At Play in a Post-Work World: Ai, Mass Resignation, and the Future of Work Fetishization(Autonomy and Automation)

The COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally shifted our relationship with work. After years of lockdown, and with many employees working from home, this was the first time in nearly two centuries that people below the class divide found themselves with just as much time for leisure, recreation, and quality time with loved ones as those above. The time away from work changed priorities and opened minds across the working-class, and new demands were now being made in much higher numbers and in far more workplaces than ever. In cases where bosses refused to comply with these demands, a large quantity of the workers quit their jobs, giving way to a movement now referred to as “The Great Resignation.” In this book, Micah J. Fleck questions whether work will ever go back to the way it was, or whether this fundamental change could lead to us completely rethinking our approach to labor. Exploring also the rise in the use of A.I. to replace jobs, Fleck's book dives into the culture and concept of “work” as a virtue to determine how we see "work" today, whether it was an organic evolution of a system of labor, and how much of it has been enforced by an outdated and crumbling economic status quo.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements Preface Introduction Chapter 1: The State of Work Today Chapter 2: The Artificial Intelligence Conundrum Chapter 3: The Great Resignation: What Is It, and What is its legacy? Chapter 4: Work as a Moral Good: A Brief History of a Concept Chapter 5: Post-COVID Labor through a Critical Lens Chapter 6: Motivations for Leaving Work Chapter 7: Being at Play: The Proper End Goal Conclusion Endnotes Index

About the Author :
Micah J. Fleck is a cultural and evolutionary anthropologist who writes on various subjects including the evolution of group empathy, the psychology of populist movements, religiosity as community praxis, and post-capitalist emergent sociality. He holds degrees from Columbia University and Harvard University, most recently served as Podcast Project Chair at the Society for Applied Anthropology, and has authored multiple books, including Anthropology for Beginners (2020), Privileged Populists: Populism in the Conservative and Libertarian Working Class (2022), and When the Edges Sing Praise: Religiosity and Aporic Liminality in Social Becoming (2025).