So far as I know, Miss Hannah Arendt was the first person to define the essential difference between work and labor. To be happy, a man must feel, firstly, free and, secondly, important. He cannot be really happy if he is compelled by society to do what he does not enjoy doing, or if what he enjoys doing is ignored by society as of no value or importance. In a society where slavery in the strict sense has been abolished, the sign that what a man does is of social value is that he is paid money to do it, but a laborer today can rightly be called a wage slave. A man is a laborer if the job society offers him is of no interest to himself but he is compelled to take it by the necessity of earning a living and supporting his family.

The antithesis to labor is play. When we play a game, we enjoy what we are doing, otherwise we should not play it, but it is a purely private activity; society could not care less whether we play it or not.

Between labor and play stands work. A man is a worker if he is personally interested in the job which society pays him to do; what from the point of view of society is necessary labor is from his own point of view voluntary play. Whether a job is to be classified as labor or work depends, not on the job itself, but on the tastes of the individual who undertakes it. The difference does not, for example, coincide with the difference between a manual and a mental job; a gardener or a cobbler may be a worker, a bank clerk a laborer. Which a man is can be seen from his attitude toward leisure. To a worker, leisure means simply the hours he needs to relax and rest in order to work efficiently. He is therefore more likely to take too little leisure than too much; workers die of coronaries and forget their wives' birthdays. To the laborer, on the other hand, leisure means freedom from compulsion, so that it is natural for him to imagine that the fewer hours he has to spend laboring, and the more hours he is free to play, the better.

What percentage of the population in a modern technological society are, like myself, in the fortunate position of being workers? At a guess I would say sixteen per cent, and I do not think that figure is likely to get bigger in the future.

Technology and the division of labor have done two things: by eliminating in many fields the need for special strength or skill, they have made a very large number of paid occupations which formerly were enjoyable work into boring labor, and by increasing productivity they have reduced the number of necessary laboring hours. It is already possible to imagine a society in which the majority of the population, that is to say, its laborers, will have almost as much leisure as in ear5lier times was enjoyed by the aristocracy. When one recalls how aristocracies in the past actually behaved, the prospect is not cheerful. Indeed, the problem of dealing with boredom may be even more difficult for such a future mass society than it was for aristocracies. The latter, for example, ritualized their time; there was a season to shoot grouse, a season to spend in town, etc. The masses are more likely to replace an unchanging ritual by fashion which it will be in the economic interest of certain people to change as often as possible. Again, the masses cannot go in for hunting, for very soon there would be no animals left to hunt. For other aristocratic amusements like gambling, dueling, and warfare, it may be only too easy to find equivalents in dangerous driving, drug-taking, and senseless acts of violence. Workers seldom commit acts of violence, because they can put their aggression into their work, be it physical like the work of a smith, or mental like the work of a scientist or an artist. The role of aggression into their work, be it physical like the work of a smith, or mental like the work of a scientist or an artist. The role of aggression in mental work is aptly expressed by the phrase "getting one's teeth into a problem."

據(jù)我所知，漢納·阿倫特小姐是第一個(gè)給予工作和勞作之間本質(zhì)區(qū)別的人。一個(gè)人要高興，首先要感到自由，其次是感到重要。如果他被社會(huì)強(qiáng)迫做他不愿做的事，或者他喜歡做的事被社會(huì)忽視，被認(rèn)為無價(jià)值和不重要，他就不會(huì)真正高興。在一個(gè)從嚴(yán)格意義上來說奴隸制已被廢除的社會(huì)里，一個(gè)人所做的事情具有社會(huì)價(jià)值的樗是他的工作得到了報(bào)酬。但今天的勞動(dòng)者可以恰當(dāng)?shù)胤Q為薪金的奴隸。如果他對(duì)社會(huì)提供給他的工作不感興趣，但出于謀生和養(yǎng)家而被迫接受，這個(gè)人就稱為勞作者。

與勞作相對(duì)的是玩，當(dāng)玩耍時(shí)我們?cè)谙硎埽駝t是不會(huì)去玩的，不過這純粹是私人活動(dòng)，社會(huì)對(duì)你玩或不玩是極不關(guān)心的。

處于勞作和玩之間的是工作。如果一個(gè)人對(duì)社會(huì)付酬給他的工作感興趣的話，他就是工作者；從社會(huì)的觀點(diǎn)看，工作是必要的勞作也是個(gè)人心目中自愿的玩。例如：這個(gè)區(qū)別不同于體力勞動(dòng)和腦力勞動(dòng)之間的區(qū)別；一個(gè)園藝工人或一個(gè)補(bǔ)鞋匠可能是工作者，一個(gè)銀行職員可能是勞作者。一個(gè)人屬于哪一種可以從他對(duì)休閑的態(tài)度看出來。對(duì)于工作者來說，休閑只是他為了有效地工作而放松和休息的時(shí)間，所以他可能少休息而不是多休閑。工作者可能致于冠狀動(dòng)脈血栓癥，忘記妻子的生日。反之，對(duì)于勞作者來說，休閑意味著從強(qiáng)迫中的擺脫，因此他們會(huì)很自然地想花在工作上的時(shí)間越少，自由自在玩的時(shí)間越多就越好。

像我這樣，幸運(yùn)地成為工作者的人現(xiàn)代技術(shù)社會(huì)里占多大比例呢？我猜測(cè)為60%并且我認(rèn)為這個(gè)數(shù)字將來不可能變大。

技術(shù)和勞動(dòng)分工已產(chǎn)生了兩點(diǎn)影響：通過在許多領(lǐng)域里減少對(duì)特殊力量和技巧的需求，它們使大量曾經(jīng)愉快的有償勞動(dòng)變成了使人厭煩的工作，通過提高提高生產(chǎn)率減少了一些必要的勞動(dòng)時(shí)間。已經(jīng)有可能去設(shè)想這樣一個(gè)社會(huì)：大多數(shù)人，即勞作者，將擁有幾乎與早期貴州所享有的一樣多的休閑。當(dāng)一個(gè)人回憶過去貴族的所作所為，前景就不會(huì)樂觀了。的確對(duì)于這樣一個(gè)未來群眾社會(huì)，應(yīng)付無聊的問題比起來貴族們可能更困難。例如：后者使他們的時(shí)間儀式化，有射獵松雞的季節(jié)、有鎮(zhèn)上度日的季節(jié)等。群眾更可能用時(shí)尚取代千篇一律的程式，而盡可能經(jīng)常地改變時(shí)尚也符合某些人的經(jīng)濟(jì)利益。同樣，群眾也不能都有打獵的愛好，因?yàn)楹芸炀蜁?huì)沒有動(dòng)物可供射獵。對(duì)于其他貴族娛樂活動(dòng)，像賭博、決斗和戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)，可能很容易在危險(xiǎn)駕駛、吸毒和愚蠢的暴力行為中找到等價(jià)物。工作者很少有暴力行為，因?yàn)樗麄兡馨堰M(jìn)取心放在他們的工作上，不管是鐵匠從事的體力勞動(dòng)，還是科學(xué)家或藝術(shù)家從事的腦力勞動(dòng)。"把牙到某個(gè)問題中"這條習(xí)語很貼切地表示出進(jìn)取心在智力工作中的作用。