Noting the unequal distribution of leisure and the respects in which it has been a mark of cultural distinction and privilege, Baudrillard identifies a possible future reversal, that work, and particular types of work, may well become more and more a mark of distinction and privilege. The example Baudrillard offers is of âtop executives and managing directors who feel they have to work 15 hours a dayâ, who consume work and are consumed with and by work, and who appear to prefer work to âfree timeâ. It is worth adding that it is not just long working hours which has led to certain types of work acquiring a mark of distinction and privilege. The deployment of neoliberal policies in the financial and manufacturing sectors of the economy has led to very long working hours, but also to the privilege of very substantial financial rewards for certain categories of workers, executives, and managing directors, and capital gain as a material mark of distinction (Hewlett and Luce 2006; Arlidge 2009). Conversely, neoliberal policies have led to the lives of many other categories of workers being marked not by privilege but by precarity and the misfortune of having to work very long hours across a number of jobs for very poor rates of pay (Cuniah 2013). In some instances, as Bauman has observed, precarity is manifested as unemployment and an inability to embrace âthe consumerist model of lifeâ, leading those affected to suffer not only stigma but also forms of exclusion from consumer society, matters to which Baudrillard in his consideration of the industrial system and poverty devotes insufficient attention.
âBarry Smart, "Foreword," The Consumer Society (by Jean Baudrillard)
