 Work and the need for meaning: Comments on ‘should humans work?’Bo R. Meinertsen Telecommunications Policy, 2021, vol. 45, issue 1 Abstract: Santos, Kissamtiki, and Chiesa (2020) contend that the question ‘Should humans work?’ should be addressed by keeping separate two notions of work: ‘work as meaning’ and work in a basic-needs-oriented sense. They maintain that the former notion merely obscures the question and so should be avoided, whereas the latter clarifies it and ultimately makes it solvable as a technical and engineering task. By contrast, this short commentary suggests that the notion of ‘basic need’ (i) requires elaboration and (ii) should not be separated from ‘work as meaning’. Interestingly, the authors have conducted small studies that may support (ii). Moreover, consideration of R. Nozick's famous ‘experience machine’ thought experiment shows that their paper prompts us to raise a profound question about when we should or should not work. Keywords: ‘Work as meaning’; Work and basic needs; Maslow's hierarchy of needs; Frankl and the ‘need for meaning’; Nozick's experience machine (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:telpol:v:45:y:2021:i:1:s0308596120301853 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1016/j.telpol.2020.102095 Access Statistics for this article Telecommunications Policy is currently edited by Erik Bohlin More articles in Telecommunications Policy from Elsevier |
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