Philosophy vs Work

Michael Murray
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The podcast that examines the Ethics of the “Work Ethic” and other philosophical and socio-political questions regarding Work, Life, and Death. Host Michael Murray holds a Master's in Ethics and Applied Philosophy from UNC Charlotte, where his research focus was on Marxism, Existentialism, and Critical Theory. He finished his BA Summa Cum Laude with Departmental Honors in Art History, also from UNCC. He was a faculty Teaching Assistant as both Graduate and Undergraduate, for Philosophy and Art History. He is also a rising talent in Commercial and Video Narration Voiceover.  

  1. AUG 26

    Critical Historicity; an Alternative to Ideology?

    Hey everyone, I found myself in the rare position of having a little extra time and some prior research that felt particularly relevant to the current moment. Wait, which current moment you ask? Good question! The firehose of crises vomiting from the White House and far right governments across the world have produced no shortage of current moments of concern. In this regard, I’d like to speak directly to the Trump admins’ latest Orwellian attempt to whitewash US history by imposing their ideologies on the Smithsonian.  We're talking (briefly) about the Masters of Suspicion; Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche, and a little smattering of Foucault and Deleuze, as regards using critical theory to combat ideological thinking. This is a short one I wanted to get out before heading to Dragoncon - If you'll be at Dragoncon, or in Atlanta over Labor Day weekend, hit me up through the comments section of whatever platform you're listening on, or through the PvW website, Patreon, or Discord!  Obligatory bibliography, or books (and articles) you may also want to check out: Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus (Notes Towards an Investigation)”, in Lenin and Philosophy, and Other Essays. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972 Deleuze, Gilles, Félix Guattari, Hugh Tomlinson, and Graham Burchell. What Is Philosophy? New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. Foucault, Michel. “Human Nature: Justice Versus Power, Noam Chomsky debates with Michel Foucault 1971” Transcript,  Freud, Sigmund, James Strachey, and Peter Gay. 1989. “The Future of an Illusion”. New York: Norton. Freud, Sigmund, “On Narcissism: an Introduction”, in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. ed. and tr. James Strachey with Anna Freud, Carrie Lee Rothgeb, and Angela Richards London: Hogarth Press, 1900. pp.73-102.  Marx, Karl, Friedrich Engels, and Robert C. Tucker. The Marx-Engels Reader. New York: Norton, 1978. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, Thomas Common, Helen Zimmern, Horace Barnett Samuel, J. M. Kennedy, and Clifton Fadiman. The Philosophy of Nietzsche. New York: Modern library, 1954. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, and R. J. Hollingdale. Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is. Harmondsworth, Eng: Penguin Books, 1979. Message Us! Support the show

    27 min

  2. AUG 12

    Socialist Humanism; the Humanist Side of Marx and the Old/New Left

    Hello again, been a minute. In this episode, following along with Weeks' argument in The Problem with Work, we take a look at Socialist Humanism, the ties to productivism Weeks (and I) have issues with, we get a bit into psychologist-philosopher Erich Fromm, the (old) New Left, and humanism in Marx' early works. Hope you're up for a long episode!  Join the conversation on Patreon! Obligatory bibliography, or books (and articles) you may also want to check out: Celikates, Robin and Jeffrey Flynn. “Critical Theory (Frankfurt School).” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2023.  citing “Fromm 1936 [2020, 39, 41]” Weeks, Kathi. 2011. The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries. Durham: Duke University Press. P.85 Marshall, Alfred. Principles of Economics, 1890.  Marx, Karl, Ernest Mandel, and Friedrich Engels. 1976. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Volume 1. Translated by Ben Fowkes. [London]: Penguin Books in association with New Left Review. P.137 Marx, Karl. Early Writings. Harmondsworth: Penguin in association with New Left Review, 1992. p.322 Marx, Karl. Grundrisse. Marxists.org. #alienation #labor #work #Marx #Socialism #Humanism #politics #commodities #money #profit #wages #value #ethics Message Us! Support the show

    56 min

  3. JUN 24

    Art, Power, and Strange Economies

    Yet another delay on getting to Week's "Refusal of Work," but I'm going to blame this one on current affairs and the drinking-from-the-fire-hose that is the Trump news cycle. Following the massive No Kings protests, I thought it best to address the outpouring of frustration, righteous indignation, anger, outrage, and fear (not to mention the stark juxtaposition sad-Trump's big boy parade), and talk about the stranger economics of affects.  We’re going to be discussing some authors that haven’t come up yet, namely Teresa Brennan, an Australian feminist philosopher, and Sara Ahmed, a British-Australian philosopher working in intersectionality – feminism, queer theory, critical race theory, discrimination, oppression, racism, sexism, etc.). We’ll also be leaning on some authors we’ve addressed before, like Deleuze and Guattari, Benjamin, Bataille, and, yes, even Marx (a little). Join the conversation on Patreon! Obligatory bibliography, or books (and articles) you may also want to check out (man, it's a list this time!): Ahmed, Sara. 2004. "Affective Economies". Social Text. 22, no. 2: 117-139.  Ahmed, Sara. 2006. "ORIENTATIONS: Toward a Queer Phenomenology". GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. 12, no. 4: 543-574.  Ahmed, Sara. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. 2015.  Bataille, Georges, and Robert Hurley. The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy. 1. New York, NY: Zone Books, 2007 Benjamin, Walter, Harry Zohn, Hannah Arendt, and Leon Wieseltier. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” in Illuminations: [Essays and Reflections]. New York: Schocken Books, 2013. Brennan, Teresa. The Transmission of Affect. Cornell University Press, 2014. Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2009. Deleuze, Gilles, Félix Guattari, Hugh Tomlinson, and Graham Burchell. What Is Philosophy? 2015.  Marx, Karl. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. London, UK: Penguin, 1992. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, and Thomas Common. The Gay Science. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, 2006.  Rajchman, John. The Deleuze Connections. Cambridge, Mass. [u.a.]: MIT Press, 2009. Surin, Kenneth. Revised Edition Edited by Adrian Parr. "Socius."  Recommended: "Ouch! That Feels Great" Hidden Brain 6/9/25.  Message Us! Support the show

    48 min

  4. MAY 28

    Socialism's Failures: Modernization and Productivist Marxism

    Okay, so this episode was initially going to cover an area Weeks identifies as failures of Productivist Marxism; Socialist Modernization and Socialist Humanism, but we're going to be addressing the latter in the next episode. This one ran long enough as is. We're also going to be taking a minute to address, and correct, a mistake I made in the last episode as regards the conservative, capitalist approach to the if, then clause regarding waged work and profit maximazation that has some surprising implications, and we'll take look down the rabit hole of progressive taxation and the Trump tax cuts. We've, um, got a lot to go over.  Join the conversation on Patreon! Obligatory bibliography, or books (and articles) you may also want to check out: Klein, Ezra, and Derek Thompson, Abundance. Avid Reader Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, 2025.  Tucker, Robert C., Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels. 1978. The Marx-Engels Reader. Second edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. P.538  Weeks, Kathi. 2011. The Problem with Work : Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries. Durham: Duke University Press. Links: "Current Population Reports; Consumer Income” U.S. Department of Commerce. May 1953   "Historical U.S. Federal Individual Income Tax Rates & Brackets, 1862-2021” 8/24/2021. Tax Foundation  Fry, Richard. “Are You in the American Middle Class? Find out with Our Income Calculator.” Pew Research Center, September 16, 2024. Picci, Aimee. “Do you know what you pay in taxes? Here's who pays the most and least to the IRS.” 4/15/2025  York, Erica. “Summary of the Latest Federal Income Tax Data, 2024 Update.” 3/13/2024. Tax Foundation  Message Us! Support the show

    57 min

  5. APR 16

    Becoming Victim

    Hey all, welcome back. There's a ton to go over from what's been going on on my end lately, what's been happening with the economy, we talk a little about 'where have all the Leftists gone?' (queue Paula Cole), and, for the bulk of the episode, we return to Kathi Weeks' The Problem with Work. For part 3, we're focusing on Weber's primitive construction of subjectivities, what the structures of Capitalism and the Work Ethic do, the antinomy of systems of inclusion and exclusion, and we start digging a little into Marx' Capital to help explain the significance of sacrifice and exchange in the system of waged labor, that identifies this movement from being made subject to being made victim. I hope you're up for a long episode!  Join the conversation on Patreon! Obligatory bibliography, or books (and articles) you may also want to check out: Dictionary of Untranslatables : A Philosophical Lexicon. . Translated by Steven Rendall. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Lawlor, Leonard, and John Nale, eds. “Subjectification.” Chapter. In The Cambridge Foucault Lexicon, 496–502. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. P.496  Tucker, Robert C., Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels. "Capital, Volume One."The Marx-Engels Reader. New York: Norton, 1978. p.321., also “Wage, Labor, and Capital.” Pp.204-5. My emphasis.  Weber, Max. 2012. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Lexington, Ky.: Renaissance Classics. Weeks, Kathi. 2011. The Problem with Work : Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries. Durham: Duke University Press. Links to check out: “FACT SHEET the HISTORY of the TIPPED MINIMUM WAGE a Civil Rights Issue.” Oct. 2018. Sacrifice and Prostitution. Etymonline.  Schmidtz, David and Peter Boettke, "Friedrich Hayek", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2025 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.) #Work #Commodities #Feminism #SexWork #Trump #Hayek #Marx #Weber #Sacrifice #Exchange #Victim #WorkEthic #Feminism #FarLeft #Leftism #Progressive #Socialism #Existentialism #BadFaith #Capitalism #Structuralism #Democrats #Neoliberalism #PrivateEquity Message Us! Support the show

    1h 10m

  6. MAR 18

    The Work Ethic: Archeology and Genealogy

    Okay, it feels a little strange to be getting here over 20 episodes in, but let’s talk about the work ethic. Now, I know I said this episode was going to be about my reading of Weeks and what I propose is this movement from subject to victim of work, but, surprise, we’re not there yet. Today we’re looking at the background theory and the move from the Traditionalist to Protestant work ethic.  I mentioned last episode that we need to perform a genealogy of the work ethic if we’re to understand the problem and have any hopes of overcoming it. To keep to the text though, Weeks notes that Weber’s analysis provides an “archeology” of the ethic. So, I guess the first question is, is this just a semantic difference? Well, no. Join the conversation on Patreon! Obligatory bibliography, or books (and articles) you may also want to check out: Berardi, Franco. “Anatomy of Autonomy.” Semiotext(e), translated by Jared Becker et al., vol. 3, no. 3, 1980, pp. 148–71. Karim, Muzaffar. “Understanding Foucault: The Shift from Archaeology to Genealogy.” Quest Journals. Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Science. Volume 9 ~ Issue 9 (2021) pp: 72-75 Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. 1910. The Gay Science. Dover ed. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications. Weber, Max. 2012. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Lexington, Ky.: Renaissance Classics. Weeks, Kathi. 2011. The Problem with Work : Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries. Durham: Duke University Press. Links to check out: For Work /Against Work Vogt, Katja. “Seneca.” Wicks, Robert. “Arthur Schopenhauer.” Message Us! Support the show

    42 min

  7. FEB 25

    Work; an Overview of The Problem

    And so it begins, the final arc in this section on Utopia: a short series on Kathi Weeks' 2011 The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries. If you couldn’t guess it from the title, we’ve got a lot to unpack here, and there’s no way this is all going to fit in one episode. I’m going to be breaking this down into two sections, over several episodes. Following Weeks, I’m breaking these sections into what she calls the Refusal, the diagnostic and deconstructive dimension of a critical theory of work, and the Demand, for remedies and for the imagining of alternative futures. Join the conversation on Patreon! Obligatory bibliography, or books (and articles) you may also want to check out: Weeks, Kathi. 2011. The Problem with Work : Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries. Durham: Duke University Press. Links to check out: Exploring Feminist Theory: Angela Davis to Housework Obsolescence Sung Ho Kim. “Max Weber.” Message Us! Support the show

    47 min

  8. FEB 4

    No More Work? Part Two: The Political Part

    Moving right along with No More Work; Why Full Employment is a Bad Idea by James Livingston, part two. Again, fair warning, there are going to be a lot of ‘f-bombs’ in this episode, we're really getting into Livingston's F! Work argument now. In this Episode? Neoliberalism, Keynesian economics, productivism, capital and labor inputs, Nixon, the FAP, and, well, Trump. Join the conversation on Patreon! Obligatory bibliography, or books (and articles) you may also want to check out: Livingston, James. 2016. No More Work : Why Full Employment Is a Bad Idea. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. Related links: Acid Horizon, "Data is Dead Labour" Smith, Tyler. “Assessing the Effects of the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act” Tax Policy Center, "How Did The TCJA Affect The Federal Budget Outlook?" Weaver, Warren Jr. The New York Times. "HOUSE UNIT VOTES WELFARE REFORM FAVORED BY NIXON." Message Us! Support the show

    48 min
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About

The podcast that examines the Ethics of the “Work Ethic” and other philosophical and socio-political questions regarding Work, Life, and Death. Host Michael Murray holds a Master's in Ethics and Applied Philosophy from UNC Charlotte, where his research focus was on Marxism, Existentialism, and Critical Theory. He finished his BA Summa Cum Laude with Departmental Honors in Art History, also from UNCC. He was a faculty Teaching Assistant as both Graduate and Undergraduate, for Philosophy and Art History. He is also a rising talent in Commercial and Video Narration Voiceover.  

Information

  • Creator
    Michael Murray
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2025
  • Episodes
    26
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Philosophy vs Work
  • Show Website
    Philosophy vs Work