LABLACHE, Luigi, loo-ele la-blish', op eratic singer: b. Naples, Italy, 6 Dec. 1794; d. there, 23 Jan. 1858. He studied at the local Conservatorio della Pieta della Turchini under the guidance of Valesi and made his debut as a bass singer, buffo Napoletano, in Fioravanti's
LABOR. Labor may be de fined as the physical or mental effort of human beings for the attainment of some object other than the pleasure of the effort itself. Simple as this definition is there is scarcely a word in it but what has been the subject of discussion. The popular use of the word labor restricts it to those who engage in manual toil, but this is of course too narrow. Any scientific defini tion must include mental effort. In modern industry brains are needed as well as muscle. Men must organize the productive forces and direct their employment along chosen lines. Upon their ability quite as much as upon the skill and strength of the manual workers, and indeed to an even greater degree, depends the success of modern enterprise. To-day this con cept is fully recognized and not even the most extreme socialist would deny the, productive character of mental effort.
Labor is generally limited in popular usage to that of human beings but not all economists have so defined it. Adam Smith spoke of
bouring cattle,D and said more than once that <
More difficult of restriction within the ring fence of a definition is the next concept. Some writers have denied the term labor to any ex ertions which yield pleasure or are undertaken for the sake of the pleasure accompanying them. Painful effort only is labor. Thus W. S. Jevous wrote, ((Labor, I should say, is any pain ful exertion of mind or body undergone partly or wholly with a view to future good?' And yet even Jevous pointed out that most forms of labor, after the initial irksomeness had been overcome, yielded distinct pleasure to the worker, a principle which the French socialist Founier had earlier made the basis of his i scheme for the organization of labor. It is m possible thus to limit the term, for it would ex clude some of the highest forms of creative art or literature or even handicraft and confine it only to distasteful or painful occupations. In deed the same kind of exertion might at one time he called labor and at another time be de nied that name. The whole psychology of la bor is moreover involved in this limitation of the idea. Labor is regarded as a curse. But the purpose of economic progress and of human invention is, or should be, to lighten the burden upon labor, to associate with the performance of necessary tasks a pleasure and pride in workmanship. In its highest aspect labor should be regarded as a privilege rather than a curse.