Workaholism, Leisure And Pleasure Essay -- essays research papers

<a href="http//www.geocities.com/vaksam/">Sam Vaknins Psychology, Philosophy, political economy and Foreign Affairs Web SitesThe official lap uping week is organism reduced to 35 hours a week. In most countries in the world, it is peculiar(a) to 45 hours a week. The trend during the last century seems to be commanding less work, more play. Yet, what may be true for blue quail at workers or state employees is not necessarily so for white match members of the liberal professions. It is not rare for these passel lawyers, accountants, consultants, managers, academics to put in 80 hour weeks. The phenomenon is so widespread and its kindly consequences so damaging that it acquired the unflattering nickname workaholism, a combination of the words work and alcoholism. Family living is disrupted, intellectual horizons narrow, the consequences to the workaholics health are severe fat, overleap of exercise, strive take their toll. Classified as alpha types, workahol ics suffer three clock as many heart attacks as their peers. But what are the social and economic roots of this phenomenon ? Put succinctly, it is the result of the blurring borders and differences between work and leisure. The billet between these two types of time the superstar dedicated to labour and the one spent in the pursuit of ones interests was so unsnarl for thousands of years that its gradual disappearance is one of the most important and abstruse social changes in human history. A host of other shifts in the character of the work and domestic environments of humans converged to produce this momentous change. arguably the most important was the increase in labour mobility and the fluid spirit of the very concept of work and the workplace. The transitions from agricultural to industrial, then to the services and right off to the information and knowledge societies, each, in turn, increased the mobility of the workforce. A farmer is the least(prenominal) mobile. H is means of production are fixed, his produce was mostly consumed locally because of lack of proper refrigeration, preservation and transportation methods. A marginal group of people became nomad-traders. This group exploded in size with the advent of the industrial revolution. True, the pot of the workforce was still immobile and affixed to the production floor. But au naturel(p) materials and the finished products travelled long distances ... ...eneurs, the managers, the businessmen. They are the movers, the shakers, the pushers, the energy. Without them, we defecate socialist economies, where everything belongs to everyone and, in reality to none. In these economies of collective ownership people go to work because they have to, they try to avoid it, to sabotage the workplace, they harbour negative feelings. Slowly, they wither and flunk (professionally) because no one can live long in curse and deceit. Joy is an essential ingredient. And this is the true meaning of capit alism the abolition of work and leisure and the pursuit of both with the same zeal and satisfaction. Above all, the (increasing) conversance to do it whenever, wherever, with whomever you choose. Unless and until the Homo East Europeansis changes his set of fountainhead there leave behind be no real transition. Because transition happens in the human mind much before it takes form in reality. It is no use to dictate, to legislate, to finance, to cajole, to spin the human being must change first. It was Marx (a devout non-capitalist) who said it is brain that determines reality. How right was he. Witness the USA and witness the miserable failure of communism.