Leisure and social theory.
This paper criticizes the functionalist views of leisure as being idealist, ahistorical and frequently meaningless, and argues that the distinctions between leisure and recreation that abound in the literature are highly spurious. In particular those distinctions derived from a kind of ‘Leisure Aristotelianism’ are seen as a significant misreading of Aristotle. An adequate theory of leisure must be based on the understanding that the usage of time in any society is primarily a function of the existing mode of production, and therefore the relationship between leisure time, work time and the mode and relations of production is a crucial first step in developing a meaningful understanding of leisure.