Labour and emancipation
Two contrasting traditions of thinking about labour are presented, the Aristotelian one which sees labour as toil and trouble and the Enlightenment one which connects labour to the possibility of social emancipation. Difficulties in determining the distinction between labour and other activities are discussed in the light of recent socio-economic changes which include the increasing reflexivity of labour. if in the modern monetary economy, as is suggested, any activity which is voluntarily paid for by others should be considered as labour, how can labour still be the main vehicle of social emancipation? An answer may be that this role of labour was always the result of false generalization: the rewards inherent in artistic and intellectual labour were mistaken for the rewards of labour as such. A more modest role for labour is suggested following Voltaire: it keeps us from doing other foolish things.