The issue is not “work versus leisure” but, rather, “the context of work” 

My own felt recollection of “the sixties” is that, before getting distracted by geo-political issues like the war in Vietnam, the original protests of the younger generation revolved around a “critique of everyday life” in this society. It was primarily countercultural, recognizing that consumerist materialism - and the drone work, the routinization of life, required to support it - was anathema.

“. . . the idea of doing something I didn’t care about for money, for 40 hours a week until I turned 65, filled me with despair. A life like that, I knew, would kill me - it would break my spirit, deaden my heart, and make me into a walking zombie.”
- JoAnne Swanson

Unfortunately, too often, the issue was framed in the wrong way, as “work vs. leisure” or “work vs. play” (this is the mistake Bob Black makes in his widely-read book, The Abolition of Work). That led to the dismissal of “the hippies” as “unwilling to grow up,” not grounded in reality.

People generally understand that the maintenance of life requires work. It was inauspicious that the sixties counterculture too often failed to frame the issue in a way that could make sense to most people and resonate broadly; unfortunate that the alternatives put forward were negative-rather-than-positive or unrealistic or personalistic.

A Green countercultural movement could address the problem of work by talking about Living More Lightly as a win-win solution. It would be better for the planet if we consumed less and a more satisfying life for people if we freed ourselves from the treadmill.

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Work in this society is a treadmill because it is abstracted from direct needs. When we sell our labor-capability to an institution for a wage, the requirement is not to “do what’s necessary to sustain our lives,” but rather to work constantly-productively for the time being paid for - 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year.

The abstract, institutionalized context tends to result in overwork and overconsumption - we lose a lot of time but make a lot of money ("a lot of money” relative to simple, basic, real needs). The values associated with “living lightly” would promote the opposite.

Understanding that family work-activity, for example, is directly meaningful - not abstract - we can say that, rather than “work vs. leisure,” the issue should be framed as: alienated wage-work within a social context of impersonal institutions vs. work-activity within a context that has meaning, relation to direct needs, and personal satisfaction.

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The sustenance of life is social, not just familial. If the context of impersonal institutions is anathema, what is the alternative? The answer, of course, is community ... and the solution to the problem: What to do about work? ... flows from the recognition that work could be meaningful and satisfying if done primarily for the sake of sustaining the lives of our family members and community members.

We could relate to work entirely differently within that context. We could have the sense that work is limited to what’s really necessary, that we’re not wasting our time in abstract toil. Guided by the Green precept of living lightly, we could work less and consume less, gaining our satisfaction from mutuality, the visible benefit and direct appreciation of our effort, pride in collective enterprise, security through interdependence, and the straightforward, unalienated endeavor to sustain our lives.

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