Work as Enjoyment in Luigi Einaudi and Giuseppe Rensi

For the philosopher Giuseppe Rensi, only play and contemplation produce happiness. Therefore, any work that does not result in this is not compatible with human nature. If this means that self-fulfilment can only be achieved by cultivating what is in itself a source of enjoyment and not what is instrumental to the attainment of future enjoyment, the activities that can be loved, because they produce pleasure at the very moment in which they are practised, are, for Rensi, those of the artist, the craftsman, the scientist, the intellectual in general and the sportsman. The creation, then, of a society in which all men are free is mere utopia, since a necessary condition for the play and contemplation of some is the dehumanising work of others. Einaudi tried to escape this impasse by identifying in the reduction of working time for the production of serial and standardised goods of the Fordist industry the possibility of guaranteeing a progressively longer time to attend to spiritual improvement and therefore also to intellectualleisure.