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Full Idea
The sight of the unfinished task attracts the free man as powerfully as the over-seer's whip stimulates the slave.
Gist of Idea
The pleasure of completing tasks motivates just as well as the whip of slavery
Source
Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.94)
Book Ref
Weil,Simone: 'Oppression and Liberty' [Routledge 1955], p.94
A Reaction
This is Weil's key social idea - that freely performed productive work can be, and should be, a joy, as long as it is accompanied by respect and friendship, rather than oppression. Did this idea ever occur to a slave owner?