to the cloying PR of neoliberalism that tries to flog us exploitation as fulfilment and falling living standards as freedom. As we plunge deeper into economic and ecological crisis, Jaffe calls on us to count love's labour's true cost.' -- Eleanor Penny, writer and editor, Novara Media 'Work Won't Love You Back is a tremendous achievement. Jaffe's committed, on-the-ground engagement, historical range, and ferocious gathering of revolutionary thought combines to create something genuine and profound. I cannot think of another book that ranges so widely, and yet so attentively, through the variegated landscape of our current condition, and the conflicts and struggles that have composed it. Without hyperbole, this book is a gift to its reader, and to a possible future.' -- Jordy Rosenberg, author of 'Confessions of the Fox' 'Jaffe has produced a convincing case to rethink not just our relationship to working, but also how we value ourselves and others in an increasingly unforgiving capitalist society. Her book is an urgent reminder to demand a future where our individual worth is not tied to our work.' -- Hussein Kesvani, author of 'Follow Me, Akhi' 'Jaffe takes us back to the basics of why we work and what work is for. Her analysis beautifully and yet brutally exposes the degree to which we have internalised capitalism through our attitudes to work.' -- Faiza Shaheen, Director of CLASS 'This is a book I hope many people read. With passion, eloquence and a fierce dedication to the people she interviews, Jaffe unpacks today's labours of the hands, the head and the heart in order to dismantle the con slogan of love what you do .' -- Will Stronge, Director of Research, Autonomy 'Dismantling the ideological fantasy of the claim that doing something you love means never working a day in your life, Work Won't Love You Back is both a much-needed polemic on the harms our jobs can do to us and a vital investigation into what contemporary work is actually like for today's workers.' -- Amelia Horgan, writer and researcher