ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the relationships between social theories, ideologies, and historical developments which have given rise to the idea that work is disappearing. A basic definition of work might be 'picking something up and putting it down somewhere else because you have to'. Another conventional view sees work as some kind of interaction with nature, a primal engagement through which we 'extract from nature the means of our existence'. However, it is possible to see behind Arendt's arguments specifically on the distinction between work and labor, a more prosaic divide, that between skilled and unskilled labor, the labor of the crafts-worker or the intellectual, and the manual worker. Grint's analysis makes more sense in terms of differences in the understanding of the concept of work between spatial and temporal settings. Greek thought on work continues to influence contemporary commentators, particularly critics of work. Work in pre-industrial England is often depicted in a similar way to work in non-Western pre-capitalist societies.
