Work, Labor, and Play

 

      So far as I know, Miss Hannah Arendt was the first person to define the essential difference between work and labor. To be happy, a man must feel, firstly, free and, secondly, important. He cannot be really happy if he is compelled by society to do what he does not enjoy doing, or if what he enjoys doing is ignored by society as of no value or importance. In a society where slavery in the strict sense has been abolished, the sign that what a man does is of social value is that he is paid money to do it, but a laborer today can rightly be called a wage slave. A man is a laborer if the job society offers him is of no interest to himself but he is compelled to take it by the necessity of earning a living and supporting his family.

      The antithesis to labor is play. When we play a game, we enjoy what we are doing, otherwise we should not play it, but it is a purely private activity; society could not care less whether we play it or not.

      Between labor and play stands work. A man is a worker if he is personally interested in the job which society pays him to do; what from the point of view of society is necessary labor is from his own point of view voluntary play. Whether a job is to be classified as labor or work depends, not on the job itself, but on the tastes of the individual who undertakes it. The difference does not, for example, coincide with the difference between a manual and a mental job; a gardener or a cobbler may be a worker, a bank clerk a laborer. Which a man is can be seen from his attitude toward leisure. To a worker, leisure means simply the hours he needs to relax and rest in order to work efficiently. He is therefore more likely to take too little leisure than too much; workers die of coronaries and forget their wives’ birthdays. To the laborer, on the other hand, leisure means freedom from compulsion, so that it is natural for him to imagine that the fewer hours he has to spend laboring, and the more hours he is free to play, the better.

      What percentage of the population in a modern technological society are, like myself, in the fortunate position of being workers? At a guess I would say sixteen per cent, and I do not think that figure is likely to get bigger in the future.

      Technology and the division of labor have done two things: by eliminating in many fields the need for special strength or skill, they have made a very large number of paid occupations which formerly were enjoyable work into boring labor, and by increasing productivity they have reduced the number of necessary laboring hours. It is already possible to imagine a society in which the majority of the population, that is to say, its laborers, will have almost as much leisure as in earlier times was enjoyed by the aristocracy. When one recalls how aristocracies in the past actually behaved, the prospect is not cheerful. Indeed, the problem of dealing with boredom may be even more difficult for such a future mass society than it was for aristocracies. The latter, for example, ritualized their time; there was a season to shoot grouse, a season to spend in town, etc. The masses are more likely to replace an unchanging ritual by fashion which it will be in the economic interest of certain people to change as often as possible. Again, the masses cannot go in for hunting, for very soon there would be no animals left to hunt. For other aristocratic amusements like gambling, dueling, and warfare, it may be only too easy to find equivalents in dangerous driving, drug-taking, and senseless acts of violence. Workers seldom commit acts of violence, because they can put their aggression into their work, be it physical like the work of a smith, or mental like the work of a scientist or an artist. The role of aggression in mental work is aptly expressed by the phrase "getting one's teeth into a problem."

     

      工作、劳作和娱乐

 

      就我所知，汉纳·阿伦特小姐是第一个界定工作和劳作的本质区别的。一个人要幸福，首先必须觉得自由，其次，感觉到自己重要。如果是迫于社会压力，他不得不干他不愿意干的工作，如果社会忽视了他所乐意做的事情，认为它们没有价值或者并不重要，那么他是不会真正感到幸福的。在一个从严格意义上来说已废除了奴隶制的社会中，一个人所做的事情具有社会价值的标志是他因做此事而得到了报酬，但把今天的劳作者称作工资的奴隶或许是比较合适的。如果一个人对社会提供给他的工作毫无兴趣，而迫于生计和养家糊口又不得不接受，那么此人只能是一个劳作者。

      和劳作相对的是娱乐。玩游戏时，我们很乐意做我们所做的事情，否则，我们就不会玩了，但这纯粹是个人的活动。社会对你玩或不玩游戏是极不关心的。

      在劳作和娱乐之间是工作。如果一个人对社会付报酬让他做的工作感兴趣，他就是一个工作者；从社会的角度来看，工作是一件必不可少的劳作，但在他看来却是一种自觉自愿的娱乐。一件事情是劳作还是工作，不在于事情本身，而在于做这件事情的人的喜好。举例来说，这种差异与脑力劳动和体力劳动之间的差异并不一样。一个花匠或一个鞋匠可能是一个工作者，一个银行职员则可能是一个劳作者。从一个人对待闲暇的态度可以看出他是哪一类人。对一个工作者来说，闲暇仅仅意味着为了有效工作所需要放松和休息的时间。因此，他有可能享受的闲暇太少而不是太多；工作者会死于冠心病，会忘记妻子的生日。另一方面，对劳作者来讲，闲暇意味着摆脱了强制的自由，因此他很自然地会去想：工作时间越少，玩的时间越多，越好。

      在现代社会，像我这样有幸作为工作者的人在所有人之中所占的百分比是多少呢?我猜会占16%，我认为这一数字将来也不会上升。

      技术和分工完成了两件事：它们在消除许多领域对特殊体力和技巧的需求的同时，把以前许多付报酬的令人愉悦的工作变成了令人厌倦的劳作；而且通过提高生产力，减少了必要劳作的时间。我们已经能够想像出这样一个社会：大多数人，也就是劳作者，拥有的闲暇时间几乎和以前的达官贵人享受的一样多。当人们回想起过去的达官贵人的所作所为时，前景并不会令人兴奋。的确，在未来这样一个大众化社会里，处理厌烦这个问题将会比过去的贵族更加困难。例如，贵族把他们的时间变成固定的程式，有的季节去打松鸡，有的季节住到城里去，等等。群众更可能用时尚取代千篇一律的程式而尽可能经常地改变时尚也符合某些人的经济利益。同样，群众也不能都有打猎的爱好，因为很快就会没有动物可供射猎。贵族们的其他娱乐如赌`博、决斗和战争，现在也很容易找出同样的方式，如冒险驾驶、吸毒和毫无意义的暴力行为。工作者很少有暴力行为，因为他们把进取精神放在了工作上，不管这种工作是匠人的体力劳动还是科学家或艺术家的脑力劳动。“把牙伸到某个问题中”这个习语很贴切地表示出了进取精神在脑力工作中的作用。