ABSTRACT
The work of Jeremy Posadas represents a broader line of scholarship that is suspicious of Christian theologies of work that depict it as an essential aspect of human flourishing. The essay explores the details of Posadas’ arguments, suggesting that such arguments for “less work” is comprehensible against the historical background of achieving what I call “good-enough work” for large segments of the population, while compromising the further goal of “good work”. As such a compromise frays, proponents of “less work” constitute a powerful alternative to theologies of good work. I argue that Posadas’ definition of work is either too narrow or too comprehensive, and thus is an unconvincing description of the actual work done by large numbers of people in today’s economy. I then suggest that anti-work arguments ultimately rest on an anthropology of spontaneous freedom that fails to understand the distinction between work and play, but also implicitly dichotomizes the two things, disabling a proper understanding of the ways adult work integrates play in order to exhibit a human freedom that discovers deeper joy in and through the finitude that makes necessary the focus, cooperation, and discipline involved in work within a system of market exchange.
