Bertrand Russell famously argued in defence of idleness, depicting work as a necessary evil. It had no intrinsic value. Instead, we should look at what we produce for its own sake: literature, art and philosophy. The value of these achievements is revealed in their very uselessness and it is only when we have adequate leisure that we can turn to their creation (Russell, In Praise of Idleness, 1935).

But Russell’s view can be resisted. There is value, too, in what Russell dismissed as mere useful work. Russell’s argument reveals an aristocratic view of what counts as work and unreasonably relegates the value of certain forms of human activity to worthlessness.

Work is a necessity, Russell argues, only because nature is unkind to us, failing to provide easily all that we need in order to survive, bringing the occasional famine too. Even so, it is still up to us what social arrangements are put in place to ensure such work as is necessary is properly conducted and rationally apportioned.