The political and public dimension of work: towards the democratization of work

Abstract

Mainstream economists and social philosophers like Arendt and Habermas conceive work as an instrumental activity. Work is therefore relegated to the private, non-political domain. We argue that work has a cooperative and intersubjective character which, as experienced by workers, endows it with an inescapably political and public dimension. These analytical claims lead us to question the strict distinction between the public and the private in contemporary democratic societies and to adopt a normative perspective. The re-politicisation of work would allow the retrieval of its emancipatory potential.