"How can this possibly be the way?!" is a question Leigh Claire La Berge asks constantly in Fake Work: How I Began to Suspect Capitalism Is a Joke. The book is Leigh Claire's reflection on her time prepping a Fortune 500 company for Y2K by essentially making a bunch of copies, double-checking spreadsheets, and traveling internationally to give frivolous PowerPoint presentations. It's very funny! And unfortunately hella resonant! Leigh Claire jumped right into the deep end with me on this episode, and the result is one of my favorites in a while.

We talk about: anxiety, Fake Work, fake work, marxism, really trying to understand how other people came to their beliefs, psychoanalysis, getting a PhD, making room for pleasure and humor in our politics.

Support the show and get the TIYA After Dark feed on Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife

Follow Leigh Claire:

https://www.instagram.com/marxforcats/

https://twitter.com/marxforcats

And read her books!

Fake Work: How I Began to Suspect Capitalism Is a Joke — https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2534-fake-work

Marx for Cats: A Radical Bestiary — https://bookshop.org/p/books/marx-for-cats-a-radical-bestiary-leigh-claire-la-berge/5c87bc279b7a45a4

Wages Against Artwork: Decommodified Labor and the Claims of Socially Engaged Art — https://bookshop.org/p/books/wages-against-artwork-decommodified-labor-and-the-claims-of-socially-engaged-art-leigh-claire-la-berge/ad4130cecb721c22

Follow/contact This Is Your Afterlife:

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Music by TIYA house band Lake Mary:

https://lakemary.bandcamp.com/

https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek/

Artwork by Matt Sage:

https://www.instagram.com/matthewjsage/