Should We Have a New Human Right to Freedom From Work?

The importance of the human right to work is recognized by its inclusion in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In this video, NICOLAS BUENO proposes that we reflect on its necessity and reimagine it as something more ambitious, as a new human right to freedom from work. Analyzing the historical context in which labor and fundamental economic rights emerged, Bueno observes that they were conceived to protect not the human being but, rather, the worker as an agent of economic production. Proposing a model which he calls “the human economy” aiming at reducing the need to rely on work, Bueno asks us to reflect upon what we actually create but also destroy through traditional work and how this impacts our need to work. He presents technological developments as both the cause of technological unemployment and source of work emancipation and challenges us to consider the ends of work rather than work as an end in itself.