labour & leisure

Came across a really interesting concept in recent reading.

From the point of view of an entrepreneur labour is an item of cost, to be kept at the minimum if it cannot be eliminated by mechanization.

From the point of view of an employee, labour is a dis-utility, to work is to make a sacrifice of one's leisure and comfort and wages are a kind of compensation for the sacrifice.

Thus an entrepreneur would want a product without employees while an employee would want an income without an employment.

It would be interesting to note that capitalist countries will follow on the former whereas socialist countries will follow on the latter.

Or for that matter when we try to get any paper moving in a government office, no work will ever get done, the paper will remain on someones desk or forever keep moving from desk to desk with no destination. As governement employees think of work as a dis-utility. So they say, the government pays us not to work, you can pay us to get your work. (implying to grease their palms). That is socialism.

For the entrepreneur its all about the incentive or rather the output to derive an incentive which is in essence capitalism.

A moot point is that the worker when jobless will yearn for any job, at that point he does not look at work as a dis-utility of his leisure time, but will rather look at the incentive that arises with work.