Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T07:36:37.427Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The End or the Apotheosis of “Labor”? Hannah Arendt's Contribution to the Question of the Good Life in Times of Global Superfluity of Human Labor Power

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Claudia Lenz  and
Gertrude Postl
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper relates Arendt's critique of a labor society to her thoughts on the “good life.” I begin with the claim that in the post-mass production era, Western societies, traditionally centered around gainful employment, encounter a decrease in the relevance of labor and can thus no longer rely on it as a resource for individual or social meaning. From Arendt's perspective, however, the current situation allows for the possibility of a transition from a society based on labor to a society centered around activities. I explore Arendt's different types of activities—labor, work, action—with respect to the question of justice between the genders.

Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 20 , Issue 2: Special Issue: Contemporary Feminist Philosophy in German , Spring 2005 , pp. 135 - 154
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arendt, Hannah. 1994a. Vita activa. Munich: Piper.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. 1994b. What is existential philosophy? In Essays in understanding: 1930–1954. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. 1978a. Bernard Lazare: The conscious pariah. In The Jew as pariah: Jewish identity and politics in the modern age, ed. Feldman, Ron H.New York: Grove Press.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. 1978b. The life of the mind. San Diego: Harcourt, Harvest Book.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. 1976. The origins of totalitarianism: New edition with edited prefaces. San Diego: Harcourt, Harvest Book.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. 1974. Rahel Varnhagen: The life of a Jewish woman. Revised edition. Trans. Richard, and Winston, Clara. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. 1959. The human condition. Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday Anchor Books.Google Scholar
Bauer, Karin. 1978. Clara Zetkin und die proletarische Frauenbewegung. Berlin: Oberbaum Verlag.Google Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla. 2003. The reluctant modernism of Hannah Arendt: New edition. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Bock, Gisela, and Duden, Barbara. 1976. Arbeit aus Liebe—Liebe als Arbeit: Zur Entstehung der Hausarbeit im Kapitalismus. In Frauen und Wissenschaft: Beiträge zur Berliner Sommeruniversität für Frauen, Juli 1976, ed. Der Sommeruniversität, Dokumentationsgruppe. Berlin: Courage.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques. 1982. Différence. In Margins of philosophy. Trans. Bass, Alan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hausen, Karin. 1978. Die Polarisierung der “Geschlechtscharaktere”: Eine Spiegelung der Dissoziation von Erwerbs‐ und Familienleben. In Seminar: Familien‐ und Gesellschaftsstruktur, ed. Rosenbaum, Heidi. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Koslowski, Peter. 1994. Überarbeitete und Beschäftigungslose: Sinnverlust der Arbeit durch Übergeschäftigkeit und Unterbeschäftigung. In Arbeit ohne Sinn? Sinn ohne Arbeit? ed. Hoffman, Hilmar and Kramer, Dieter. Weinheim: Beltz Athenäum.Google Scholar
Kurz‐Scherf, Ingrid. 1995. Vom guten Leben: Feministische Perspektiven diesseits und jenseits der Arbeitsgesellschaft. In Wege aus der Arbeitslosigkeit, ed. Belitz, Wolfgang. Reinbek: Rowohlt.Google Scholar
Lenz, Claudia. 1996. Die Figur des bewussten Parias bei Hannah Arendt als Modell menschlicher Freiheitsrealisierung. Unpublished manuscript Hamburg: Women's Studies Coordination Center, University of Hamburg.Google Scholar
Strasser, Johano. 1999. Wenn der Arbeitsgesellschaft die Arbeit ausgeht. Zurich: Pendo Verlag.Google Scholar
Strobl, Ingrid. 1983. Wider den Hausfrauenlohn! In So fing es an! Die neue Frauenbewegung, ed. Schwarzer, Alice. Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag.Google Scholar
Wolf, Ursula. 1999. Die Philosophie und die Frage nach dem guten Leben. Reinbek: Rowohlt.Google Scholar
Zetkin, Clara. 1984. Selected writings. Trans. Schoenhals, Kai. New York: International Publishers.Google Scholar