Action can never manifest through a predictable, deterministic series of consequences, since the subject, by acting, is placed within a complicated web of relationships which cannot be predicted before hand. Its corresponding conditions are natality and plurality. In this sense, worker's equality is almost a tautology, since it equates people through the basic human condition of need, while citizen's equality is by definition equality of unequals that are trying to create a common world. obtain food to survive) and not some unique individuality which is properly his. These however are products of the subject's necessity (ex. Other actions exist of course, such as bartering goods in a market, that do not require such a unique declaration. It necessitates speech (logos), since the actor needs to declare his or her unique existence in order for that action to be considered human.

This world is also made common through action. The third activity, that of great deeds and great words, is specifically political and properly construed can only take place in the public realm potentially leading to the only form of immortality properly accepted in ancient Greece, that of creating something lasting within the world. Necessity is what is similar to humans and thus equating people under Labor is not real equality but a kind of debasement. Arendt points out that equality can only be applied to things that are unequal like the distinct personalities of free citizens. In modern day democracies therefore, the concept of equality which is considered to be one of its pre-conditions, has been skewed into one of similarity as it is now based on common necessity, the realm of Labor. This led Labor out of the constraints of the household to become a significant value on its own right.

As the ancient world-view which sustained these concepts gave way to the modern however, political life waned and the private life of necessity entered the public realm. The condition to which this activity corresponds is the World and was socially connected with the free citizens of the ancient city-states, especially their acts in the realm of politics they were called to undertake. It leaves behind an enduring artefact such as a tool, a manuscript, or a building.

Work on the other hand, being the second activity, has a clearly defined beginning and end.

Hannah the human condition