“Work,” referring to what workers do, should not be confused with exertion; play can be more strenuous than work. Work is compulsory production, something done for some other reason than the satisfaction of doing it. That other reason might be violence (slavery), dearth (employment) or an internalized compulsion (the Calvinist's “calling,” the Buddhist's “right livelihood,” the Syndicalist's “duty to serve the People”). Unlike the play impulse, none of these motives maximizes our productive potential; work is not very productive although output is its only justification.
Although it does not have to be, play can be productive, so forced labor may not be necessary. When we work we produce without pleasure so as to consume without creating — containers drained and filled, drained and filled, like the locks of a canal. Job enrichment? The phrase implies a prior condition of job impoverishment which debunks the myth of work as a source of wealth. Work devalues life by appropriating something so priceless it cannot be bought back no matter how high the GNP is.
-Bob Black, 1992.