“How has labor, that cornerstone of the Left since its foundation, been appropriated by its opponents? And, most crucially, how can this key issue be recaptured and made a priority for the Left?” These are the strikingly apposite questions[1] posed in this book — entitled L’Autre Moitié du monde. Essai sur le sens et la valeur du travail [The Other Half of the World: Essay on the Meaning and Value of Labor] — by Paul Magnette who is both a professor of political theory at ULB (Université libre de Bruxelles) and leader of the Belgian Socialist Party. He is asking these questions at exactly the same time and in exactly the same manner as another left-wing political leader: France’s François Ruffin.[2] Both draw on extensive voter testimony and make good use of relevant advances in the field of labor studies (encompassing psychology, ergonomics, sociology, statistics, etc.).[3]
The testimonies gathered and the social sciences research all support the theory that as an activity work still plays a key role in the make-up of individuals, their health, and their social ties. Paul Magnette successfully demonstrates “how we are constructed by work” because it forces us to confront its concrete reality, enabling us to develop our experience and our skills, and to feel the pleasure of a job well done. He also shows “how work unites us” by stimulating a feeling of interdependence, cooperation, and acknowledgment of each individual’s contribution.
Initially, the workers’ movement focused on the emancipating role of labor. Paul Magnette tells us that, in the words of Proudhon, “oppressed labor leads to an oppressive society; free and autonomous labor lays the foundations for a liberated society” (p. 46). However, Marx viewed the emancipating role of work as the goal of a post-capitalist future that was forever just beyond the horizon. In his view, the “realm of freedom” was to be found in the time spent outside work, confirming the irremediably heteronomous nature of labor. The productivism shared by the bourgeoisie and the working classes ensures that “over and beyond everything that divides them, these rival classes share a work ethic based on effort, abnegation, and self-sacrifice” (p. 52). The Left has therefore rarely sought to change how labor is organized and “the question of the content and meaning of work has remained in the shadows” (p. 65).
