> Before bailing out of the discussion, WS wrote:
>>> If socialism
>>> eradicates the drudgery of work, the drudgery of idleness will
>>> ensue, at
>>> least for most.
>
> my response was something most scholars of the subject already know:
>> the Marxian idea of eradicating the "drudgery of work" is that work
>> and play will be merged. It's not that work will be abolished.
>
> this idea is summarized by Sunday's Google "quote of the day": "You've
> achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what you're
> doing is work or play." -- Warren Beatty
>
> The fact is that the ending of the artificial division between work
> and play -- and their merger -- is something that is already happening
> for a lot of "successful" professionals. I think that a lot of people
> at the top of society, along with some academics and members of the
> professional-managerial strata, seem like they're "workaholics"
> because they get a lot of pleasure out of the "drudgery."
This seems to overlook the distinction Marx draws between the "realm of natural necessity" and the "true realm of freedom" of an ideal community. It's only in the latter that activity would be "play" in the sense of being an end in itself. In the former, though it would be activity requiring and utilizing the fully developed capabilities of the "rich individuality" realized in such a community, activity wouldn't be "play" in this sense; it would be instrumental activity meeting the needs of activity in the realm of freedom. The time and energy devoted to it would be minimized so as to maximize the time and energy available for "play".
"Time of labour, even if exchange value is eliminated, always remains the creative substance of wealth and the measure of the cost of its production. But free time, disposable time, is wealth itself, partly for the enjoyment of the product, partly for free activity which - unlike labour - is not determined by a compelling extraneous purpose which must be fulfilled, and the fulfilment of which is regarded as a natural necessity or a social duty, according to one's inclination." <http://www.marx.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/ ch21.htm>
This is one basis on which Marx distinguishes his own view from Fourier's.
"Labour cannot become play, as Fourier would like, although it remains his great contribution to have expressed the suspension not of distribution, but of the mode of production itself, in a higher form, as the ultimate object. Free time -- which is both idle time and time for higher activity -- has naturally transformed its possessor into a different subject, and he then enters into the direct production process as this different subject. This process is then both discipline, as regards the human being in the process of becoming; and, at the same time, practice [Ausübung], experimental science, materially creative and objectifying science, as regards the human being who has become, in whose head exists the accumulated knowledge of society. For both, in so far as labour requires practical use of the hands and free bodily movement, as in agriculture, at the same time exercise." <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch14.htm>
Ted