Recent changes in the world of work – changes such as growing precarity in people’s access to the goods of work, the rise of platform work, the resurgent popularity of the ideal of productive self-sufficiency, and the unequal impact of automation and AI – have renewed interest in how work might be valued, compensated, and organized differently. The moral issues raised by these changes are not new, however, and we would benefit from revisiting the long history of thinking about ideals of work and its place in the good life. This conference turns to the history of philosophy and political economy for utopian and radical perspectives on work. We will explore how philosophers and political economists from Plato to Gandhi saw the rational or democratic organization of firms, unions, and labor markets as means of advancing justice, freedom, and virtue at work. In particular, we are interested in insights from these figures that might help to address today ’s injustices surrounding work. The conference will conclude with a panel on the overall relevance of returning to utopian and revolutionary thinkers from our past. What (if anything) can we learn from them for the 21st century?
