Avant la révolution industrielle, les Américains respectaient les vertus de «producteurs»: dur labeur, retenue, sacrifice pour le futur et pour le bien commun. Mais au cours du XXe siècle, les gens sont devenus plus fortunés et la société de producteurs s’est transformée graduellement en société de consommation. Une vision alternative du moi est al

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The original conception of leisure, as it arose in the civilized world of Greece, has, however, become unrecognizable in the world of planned diligence and “total labor”; and in order to gain a clear notion of leisure we must begin by setting aside the prejudice—our prejudice—that comes from overvaluing the sphere of work. In his well-known study o

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I want to say, in all seriousness, that a great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by belief in the virtuousness of work, and that the road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organised diminution of work.

Today’s rich Americans can afford vastly more leisure than ever before, but as Thompson points out, they’re using their wealth “to buy the strangest of prizes: more work”. This trend only starts to make sense against the backdrop of the waning of the commons. In a world absent God or meaning, work is evolving from a means of material production to

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