From Idleness to the Abolition of Work in Ricardo Talesnik’s La fiaca

Abstract

This article analyses Ricardo Talesnik’s play and film (directed by Fernando Ayala) La fiaca [ Idleness ] and its critique of the notion of work. Talesnik denounces how modern disciplinary institutions form the workforce and a way-of-life-to-work. He questions the work-system by critiquing the commodity-form, standardised time represented in the money-form, worker subjectivity as a national citizen, and Schuld (debt/guilt). Talesnik’s critique is developed when the play’s main character performs a “Duchamp-like” strike by refusing to go to work. When analysed with Marx’s and Foucault’s theories of production and power, La fiaca could be read as a play that supports the abolition of work to question modern life under late capitalism. Therefore, what this play effectively critiques is the commodification of everyday life, which leaves no option but to create another way of life by interrupting the process of capitalist production of value and questioning the primacy of labour. Talesnik’s play shows the coercive forces of the capitalist mode of production, but also the institutional framework built to correct anyone who dares to challenge it. This makes La fiaca a crucial intervention that helps us understand current post-work criticism and the present tension between work and social reproduction in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.