The coronavirus pandemic has exposed the deep-seated problems of how and why we all work.
It has shown how many of us perform jobs that are not essential.
But the crisis has also revealed the pressing need most of us face to work.
We might not carry out work that is necessary but we still need to work so you can live.
The question for the present is whether people can survive the loss of work, as the economy contracts.
The alleviation of unemployment must be a priority in the short term.
Yet, there is a deeper question at stake.
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Problems of work
The coronavirus pandemic throws up three key problems relating to work.
One is the shortage of work itself.
For others, the problem is an increase in work.
Here a full days work has meant longer hours, both paid and unpaid.
Key workers.Shutterstock
The third problem relates to those still required to work outside of the home.
Here the problem is overwork, as well as exposure to disease.
Generally, for frontline workers, the crisis has brought an increase in the intensity and pressure of work.
The economic response to coronavirus focuses on restoring work, not on changing or curtailing it in any way.
This is understandable given the negative effects of unemployment on incomeand well-being.
In the UK, for example, there is no talk of cutting work hours and redistributing work.
More widely, there is a concern to keep the same economic growth model, not change it.
The restoration of growth is put before the reduction of work.
The present crisis has also highlighted what work is necessary for society to meet its needs.
Conversely, it has exposed some work as superfluous and even pointless, from a social perspective.
Health provision, for example, has an essential quality that is lacking in the practice of stockbroking.
It is the obsession with economic growth which demands that more work is created, including morepointless jobs.
It is evident too that without some kind ofbasic incomethere will be no escape from the discipline of work.
There must be a recognition of the failure of the system as it exists now.
Further, we risk undervaluing the essential work that keeps us healthy.
It is also important we seek change beyond the present.
The restrictions of work must become a focus for resistance and transformation.
Our goal should be to broaden the realm of freedom beyond work.
There is simply no other way for us to thrive.
