labour
labour,as a factor in the production of wealth, has no equivalent in Greek or Latin. Association of the terms ponos and labor with drudgery reflects the negative attitudes of ancient élites, for whom ‘labour’ was the antithesis of scholē and otium (time available for leisure, politics, education, and culture). Consequently, the labour of theoretically free wage-earners and craftsmen tended to be assimilated to slavery (Aristotle Politica 1337b19ff.; Cicero (Marcus Tullius) De officiis 1. 159 f.). Wages were seen as purchasing the person as opposed to labour-power; the supposedly degrading nature of craft-work (banausia) led to the downgrading of the individual worker (see art, ancient attitudes to; artisans and craftsmen). Surviving sources reveal nothing resembling modern conceptions of unions or trade-guilds, strikes, or...
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