ABSTRACT
The centrality of work, labor, production, is clear from the work of the three key figures in classical sociology; Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Durkheim. This chapter focuses on the move away from work as the key sociological category; the supposed end of work as a category of paramount importance for sociology and social theory, rather than in the social world itself. The separation of home and work, the concentration of mechanised production in towns and cities which developments in technology (and ideology) had made possible, and the erection of an urban-industrial infrastructure all gave rise to new ways of living. In his book Memories of Class Zygmunt Bauman interpreted the inner city riots that shook Britain in the early 1980s as evidence not only of high levels of poverty and unemployment, but of a shift from work to consumption as the basis of identity.
