my response was: >>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. <<
later I wrote:>> 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." <<
Ted: >This seems to overlook the distinction Marx draws between the "realm of natural necessity" and the "true realm of freedom" of an ideal community...<
that's right, it does overlook that distinction. However, Ted's worthwhile comment misses the context of the discussion: it was WS's assertion that (in essence, using my words) that socialist ideas were merely utopian, with no basis in empirical reality except perhaps in the past. But one can see real, empirical, phenomena -- such as the merger of work and play for some privileged individuals -- that indicate that some aspects of socialism are already being realized.
Obviously, the fact that it's only for people such as Warren Beatty indicates that capitalism and, more generally, class society still dominates, exploits, and alienates humanity. Under these conditions, it does not make sense for the workers' movement and their supporters to strive to merge work and play. Rather, we must push to lower the amount of alienated, dominated, and exploitated work-time. -- Jim Devine / "There can be no real individual freedom in the presence of economic insecurity." -- Chester Bowles