I came to Claire Wolfe’s work a little late, finally reading “Don’t Shoot The Bastards … Yet” and then going back to “101 Things To Do Before the Revolution.” Then I devoured all her essays and commentaries I could find, from her old website(s) to the current one at Backwoods Home Magazine to her blog. Clearly, I thought, this mysterious lady in the brimmed hat and veil is a seminal force in the movement for Liberty — alongside L. Neil Smith and only a handful of others.

With “How to Kill the Job Culture Before It Kills You” Claire may have crossed over into the mainstream — not by selling out, in any sense of the word, but by creating something accessible even to the most hidebound sheeple-person … who’s looking to carve out a little progress toward personal autonomy, even in the midst of the most soul-numbing of job situations. Yes, even for that person there is something to be learned. As the subtitle proclaims, this book is a welcome guide to “Living a Life of Autonomy in a Wage-Slave Society.”

The text is divided into three sections: “Why Jobs Suck,” “Freeing Ourselves” and “The Rest of the World.” It opens with a wonderful introduction called “Why Jobs Suck … the Vitality Out of Life” that lays out the parameters of the book, differentiating between “job” and “work” … and outlining what the “job culture” really is – and what it has done to society as a whole. She also uses this time to clarify what the book really is — not a panacea, or a revolutionary screed for mass action, but a set of ideas that may work for those who are seeking a way out for themselves, as well as a pathway they can point others to. She also makes it very clear that changing these conditions is not something to be imposed on society, but must come from within each of us as enlightened individuals (one heart at a time, to use Michael Badnarik’s term).

“Why Jobs Suck” begins with a history lesson, tracing the history of jobs and corporate culture, showing how big business and big government have been partners from the start, and drawing parallels with the third leg of the dehumanization process, the government school system. Claire points out the mixed blessing/curse of the Industrial Revolution, and cites technological inventions down through the ages as co-conspirators in the regimentation of society. (Her analysis of the role the cotton gin played in actually revitalizing slavery is particularly striking, and quite correct!) She details how an attempt to simplify the culture became the lockstep, clock-punching, arbitrarily ruled mess it has become – even in areas of the “working-world” where it is not only unnecessary, but actually hinders effective production.

Wolfe then presents two chapters about “the case against jobs” — first, the “classic case” of old Ned Lud and the anti-technology “Luddite” crowd, then a “free market case” that is far stronger. This first pass goes through conventional Marxist and “neo-primitivist” arguments about the “health of society” and “capitalist exploitation” that have been advanced for centuries. But she follows this up with a truly market-based argument against the job culture, opening “The Free Market Case Against Jobs” with a rather stirring call to libertarians and free-market conservatives:

“Conservatives and many libertarians,” she notes, “tend to support the business world quite unconditionally. If you’re not ‘pro-business’ (many of these supporters of free enterprise say), then you must be ‘pro-government,’ ‘pro-regulation’ … and ‘anti-freedom.’ But this attitude is another example of the kind of disconnect that the Job Culture has conditioned us to. The Job Culture and mass job-holding don’t support freedom. They’re destroying [it].

“Institutional systems, whether government or nominally private,” she continues, “demand a similar mindset and behavior from those who live under them: obedience to authority, surrender to arbitrary rules and regulations, acceptance of the idea that the individual is just one small (and usually interchangeable) cog in a larger system. Both government and private institutions use top-down, command-and-control structures, and actively diminish individual responsibility and innovation (even as they hope to benefit from outstanding individual talents.)” And increasingly, she adds, “today, these two supposedly different (and supposedly adversarial) forms of institution, government and private, are merging into one freedom-stealing force.”

She goes on to discuss the “culture of submission” and to reiterate how the “evil twins” of government and corporatism were actually intended to work: “Big, all-controlling government and the large institutions of the Industrial Revolution were born together, from the same roots, for many of the same purposes – to regiment, centralize, homogenize and control.” To succeed in their purposes, she notes, both “needed to turn a population of rowdy, diverse individuals into a compliant, largely robotic, mass.” And – it’s horrible but undeniable – big government and many big corporate institutions were create side-by-side as two facets of the one increasingly formidable war-making machine.”

Wolfe then details how the “public education” system had played its part – “for the children” – to “prepare us for our role in the Job Culture” and to “utilize individuals to further the aims of state and mega-corporations without messy rebellion or individuality.” She outlines the history of the Prussian “police state” model (creating the three-level caste system of worker-bureaucrat-soldier), and how it was not only admired by 19th century “educators,” but eagerly adopted under the guise of improving educational access to all children.

She also presents something about Thomas Jefferson that’s not all that familiar, even to those of us who think we know the man’s revolutionary positions on liberty. She notes that Jefferson, in the course of his readings and living, developed “an extreme distrust for three institutions: big government, organized religion and what he called the ‘pseudo aristoi’ — wealthy, powerful individuals and the privilege business establishment.

“Today conservatives remember only the first of Jefferson’s deep distrusts,” she writes. “Libertarians tend to remember the first and second. Only ‘left-wingers’ remember how profoundly Jefferson disliked and distrusted all but the smallest, entrepreneurial business enterprises.” Wolfe herself discloses her own disdain for the corporati, and even speculates on whether or not Jefferson’s initial desire for a Constitutional Amendment against monopolies might not have been one of his better ideas. She cites Halliburton, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and similar horrors as just the tip of the iceberg.

“Freeing Ourselves” is both the longest and probably the most useful part for most people. It is a series of practical suggestions for how to extricate oneself from the Job Culture, completely or only as much as the individual person desires. It ranges from advice on how to emulate the relative hermitdom the author embraces (and thoroughly enjoys), to stepping a pace back from the ratrace with temp work and consulting, to simply negotiating with an employer for flexible hours or job-sharing. It cautions that none of this is intended as “professional” advice only as suggestion, and notes repeatedly that the “tax implications” of any move should be discussed with lawyers, accountants, etc. (Claire has no intention of being a party to some lawsuit as the object of “she told me to do it!”)

And then there is the final section, “The Rest of the World” which includes a visionary scenario of how a world without the Job Culture running things might look: many people working out of homes, with only sporadic “office visits” for the occasional meeting, if necessary; laboring for far fewer hours of the day for mere survival (smaller government leading to lower costs all around, including but no means limited to taxation); no more rush hours, since even those working conventionally aren’t all on the same time-clock; etc. She follows that with a “how to get there” chapter, recommending everything from cutting your overhead costs (as well as any debts) to relocation (selling your house, moving to a smaller and cheaper location, and investing the proceeds to live off the interest) to entrepreneurial activity (finding something you like to do anyway, that people will pay you for).

All in all, Claire Wolfe has added a valuable tool to the Freedom Kit. As with any project like this, there are occasional oversights; for example, there is no consideration of how corporate “downsizing” and “outsourcing” has led, not to more efficient use of resources and clearer job definitions for those still employed, but mostly to where working harder just means more work to do, instead of leading to the rewards of more autonomy and higher compensation. Some libertarians may also wish she had been a little more hardcore about her pronouncements, but as noted above, these ideas will work no matter where on the political spectrum one sits. As a new tool in the series of “self-help books” she has been writing all these years, “How to Kill the Job Culture” is a welcome addition, indeed.