Bertrand Russell, in his essay In Praise of Idleness1, discusses the malaise of needless overworking which he finds so clearly present in the society of his time. One which I believe is just as embedded in ours today.
In providing context for his critique, Russell draws attention to an important aspect for workers:
From the beginning of civilisation until the Industrial Revolution, a man could, as a rule, produce by hard work little more than was required for the subsistence of himself and his family, although his wife worked at least as hard as he did, and his children added their labour as soon as they were old enough to do so. The small surplus above bare necessaries was not left to those who produced it, but was appropriated by warriors and priests. In times of famine there was no surplus; the warriors and priests, however, still secured as much as at other times, with the result that many of the workers died of hunger.
While I did not live during these earlier periods, it seems plausible that this was the case. Looking to our modern society, there is however a crucial difference. Today we no longer find priests or warriors stealing the surplus. Instead, as Karl Marx would have put it, the capitalist takes it.
Whether capitalism as the backbone of society is just, fair or a “promoter of well-being” I leave aside to be discussed another time. What interests me is the way we have organized work in this very milieu. The fact is that to provide stability to the general institution of “labour”, we have calibrated work to be in symphony not with the demand of a product, but with the production of it. Meaning, we do not change the working hours of labourers based on the amount needed of any given product, instead we maintain 8-hour shifts in the name of stability, which nonetheless result in lay-offs, or in the worst case bankruptcies.
At least, this is how Great Britain was going about work in the 1900s. And depending on what nations we turn our attention to, this way of doing things can still be found around the world, albeit in a less dramatic form. Returning to Marx, he would most likely disagree with my functionality argument regarding the stubborn fixation on 8-hour shifts, instead making the case that the capitalist is forcing workers in to such a situation in order to extract the surplus value for themselves, in practice making them work as slaves. Marx would indeed likely argue that what appears as “functional stability” is actually a mechanism of exploitation disguised as rational organization.
An ethical dimension
The interesting move from Russell is that he approaches the discussion from an ethical dimension. Unlike my functional analys or Marx’s emancipatory perspective, Russell writes the following:
The modern man thinks that everything ought to be done for the sake of something else, and never for its own sake.
Notice that the “ought” employed is ethically charged. He truly means that the workers of his time felt that it was their duty to work long hours, to come home and rest, in order to once again give their utmost the next day. In fact he exemplifies how this ethical attitude is not just present throughout the working class, but also the elite, when recalling that he once heard an old duchess saying "What do the poor want with holidays? They ought to work".
Contrast this with leisurely activity, in which one spends time doing things for their own sake. Think of playing the piano, talking a walk or having dinner with friends. The same direct access to following ones supposed duty is not present in these activities, thus making the working man uneasy. On this very matter Byung-Chul Han comments that "Because we look at life exclusively from the perspective of work and performance, we view inactivity as a deficiency that must be overcome as quickly as possible"2.
This is an issue of the greatest importance, for in following such a work ethic we lose the space of idleness and inactivity. We reduce ourselves to cogs in a machine, and in so doing, we let go of our humanity in the process.
The utopian dream
Finally, Russell concludes his essay by sharing his vision of a future where technology and industry serve humanity rather than just capital interests. He is admittedly utopian in describing it, but it nonetheless leads to a compelling conclusion: If we accept his vision, then creating space for idleness in our society becomes not just desirable but surely also an ethical imperative.
In a world where no one is compelled to work more than four hours a day, every person possessed of scientific curiosity will be able to indulge it, and every painter will be able to paint without starving, however excellent his pictures may be. Young writers will not be obliged to draw attention to themselves by sensational pot-boilers, with a view to acquiring the economic independence needed for monumental works, for which, when the time at last comes, they will have lost the taste and the capacity. Men who, in their professional work, have become interested in some phase of economics or government, will be able to develop their ideas without the academic detachment that makes the work of university economists often seem lacking in reality. Medical men will have time to learn about the progress of medicine, teachers will not be exasperatedly struggling to teach by routine methods things which they learnt in their youth, which may, in the interval, have been proved to be untrue.
Above all, there will be happiness and joy of life, instead of frayed nerves, weariness, and dyspepsia. The work exacted will be enough to make leisure delightful, but not enough to produce exhaustion. Since men will not be tired in their spare time, they will not demand only such amusements as are passive and vapid. At least one per cent will probably devote the time not spent in professional work to pursuits of some public importance, and, since they will not depend upon these pursuits for their livelihood, their originality will be unhampered, and there will be no need to conform to the standards set by elderly pundits. But it is not only in these exceptional cases that the advantages of leisure will appear.
Ordinary men and women, having the opportunity of a happy life, will become more kindly and less persecuting and less inclined to view others with suspicion. The taste for war will die out, partly for this reason, and partly because it will involve long and severe work for all. Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle. Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for the others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines; in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish for ever.
The benefits of the society Russell describes range from simple quality of life improvements on a personal level, to world-wide peace. It is naively optimistic in a sense which is not just encouraging, but infectious. This is very much a society I would want to live in, a society I would proudly fight for. Sadly, using Russell's own wording, we have so far continued being "foolish" instead of following his advice. However, on that very note I shall end my essay by echoing Russell: So far we have been foolish regarding this matter, but there is no reason to go on being foolish forever.
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