ABSTRACT
Neo-Marxist writers are making an important attempt to develop leisure theory within the context of the general de-skilling process, said to be characteristic of capitalist relations of production. The first imprint of a systematic theory of de-skilling and forced leisure is made by Karl Marx in Capital. For Marx then, de-skilling and forced leisure are joined together in a circuit of class exploitation. The capitalist class de-skills workers in the production process in order to maintain and reproduce working-class subordination. The Marxist tradition on de-skilling and forced leisure focuses on a number of important features of modern leisure relations. Capitalist society does de-skill workers, and it does press people into forced leisure pursuits. The socialist societies have de-skilling and forced leisure processes of their own. The idea of forced leisure crops up in the context of Marx’s discussion of commodity consumption under advanced capitalism.
