The Right to be Lazy by Paul Lafargue

[JimN]

Paul Lafargue's classic socialist critique of the capitalist work ethic
(applicable only to the working class) dates from 1883. This means that some of
the bourgeois politicians and ideologues mentioned in the pamphlet have long
since been, deservedly, forgotten, but it remains a powerful presentation of the
case that what workers should be demanding is not the "right to work" under
capitalism but the "right to leisure" in a socialist society, where machines
could be used to lighten labour and free people to engage in activities of their
choice.

Lafargue's approach to work in a socialist society - that it should be minimised
- is only one of two possible socialist approaches to the question. While
Lafargue emphasised the "Right to be Lazy" (or, less provocatively, the "Right
to Leisure"), his contemporary fellow Socialist across the Channel, William
Morris, was arguing that what workers should be demanding was what might be
called the "Right to Attractive Work". As he put it:

"I claim that work in a duly ordered community should be made attractive by the
consciousness of usefulness, by its being carried on with intelligent interest,
by variety, and by its being exercised amidst pleasurable surroundings" (Useful
Work versus Useless Toil, 1884).

The two different approaches suggest two different policies that might be
pursued in a socialist society: maximum automatisation so as to minimise working
time or making as much work as possible attractive and personally rewarding.
Lafargue writes here of reducing the working day to 2 or 3 hours. Morris would
not have seen the point of this even if he went on to claim above that "the
day's work should not be wearisomely long" : if people were getting some
enjoyment out of their work surely, on his view, they would want to engage in it
for longer than a couple of hours or so a day. As this is not an issue that can
be resolved in the abstract, all we can do is to leave the matter to be settled
in socialist society in the light of the preferences of those living in it.

This from the introduction to Lafargue's classic re-issued in a pamphlet by the
Socialist Party of Great Britain

To read the rest whole piece and to find how to get your hands on the pamphlet
see here:

http://tinyurl.com/yhjx5g7

Jim
http://freetimes3x.blogspot.com/
twitter freetimes3x

 

[tendril]

Paul Lafargue's classic socialist critique of the capitalist work ethic
(applicable only to the working class) dates from 1883. This means that some of
the bourgeois politicians and ideologues mentioned in the pamphlet have long
since been, deservedly, forgotten, but it remains a powerful presentation of the
case that what workers should be demanding is not the "right to work" under
capitalism but the "right to leisure" in a socialist society, where machines
could be used to lighten labour and free people to engage in activities of their
choice.

Lafargue's approach to work in a socialist society - that it should be minimised
- is only one of two possible socialist approaches to the question. While
Lafargue emphasised the "Right to be Lazy" (or, less provocatively, the "Right
to Leisure"), his contemporary fellow Socialist across the Channel, William
Morris, was arguing that what workers should be demanding was what might be
called the "Right to Attractive Work". As he put it:

"I claim that work in a duly ordered community should be made attractive by the
consciousness of usefulness, by its being carried on with intelligent interest,
by variety, and by its being exercised amidst pleasurable surroundings" (Useful
Work versus Useless Toil, 1884).

The two different approaches suggest two different policies that might be
pursued in a socialist society: maximum automatisation so as to minimise working
time or making as much work as possible attractive and personally rewarding.
Lafargue writes here of reducing the working day to 2 or 3 hours. Morris would
not have seen the point of this even if he went on to claim above that "the
day's work should not be wearisomely long" : if people were getting some
enjoyment out of their work surely, on his view, they would want to engage in it
for longer than a couple of hours or so a day. As this is not an issue that can
be resolved in the abstract, all we can do is to leave the matter to be settled
in socialist society in the light of the preferences of those living in it.

This from the introduction to Lafargue's classic re-issued in a pamphlet by the
Socialist Party of Great Britain

To read the rest whole piece and to find how to get your hands on the pamphlet
see here:

http://tinyurl.com/yhjx5g7

Jim
http://freetimes3x.blogspot.com/
twitter freetimes3x

Why must it be one or the other? By all means lighten the workload with the use of tools, but also make the work attractive and rewarding and leave the decision up the the worker. Some work cannot be automated (surgery, medicine, catering and public services like the police and the army) and much that is is dull anyway (factory work, fiscal work like accounting and number crunching)

 

[Jean-Luc]

To tell the truth I always thought that the only good thing about this pamphlet was the title (the text is a bit dated and convoluted) as a parody of the demand for the Right to Work, i.e the Right To Be Exploited. Which is still relevant today as rival Trotskyist groups set up rival "Right to Work" campaigns in a bid to recreate the 1980s.

 

[Dr Jon]

See also:

The Slow Movement

The Idler

Why Work

The Abolition of Work

Workers of the World - Relax!

 

[Jean-Luc]

To tell the truth I always thought that the only good thing about this pamphlet was the title (the text is a bit dated and convoluted) as a parody of the demand for the Right to Work, i.e the Right To Be Exploited. Which is still relevant today as rival Trotskyist groups set up rival "Right to Work" campaigns in a bid to recreate the 1980s.

As I said. See here and here
Come back, Lafargue, all is forgiven.

 

[Gramsci]

The whole article is here

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lafargue/1883/lazy/

Thanks for pointing it out JimN im going to read it. William Morris "News From Nowhere" is a description of a future socialist society thats worth reading.

 

[JimN]

The whole article is here

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lafargue/1883/lazy/

Thanks for pointing it out JimN im going to read it. William Morris "News From Nowhere" is a description of a future socialist society thats worth reading.

You're most welcome.

Yes News From Nowhere is well worth reading. In fact almost everything William Morris's wrote in that period of his life is worth reading.

JimN
http://freetimes3x.blogspot.com/
twitter freetimes3x