Sunday Letters Sunday Letters Journal

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On Tuesday, I wrote about the false promise of the future of work. I highlighted, amongst other things, that education helps school us towards direct paid employment or waged slavery, according to some, and not towards the freedom of self-employment, for example. Self-employment is too risky, it seems. If we take the chance and fail, we’ll lose everything we’ve earned. In this, we accept the prison of our employment over the freedom of the unknown.
The structure of the workplace provides us with a degree of certainty. But what if this apparent ground of our belief was not factual but something the system taught us? Maybe it is the pursuit of hedonic pleasure and the avoidance of pain that keeps us there. wrote this week that the philosopher Karl Marx believed work was a natural thing human beings seek to do, and in this need to express ourselves, we are manipulated by capital. In contrast, Plato and Aristotle believed manual work was of the lower order and not for sophisticated men. They also believed that slavery was right and proper, so perhaps not the best judges on these matters.
The question remains: Do we work to attain the means to live or merely survive, or do we seek fulfilment of a deeper, more innate human need? What would we do if we didn’t need to work to meet those basic needs? What would we do with our time? Is contemporary work designed to line the pockets of the capitalists, and do we comply through blind habit? That’s several questions, yes, but you get the picture.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments.



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I mentioned on Monday that change was afoot; well, here’s the story…
Welcome to the relaunch of the Sunday Letters Podcast. It has been some time since the last episode, and recently, I felt the urge to get this thing operational again. In doing so, I’ve managed to convince my learned friend and philosopher, to join me here and help build this thing out. Over the years, we have conversed privately on many topics we cover here on Sunday Letters, so the partnership seemed like a natural choice. Sunday Letters reflects how we both feel about and see the modern workplace - a fake plastic environment that, despite its best efforts to the contrary, seems incompatible with human welfare. This forms the basis of our forthcoming discussions on work.
I will publish new written content on Tuesdays on the Future of Work. Dmitri will publish the general topic of the week on Thursdays. New podcast episodes will be published weekly on Fridays with a full (but raw) conversation transcript. We will cover the issues affecting people's working lives and the role work plays in global politics, economics, and broader social issues. Work, after all, is so intertwined with all human affairs; it’s hard not to connect it with what’s happening in the world. From pollution and the global climate crisis to the conflict in the Middle East to the mistreatment of the vulnerable in society and the abuse of workers in the Global South, our jobs and our daily work play no small part.
In case you missed the hint, The Sunday Letters Journal is firmly on the Left—we are for people first, organisations second… at best. One of the most challenging problems in society today is that the interests of organisations often come before those of the people and the environment. A misalignment of values and motivations is at its core, and we think there’s something we can do about that.
Alright, thanks for being here. We’re looking forward to engaging with you in the comments, and if you’d like to support this work, become a subscriber today and get 20% off forever.



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Welcome to this week’s edition of the podcast. If you like what we’re doing, consider becoming a paid subscriber. If you’d rather not, you can offer a one-off tip here. Many thanks for your support!
You might be wondering where the several hundred older episodes of Sunday Letters have disappeared. Well, I have drafted them all. I did so primarily because most of them were pure shite and also because things like intros, titles, and formatting were quite inconsistent. The best move available was to take them down and republish the best of them under new titles. I’ll be going through those over the next few weeks and months.
In the meantime, check out episode 001 for more on what to expect from the new Sunday Letters.



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This episode is a reading from a speech by Juliet Schor, author of The Overworked American, to students at Tilburg University in 1997 titled Beyond An Economy of Work & Spend. In this essay, Schor offers a detailed breakdown of why th…

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I discovered Bukowski a few years back and was immediately caught by the sharp end of what he wrote. He wrote from the inside out, saying what he saw and what he felt without censorship, often to the point of being crude and offensive. I think he was hated as much as loved, but it seems that despite it all, he stuck by his principles. He hadn’t outlined any particular philosophy as such, other than that most people were full of shit and incapable of being real. At poetry readings, he’d abuse his audience. I think that’s why they came to see him. Regarding the work of an artist, his advice was to do it or don’t do it. If it is there, go with it; if it isn’t, wait. Trying is counter-productive. In the commercial world of goods and services, we can’t tolerate this philosophy of work. It is an offence against our consumerist common sense. Whatever you want, it is yours—just set yourself out in the world and get it. You’ll find some of Bukowski’s thoughts and feelings on the craft of writing and other topics in the collection, On Writing.

In 1964, Bukowski wrote to author Jack Conroy about Conroy’s novel The Disinherited, a work of fiction that tackled the plight of the working classes in the 1920s and 1930s United States. Bukowski insisted that from his point of view, the poverty of the 1920s working classes portrayed in the story was still relevant forty years on. When we read what Bukowski said about work, we’d be forgiven for thinking that it was today. Those of us in western industrialised nations may have a materially better standard of living and fancier gadgets than in 1964, but there remain many who are marginalised. Given the current energy crisis and increasing cost of living, many who were already struggling to stay afloat are probably drowning.

These bonus episodes are reserved for paying subscribers of The Sunday Letters Journal. They are usually short and expand upon the points made in an earlier essay or podcast episode. They also may include readings from texts, papers, books and other material on the subject of work. If you would like access to this material, consider becoming a paid subscriber for less than a fiver per month. You’ll be supporting independent research and writing. https://sundayletters.larrygmaguire.com/subscribe?coupon=849ce4d3