Leisure, Labor and Their Relations: A Criticism of Baudrillard's View of Leisure

Following the dichotomy of western traditional leisure philosophy, Baudrillard defined leisure as free time outside labor. On that basis, he clarified the equal domination of commodity logic over labor and leisure time from the time scarcity of consumer society. Then he came to the conclusion that in fact leisure time is not free, and thus fell into the despair to modern leisure. Behind this pessimistic attitude lies Baudrillard's misinterpretation of leisure, labor and the relationship between them. To avoid this tragedy of leisure it is not only necessary to correctly understand labor, leisure and their unified relations in theory, but also essential to facilitate the interaction of labor and leisure and to realize the integration of them in practice.