Tentative Answer: Hannah Arendt / Labor and the Public Sphere

1. Arendt sees labor, historically central to the private world, has now moved so that much of society has become centered on it, at the expense of the public sphere. What does she mean? Why is this a bad thing?

In The Human Condition, Hannah Arendt grapples philosophically with the ways in which our relationship to work, civic participation, and social change have all changed through the course of history. To do so, she often recalls in literary form the mechanics of ancient Greece, whose government and broader social arrangements allowed for public discussion and action. Arendt fixates on this idea of action, which is the highest of our human abilities, serving a role in affirming the realities of the world and actualizing human freedom.

The goal of the public sphere, as a forum of politics, should be to secure this ability to express human freedom then. However, Arendt laments the fact that labor has become a central concern of the public world too, exacerbated by economic conditions and technologies. (Her criticisms are intertwined with many criticisms of capitalism and modernity.) By doing so, it leaves no space or consideration for action, which is her most important metric for growth and development, as opposed to accumulation of capital or resources. Thus, to engender a public sphere capable of meeting these needs would ensure that the plurality of freedoms are being met under a certain government and time.