Rethinking work

a requirement of the ecological crisis

Abstract

The central aim of this article is to establish a connection between labor and ecology. Humanity faces a crisis that threatens civilization itself: the ecological crisis. Planet Earth has repeatedly shown signs of exhaustion in its capacity to provide resources sufficient to sustain the current global patterns of production and consumption. Although the environmental crisis has intensified dramatically in recent decades, its turning point can be traced back to the Industrial Revolution, consolidating during the Fordist mode of production. The collapse of Fordism, however, and its replacement by the flexible mode of production — characteristic of the so-called platform capitalism — did not halt the ongoing assault on the environment. It is indisputable that infinite growth on a planet with finite resources is unfeasible. One approach to addressing the ecological crisis can be found in the complexity method and the principle of the “ecology of action” proposed by Morin. The central idea is that everything is interconnected and interwoven; therefore, an action, even if undertaken with the best intentions, can escape control and turn against its original objective. Building on this method and considering the imperative of the ecological crisis, the reorganization of human labor emerges as a window of opportunity that may contribute to mitigating and delaying the worsening of environmental degradation. This article argues that it is possible—as numerous experiences and reflections demonstrate—to rethink human labor in a transitional process: from the conception of work as the transformation of nature to the conception of work as the care of nature.