Working to live or living to work?

For a long time, work was identified with a servile, degrading practice. Ricardo, the economist of labour-value, Hegel, the philosopher of labour, and then Marx, made it the mediation that makes man the owner of the world and builds his effective freedom. Hence productivism as progressivism, both as a vision of history and as individual fulfilment. This did not make the “disutility” of labour effort disappear, nor alienation, but work promised emancipation and made the worker proud of his individual and collective useful work. In recent years, a revolution has been underway. Many people believe that working for growth is destructive to the climate, biodiversity and the planet. They reject the intensification of work, demand more autonomy, remote work, consider that “real life is elsewhere”, and refuse to spend their lives earning it. Giving meaning back to work also means enriching leisure time, ensuring that work and leisure alternate throughout life, encouraging desired mobility and playing the CSR game.