ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates how Hannah Arendt’s insights provide a philosophical basis for critically reflecting on the relation between organization and power. It draws on her ideas linked to “vita activa” for radically reconfiguring the very basis of organizational politics. The chapter highlights the significance of “organizing” for her notion of the “human condition” encompassing the activities of “labour”, “work” and “action”. It focuses on this discussion to connect her ideas of “worldly alienation” to current experiences of organizational disenchantment. Arendt distinguished several categories of activities central to the “human condition”. The first is that of “labour”, which denotes the processes and actions necessary for the material reproduction of life. The second fundamental activity Arendt proposes is that of “work”. Unlike “labour”, it refers to the unnatural parts of life, those elements that we produce and are durable. Arendt’s insights on the human condition critically shed light on the ways organizing is fundamental to the human condition.
