ABSTRACT
Critical Theorists such as Marcuse shared Marx's faith in technology, despite Critical Theory sometimes seen as anti-technological. Using theories of the end of work to unmask the irrationality of prevailing social and ideological conditions became even more pertinent in the post Second World War period. Utopians such as Fourier, Etzler, Bellamy, and Morris all placed work at the centre of their social critique, since they firmly grasped the fact that work is the key social. Gorz's analysis is particularly effective as critical social theory because he combines Critical Theory's totalizing critique of capitalism, including its cultural dynamics, with an understanding of changes in the world of work in the postindustrial period. Gorz shows how changes in the world of work are shaping the social structure, for instance, and shares with some of the future of work writers a sense of social polarization.
