I can hear you think: Marc, come on, we know what work is. That is what we did each day for the last two, five, ten, twenty years or as long as we can remember ! It might not be as simple as that. Everyone has his or her own views of what should be brought under the definition of ‘work’.
You can use the notion of ‘work’ or ‘labour’ in a narrow sense or in a broad sense. If you use a narrow interpretation ‘work’ is the same as paid labour. I give you my time and my capacity for work and you give me monetary payment and/or other benefits. But is it fair to limit work / labour to paid labour. For example if I bake a cake for my neighbours at home it is not seen as work, but if I am a baker and I bake a cake and sell it to my neighbours in my shop it is seen as work. Or another example: if a grandmother looks after her grandchildren while their parents are at work it is not seen as work, but if the children are left at a childcare center for the day it is seen as work. Is that fair or is the line rather arbitrarily drawn ?
You can also use a broad sense of the notion of ‘work’ or ‘labour’. Payment in any form is no longer at the center of the discussion, but whether a specific mental or physical activity fulfils a personal need. This very broad definition can lead to bizarre results: almost all human activities fulfil a need, for example also robbing a bank, playing tennis or sex. By the way, in some cases sex can legitimately be seen as ‘labour’ though, but that is a whole different story.
So maybe you should end up somewhere in the middle: it might be helpful to stretch the personal need by adding that the mental or physical activity should not only fulfil a personal need but also be of value for others and/or the society in general. This definition will not lead to perfect clarity (how many others for example ?) but in general would exclude some activities, like robbing a bank, playing tennis or sex. And value has to be interpreted broader as including services, goods etc.
So like with anything that seems simple, if you think about it, you have several questions, categories, definitions. In the case of ‘work’ you can make a distinction between paid and non-paid activities, formal and informal types of work (informal being the “black economy”), activities only for yourself or for others/ the society as a whole. How to make life complicated !
Stay tuned for part 3 of The Basics next week: scientific management / Taylorism (we dive into history);
M
psycho at work 