Introduction : the work dogma -- A provocation -- Working pains -- The colonising power of work -- The stronghold of work -- The breaking point -- Alternative pleasures -- Half a person -- From escapism to autonomy.

In this book the author questions the central place of work in mainstream political visions of the future, laying bare the ways in which economic demands colonise our lives and priorities. Drawing on his original research into the lives of people who are actively resisting nine-to-five employment, Frayne asks what motivates these people to disconnect from work, whether or not their resistance is futile, and whether they might have the capaciity to inspire an alternative form of development, based on a reduction and social redistribution of work.