Amir H. Payberah - 2025-05-23

How can we rethink work not just as a means to profit or survival but as a space for freedom, creativity, and human dignity? In a time when labor is often reduced to metrics, tasks, and efficiency, how might reimagining its value help us move toward more just and humane ways of living?

To explore these questions, we need to move beyond purely instrumental views of human activity and consider how action itself can be meaningful, self-affirming, and liberating. In this regard, both Marx and Kant offer valuable, though distinct, insights. Although they come from different philosophical traditions, they share a powerful idea: that human action, whether in the form of labor or moral duty, should be treated as an end in itself. A closer look reveals important similarities in how they each connect freedom, action, and human fulfillment.

First, both argue that action is most authentically human when it is done for its own sake, not merely as a means to an external goal. For Marx, free and humanized labor is a creative and expressive activity, not something performed under pressure or solely for profit or survival. For Kant, an act is truly moral only when it is done out of duty, guided by reason, and not in pursuit of personal outcomes. In both views, the value of action lies in its intrinsic purpose, not in its consequences.

Second, both emphasize that freedom is essential to meaningful human activity. Marx argues that emancipated labor is only possible when people are freed from economic compulsion and alienating social conditions. Kant likewise grounds morality in autonomy, the capacity to act according to a law one gives oneself. For both, freedom is not just a condition that enables action; it is the foundation of true human agency.

Third, both see authentic action as a path to self-realization. Marx envisions free labor as a transformative process through which individuals shape both the world and themselves, realizing their potential. Kant sees moral action as the expression of a rational will and the affirmation of moral dignity. In both cases, acting freely and purposefully is essential to becoming fully human.

Returning to the opening questions, Marx and Kant invite us to reimagine labor not as mere toil but as a vital space for freedom, creativity, and ethical self-expression. In an age when work is increasingly defined by metrics and efficiency, their shared vision reminds us of the need to reclaim human activity as a source of dignity and purpose. So, if we aim to build a more just, humane, and liberating society, we must begin by rethinking how we understand and value the work we do.