Black is best known for penning a 1985 essay, "The Abolition of Work," which has been widely reprinted and translated into at least thirteen languages (most recently, Urdu). In it he argued that work is a fundamental source of domination, comparable to capitalism and the state, which should be transformed into voluntary "productive play." Black acknowledged among his inspirations the French utopian socialist Charles Fourier, the British utopian socialist William Morris, the Russian anarcho-communist Peter Kropotkin, and the Situationists. "The Abolition of Work and Other Essays", published by Loompanics in 1986, included, along with the title essay, some of his short Last International texts, and some essays and reviews reprinted from his column in "San Francisco's Appeal to Reason", a leftist and counter-cultural tabloid published from 1980 to 1984.