News

Work is not a commodity

The content and meaning of work in the 21st century

Cover of the print edition of Alain Supiot's closing lecture

Alain Supiot

Work is not a commodity. The content and meaning of work in the 21st century

The social and ecological crisis will not be solved by dismantling the welfare state, or by trying to restore it as a historical monument. It's by rethinking its architecture in the light of the world as it is and as we would like it to be. And, today as yesterday, the keystone will be the status accorded to work.

Faced with the moral, social, ecological and financial bankruptcy of neoliberalism, the horizon for work in the 21st century is that of its emancipation from the exclusive reign of the commodity. As the case of research work shows, the professional statuses that have resisted the dynamics of the Total Market are not the fossils of a world destined to disappear, but rather the seeds of a truly human work regime that makes room for the meaning and content of work - that is, the accomplishment of a work. In his closing lecture at the Collège de France on May 22 2019, Alain Supiot invites us to rethink social justice in the 21st century and, more specifically, the meaning and content of work. This book echoes his opening lecture, Grandeur et misère de l'État social (2013).

Supiot A., Le travail n'est pas une marchandise. Contenu et sens du travail au XXIe siècle, Paris, Collège de France, coll. " Leçons de clôture ", 2019,no 17, 72  p.

ISBN : 978-2-7226-0513-8
Price : 6,80 €
Publication : 26 septembre 2019

Alain Supiot is Professor Emeritus at the Collège de France and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, and will hold the Social State and Globalization Chair : Legal Analysis of Solidarities from 2012 to 2019.