Work and Leisure

52 Chris Rojekmaintain and reproduce life, so must civilized man, and he must do so inall social formations and under all possible modes of production. Withhis development this realm of physical necessity expands as a result of hiswants; but at the same time, the forces of production which satisfy thesewants also increase. Freedom in this field can only consist in socializedman, the associated producers, rationally regulating their interchangewith Nature, bringing it under common control, instead of being ruledby it as by the blind forces of Nature; and achieving this with the leastexpenditure of energy and under conditions most favourable to, andworthy of, their human nature. But it nonetheless still remains a realm ofnecessity. Beyond it begins that development of human energy which isan end in itself, the true realm of freedom, which however can blossomforth only with this realm of necessity as its basis.(Marx 1977: 820)However, communism would not result in the end of work. Rather, it wouldcreate the basis for enhancing the individual’s faculties through voluntarilychosen activity and the reaffirmation of the indissoluble bond between theindividual and the commons through socially necessary labour. By the term‘socially necessary labour’ Marx meant the indispensable work required toreproduce life and achieve the surplus wealth that guarantees the benefit ofall. Marx therefore regarded work to be ineradicable in the development ofcharacter and society.In this proposition, the movement of organised labour has been a sturdyaccomplice. As indicated in Chapter 1 of this volume, Hunnicutt (1988) notesthat the campaign for shorter working hours had climaxed by the time of theSecond World War. During the Great Depression average working hoursdeclined, but this was due principally to the lack of demand for workersrather than the campaigning zeal of trade unions or the wishes of workers.Since the 1930s, organised labour has adopted the right to work as a traditionalprinciple of collective bargaining (Sayers 1987). While workers have,naturally, not rejected vacation time or flexible working arrangements, theircollective bargaining processes have generally verified the standpoint ofclassical political economy, that paid employment is the a priori of leisure.The work–leisure relationship in leisure studiesFor the most part, leisure studies has followed suit. The key debates havefocused on two issues: the relationship between work and leisure and principlesof redistributive justice regarding access to work and leisure. To beginwith the relationship between work and leisure, Wilensky (1960) famouslyposited ‘compensatory’ and ‘spillover’ patterns between work and leisure, inwhich leisure forms were explained as, respectively, the reaction to therequirements of work, or the continuation of behavioural regimes established