For Work / Against Work
Debates on the centrality of work

Hegel, G W F ⟨Hegel and the Human Spirit: A translation of the Jena Lectures on the Philosophy of Spirit (1805-6) ⟩ 1983 p.121 Book Hegel Citations
Citation with Excerpt Hegel, G W F 1983 Book Hegel Citations

Hegel and the Human Spirit: A translation of the Jena Lectures on the Philosophy of Spirit (1805-6)

by Hegel, G W F (1983)

Key Passage

Since work is performed only [to satisfy] the need as abstract being-for-itself, the working becomes abstract as well. … Each individual, because he is an individual here, thus labors for a need. [Yet] the content of his labor goes beyond his need, he labors for the needs of many, and so does everyone. Each satisfies the needs of many, and the satisfaction of one’s own many particular needs is the labor of many others. Since his labor is abstract in this way, he behaves as an abstract I … having no concrete labor, his powers consists in analyzing, in abstracting, dissecting the concrete world into its many abstract aspects. (p.121)

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