Who are some philosophers who wrote about the value and conditions of work, other than Marx?

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Other historical figures who write on these themes are Plato,Aristotle, Aquinas, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Kant, and Mill. Many of thesethinkers discussed together in intriguing ways private property rightsand the value of work, and I think that Marx's arguments bearinteresting relations to, for example, Locke's and Hegel's views onthat. After Marx, Dewey and Arendt wrote on the large theme you nameas do many contemporary philosophers working in the fields of politicalphilosophy, feminist philosophy, business ethics, and environmentalethics -- probably any large-scale anthology of recent work in thosefields will include some relevant material.

Marx's views aren't discussed as much these days as they were, say, in the late 1970s and 1980s whenGerry Cohen, John Roemer, Tom Bottomore, Alexander Callinicos, andothers did much high-quality work in what was sometimes called"analytical Marxism." Those folks' critical work includes usefuldiscussions of how Marx's ideas on work relate to work earlier in thehistory of philosophy. (I wish that Marx were discussed more nowbecause, first, I think that his critiques of capitalism remainvaluable in our century, and, second, I don't think that the sweepingobjections that some have made Marx are correct, for example, thephilosophical objection that Marx's discussion of ideological illusionmeans that he has no consistent standpoint to offer an ethical critiqueand the pundits' lame assertions that the end of the Cold War andcollapse of the Soviet Union demonstrate the irrelevance of Marx'sideas.)

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