Why I Am Happy to Be a Graduate Philosophy Student (At Least Some of the Time):

[jalden]

 "The society of the future, so said Marx, would abolish the distinction between work and leisure. What he meant was not that we would constantly be on the end of a long internet-shaped leash, as so many are now, but that in the future work would be seen not as a burden but as a source of enjoyment and fulfilment, carried out for its own sake, and

Comments

[apperception]

That's one place I won't follow Marx. I believe our destiny is to abolish work or at least drastically reduce it.

[jalden]

I thought the upshot of the above statement was that work would be reduced, if not drastically, at least to the point where we could "carry it out for its own sake, , in [our] own time". Presumably, one of the conditions for work to be enjoyable and fulfilling is that it cannot dominate life to the exclusion of all leisure.

I wonder what the abolishment of work would be like. Some research has shown that the one thing more likely to produce prolonged depression, more than the death of a spouse or a child, is sustained unemployment. Having at least some work to do may give people reason to get out of bed in the morning and in doing such contribute to happiness and well-being.

[apperception]

I thought the upshot of the above statement was that work would be reduced, if not drastically, at least to the point where we could "carry it out for its own sake, , in [our] own time". Presumably, one of the conditions for work to be enjoyable and fulfilling is that it cannot dominate life to the exclusion of all leisure.

Here's the quote I know of where he talks about it:In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly -- only then then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!
There are many ways to interpret this passage