(T)here is no reason to believe that, given individualism, the social problem would be essentially different if life had no economic aspect whatever. If all our material wants were automatically gratified, or if we had none; if we had no “work” in any sense to do, and the social problem in, say, the United States, were simply that of organizing play activities for the relief of boredom, there is no reason to believe that social conflicts would be either less intense or essentially changed in character. (Moreover, there would probably be “classes” and “class struggles” in essentially the same meaning as now.) Indeed, it is a sobering reflection that the competitiveness of play is a phenomenon indefinitely older and more general than the competitive organization of economic life.

Frank H. Knight (1947). Pragmatism and Social Action, in Freedom and Reform. Essays in Economics and Social Philosophy, p 51