The Greeks built a democracy around the idea that work would be done by someone else, whether slaves, banausoi, or the laboring classes, who were denied rights to participate in the activities that constituted citizenship. Citizens’ work was praxis, what Guy Standing described as “work done for its own sake, to strengthen personal relationships.” It was the work of what we call social reproduction, of the creation of a public communal life. They valued this work but also differentiated it from true leisure time, which they valued for its own sake.
