Volume 63, Issue 2, 2016
Josef Šmajs
Pages 73-84
Why do we ignore the phenomenon of human work?
The author considers work as a way in which man – an element of nature and the sole creator of culture – imposes his will (individual or collective) upon part of his environment. He states that the need to work has its roots in the efforts of our pre-historic ancestors, who lost their homes in the treetops and needed to survive in open savanna. However, current automatization brings the loss of working positions for labourers as well as an unprecedented level of people’s frustration resulting from the loss of direct contact with nature. The need for work, which automatization in a particular work process replaces, is to a large extent removed, but the amount of work in a wider social context does not decrease very much. A demand for a new type of work arises – work that cannot be applied in agriculture, crafts or factories. It is a strange demand that limits the employment of people who are less socialized, that is, less intellectually capable. People with an unsuitable structure of mental abilities can only apply for certain positions. Genuine work considered as the unity of physical and mental effort is a phenomenon that modern globalized economy no longer needs, but man does even more. Work has transformed from an economic category into an anthropological and medical one.