{"product_id":"the-labour-of-spirit-9781803095141","title":"The Labour of Spirit","description":"\u003cb\u003eA provocative examination of the fate of autonomous, creative labor under capitalism.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Between 1917 and 1919, Max Weber delivered two lectures titled \u003ci\u003eDie geistige Arbeit als Beruf\u003c\/i\u003e, which we might translate as \u003ci\u003eThe Labour of Spirit as Vocation\u003c\/i\u003e. This weighty formula represented the hope that animated the world of bourgeois culture from the likes of Kant, Goethe, Schiller, Fichte, and Hegel and would later form the earliest threads of revolutionary thought from Feuerbach and Marx. The \"labor of spirit\" is creative, autonomous labor--human labor understood in its fully effectual power. To press for its realization is to liberate all activity from the condition of commanded or alienated work. But the dissolution of the labor of spirit into the capitalist form of production, into the universal machinism that swallows up that science which remains the true engine of development, also ends up delegitimating political authority, whose own foundation lies in the \"promise of liberation.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Massimo Cacciari takes up old questions and confronts them anew: Is the \"iron cage\" fated to imprison that \"labor of spirit\" that is political praxis? Will the spirit of capitalism end up completely undermining the space of the political? Or are relations between science and politics still thinkable that might free us from our \"debt\" as we proceed without means or ends within the techno-economic system?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eMassimo Cacciari\u003c\/b\u003e is one of Italy's foremost philosophers. He has been a member of parliament for the Italian Communist Party as well as the mayor of Venice. A professor emeritus of aesthetics at the University of Venice, Cacciari is the author of numerous books, including \u003ci\u003ePhilosophy, Mysticism and the Political: Essays on Dante\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eHamletics: Shakespeare, Kafka, Beckett\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cb\u003eMatteo Mandarini\u003c\/b\u003e is a senior lecturer in politics and organization at Queen Mary University of London. He is the translator of several books, including \u003ci\u003eHamletics \u003c\/i\u003eby Massimo Cacciari, \u003ci\u003eThe Twilight of Politics\u003c\/i\u003e by Mario Tronti, and \u003ci\u003eThe Writer and the People\u003c\/i\u003e by Alberto Asor Rosa.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Seagull Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51831608639762,"sku":"9781803095141","price":20.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_77b50c92-2bcf-42c3-ac75-40da4e86263b.jpg?v=1767006011","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-labour-of-spirit-9781803095141","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}