Alina Plitman

The concept of work that we use today does not describe or explain the modern working format. This outdated concept makes it impossible to approach such a solution as universal basic income (UBI). Exploring the pairs of terms that describe the concept of work in several languages, we discover two distinct semantic levels of the concept of work — the toi ling and the creating concepts. The phenomenon of work occurs in two areas and on two levels — as a life process and as a social process, on the mental and physical levels. The anthropological work concept by Arendt is unsuitable because it is not complete for modern comprehension of working. In contrast, I will develop a new concept of work as creating that contains all the necessary components of work, allowing me to include the freedom concept into work and eliminate the labor suffering from the concept of work. This revised concept of work is more suitable for describing intellectual work, making it possible to consider work as a basic human need. Hence, work is no longer a mere trait of animal laborans but a means to attain fun, satisfaction, and autonomy.