Overtime

Book excerpt: Overtime is about the politics of time, and specifically the amount of time that we spend labouring within capitalist society. It argues that reactivating the longstanding demand for shorter working hours should be central to any progressive trajectory in the years ahead. This book explains what a shorter working week means, as well as its history and its political implications. Will Stronge and Kyle Lewis examine the idea of reducing the time we all spend labouring for other on both a theoretical and political level, and offer an analysis rooted in the radical traditions from which the idea first emerged. Throughout, the reader is introduced to key theorists of work and working time alongside the relevant research regarding our contemporary 'crisis of work', to which the authors' proposal of a shorter working week responds.