Chapter A Meditation on Riccardo’s Minimal Remarks on the Concept of Work

Abstract

This unusual paper offers a commentary upon a very short, but very important, paper by Riccardo. It is one of his last. My paper is unusual because it sets out the entire text of Riccardo’s paper and offers an ongoing commentary upon that text. My commentary is “spiced into” Riccardo’s text. The subject matter of his text is of fundamental importance for the law of work. This is because Riccardo offers an account or the origins of work and of the relationship between law and work. Once this connection is established it becomes clear that it has radical consequences for the dominant account of the law of work – including both its scope and its purpose. This paper salutes Riccardo’s paper as a masterpiece of philosophising about the law of work. A miniature. But a masterpiece.