Abstract
This paper reviews the predictions associated with several radical theories which suggest that industrial work has a debilitating impact upon all forms of social life, including leisure. It examines the reasons why sociologists have been so reluctant to test the validity of these assertions, and proceeds to submit them to a program of systematic empirical investigation to the critical context of an English New Town. It reports that there was little evidence to substantiate the view that alienating work is associated with particularly passive or deviant forms of social behavior. It concludes by postulating that this is because in most prosperous sectors of contemporary industrial society, a sharply segmented relationship has developed between the spheres of work and leisure. To a considerable extent the things that people choose to do in their free time are unrelated to the nature of their occupational experiences.

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