Chapters
- Core Values
- About what it means to be an entrepreneur, what precarity is about, and the idea of ‘fake it until you make it’
- Assets
- About time pressure, space and the endless office, and mind hacking for productivity
- Platforms
- Case studies about linkedin, Fiverr, GoFundMe
Reflections
- Lorusso visited WSA to do a guest lecture which I missed. I was interested in the book he was talking about and so did some research on him and his other works.
- This book was published in 2019 and it is a exploratory critique of the idea that everyone is encouraged to think that being self-employed means that you become self-actualised and that this is the best way to live our lives
- It criticises this kind of thinking as being part of the reason that job satisfaction and conditions have eroded over time e.g. with the creation of the gig economy
- It suggests that neo-liberal capitalism has become the way we think about time, space and our minds and that all facets of our lives are driven by this ceaseless drive to be more productive
- It speaks to the tiredness and hopelessness people feel and how this kind of narrative avoids talking about failure and how much work it requires to be your own boss, accountant, promoter etc
- I am interested in these ideas as this degree is partly my journey of moving from a stable fixed job to a precarious way of living
- I don’t know what I will be doing for work and this is causing me some anxiety
- I think this book has asked me to think more critically about the potential benefits and challenges of choosing to live in a more precarious way and perhaps art / design / creative technologies is more risky than a medical job
- The hopeful message at the end is about resisting and building new ways of living and working through community – the idea that dominant narratives are about controlling the actions of individuals but that we have power to change the system
- The idea of joining or forming a group is something that I will take forward.
Reference
Silvio Lorusso, Geert Lovink and Raffaele Alberto Ventura (2019). Everyone is an entrepreneur. Nobody is safe. Eindhoven Onomatopee.
