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The labor of love myth is this idea right that like we will be motivated to do our work,

not because we need to get paid or anything like that, but that we'll do it out of the love of it

and that this is actually sort of the best way to be motivated, but like a lot of the time when

people are being told that we do our jobs for the love of it, really your boss is the one telling

you that so they can pay you less or so that they can expect you to stay longer hours or,

you know, take phone calls on the weekend or whatever it is that they might make a demand of you.

And the idea that this is a labor of love is actually helping them skim more surplus value off of you.

You are listening to Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. Upstream.

An interview and documentary series that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew

about economics. I'm Dela Duncan and I'm Robert Raymond. In this conversation we speak with Sarah

Jaffy, author of Work Won't Love You Back, how devotion to our jobs keeps us exploited, exhausted,

and alone, published by bold type books. Sarah's book is an examination of why doing what you love

is a recipe for exploitation, creating a new tyranny of work in which we all cheerily acquiesce into

doing jobs that take over our lives. Hi Sarah, welcome to Upstream. We would love to start with

an introduction. Would you mind introducing yourself for our listeners? Hi, I'm Sarah Jaffy.

I wrote a book called Work Won't Love You Back, how devotion to our jobs keeps us exploited,

exhausted, and alone. I'm a reporting fellow at the Type Media Center and a freelance journalist.

Wonderful, thank you. I'm really happy to have you. I have to say one of the things that I do

is a renegade economist as I'm a right livelihood coach. I do explore work a lot and just so

...