Hannah Arendt is a twentieth century philosopher. In her books she mainly reflected on political philosophy. She became especially famous for her analysis of the Eichmann process. But she also wrote about themes such as free will, work and life and how political life differs from other domains in society. She used conceptual frameworks that were foreign to that time, when most political scientists and political philosophers started from a fairly institutional approach. In ‘Vita Activa’ Arendt divided human activities into three subdomains: labour, work and action.
Table of contents
- Labor
- Work
- To trade
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Labor
By labor she meant the daily tasks that every human being has to perform. This is ‘biologically determined’ work. We prepare food, do the dishes and brush our teeth every day. So work is the little things we have to do to continue living (healthily). Nothing is finalized or created. The actions are usually short, but the results are also short-lived. This work never ends: when you have vacuumed, the house is clean. But after a while, dust will accumulate again and you will have to vacuum again, not to improve your home or really build something, but simply to maintain your living environment or your body against decay. This labor brings humans closest to life as animals experience it, according to Arendt.
Work
This frames the biological need of (weak) humans to shape nature (the environment). It is about the ‘unnatural’ activity of humans, that which would distinguish us from animals. By work, Arendt means man’s urge to build artificial things, a material world. Through work people create things that are foreign to nature, such as an apartment building, but also a necklace. This material world is characterized by its sustainable character, and depends on each individual. By building walls around us, we are actually building a space within nature: humanity’s habitat. In this way we mark the boundary between nature and humanity. This also includes making rules and laws or writing computer programs.
While work mainly serves to satisfy our ‘animal’ needs, work breaks with the animal world by adapting nature to humans. It is through this distinction between humanity and nature that societies can flourish and social systems emerge. Labor is mainly tied to a direct necessity: you can go without food for a while, but nature dictates that you have to eat or you will die. Work offers people more freedom: architects, construction workers, legislators, can work more freely and are not bound by direct demands of nature. Labor is usually about individual, private matters; where Work usually intervenes in public space: where people meet.
To trade
Because work, just like work, is still tied to certain (broader) needs, work cannot encompass human freedom. The work may not serve to satisfy individual, animal needs, but houses, for example, are built out of necessity for shelter.
Within that collective, social space created by work, real human action can flourish. This action is inextricably related to freedom, status and the fact that action is not subject to anything, except the action itself. Action means freedom. And freedom means action. We can therefore only experience our freedom in interaction with others. Trading is therefore always a social phenomenon. People are only free when they behave freely. You cannot be free without behaving accordingly in your actions. This freedom is expressed, among other things, by daring to think against the prevailing social way of thinking.
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