ABSTRACT
The historians of the ancient world give us little information about how people worked or what they thought about the work they did. A historical study of the meaning of work is not merely of abstract interest. An effort to write a history of human work would have to rely on rather indirect evidence, although data are not lacking. The basic Marxist doctrine is that the manner in which the bulk of the members of any society make their living is the primary determinant of everything else, its systems of religious belief, social systems and social structure, political philosophy, and critical aspects of its literature and art. It is, of course, impossible to know anything of the attitudes toward work of our Paleolithic forebears. Language provides an indirect but impressive bit of evidence of the dif-fuseness of work in these societies. The Grecian example provides us with the clearest case of the conditions under which work acquires totally negative meanings.
