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The Right to Be Lazy (1883)

marxists.org

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Re: The Right to Be Lazy (1883)

#71

Post by klipt »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #19
klipt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the needs of a society can be met with 3-4 hours of work a day That's a very subjective question. Suppose we could have maintained a 19th century standard of living for everyone with reduced work, but without the scientific and technological advancements that we got by using that time to do even more work. Would you prefer a society where everyone works 15 hr weeks but the internet was never invented?

> Would you prefer a society where everyone works 15 hr weeks but the internet was never invented? How is that even a question have you seen the internet recently. Slamming YES so hard the button breaks.

Okay how about modern medicine then? If you got a cancer that only became treatable in the last ten years, would you trade your life away so that everyone in the last century could work 15 hour weeks and most likely never discover the treatment which was the cumulative result of a century of people working 40 hour weeks?

Re: The Right to Be Lazy (1883)

#73

Post by nverno »

nradov wrote: post #69
FooBarBizBazz wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People engage in wage labor because they find it preferable to alternatives like hunting and gathering berries. They don't exactly choose. If a person wants to live by hunting and gathering, or by subsistence agriculture, he first has to acquire fertile land. And all that land is taken. In the United States, you don't even have the Right to Roam. Nor, on the public rights-of-way, do you have any right to so much as…

Now you're just making excuses. In the USA at least, there are still small parcels of fertile land available very cheaply in isolated rural areas where no one else wants to live. Look for places in Alaska or Appalachia. If someone wants to live the 18th Century subsistence farmer lifestyle then it's totally possible. Get off the Internet and go live your dream.

There are quite a few Amish communities that pretty much live like that. We are lucky in the US- we still have quite a bit of wilderness, plenty to lose yourself in, and live a hunter gatherer lifestyle. I think it would be significantly harder to get away with farming without buying the land, at least in the contiguous states.

Re: The Right to Be Lazy (1883)

#74

Post by throwaquestion5 »

This is from 140 years ago but feel very modern

"The manufacturers have lost their bearings and know not which way to turn. They can no longer find the raw material to satisfy the lawless depraved passion of their laborers for work. In our woolen districts dirty and half rotten rags are raveled out to use in making certain cloths sold under the name of renaissance, which have about the same durability as the promises made to voters. At Lyons, instead of leaving the silk fiber in its natural simplicity and suppleness, it is loaded down with mineral salts, which while increasing its weight, make it friable and far from durable. All our products are adulterated to aid in their sale and shorten their life. Our epoch will be called the “Age of adulteration” just as the first epochs of humanity received the names of “The Age of Stone”, “The Age of Bronze”, from the character of their production"

Re: The Right to Be Lazy (1883)

#75

Post by least »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #61
least wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The concept of "wage slavery" is basically, "you are not free to not earn a wage because you will starve". This is the baseline for basically pretty much all life on earth. You will die unless you perform labor to interrupt death. Your body itself must perform labor in order to generate the energy and to allocate the resources you provide it to survive as well. If you expand the definition of slavery to encompass l…

It might help to read more about Marxism to avoid a reductio ad absurdum. The general argument as laid out in Capital vol 1 is highlighted in the working day[1]. This section introduces the contradiction between laborer and capitalist, namely, that a laborer is paid for his or her time, while the capitalist in turn receives the product of creation. The point is that this is a rather strange exchange. Instead of the l…

> The point is that this is a rather strange exchange. Instead of the laborer's product of creation being bought as a commodity, the capitalist pays the laborer for their time. The capitalist makes a profit (in their subsequent transactions[2]) because the the money gained by reselling what the laborer produces nets a profit[3]. Were that this was a fair trade, there would be no profit to make.[4]

> 3. Yes, even when accounting for raw materials and the investment in the instruments of production.

Even if you just presume this to be true, which is ridiculous, it fails to acknowledge that 1) resources are a finite and scarce, 2) supply and demand are variable, and as such, so is the value of labor and goods (money is a representation of labor), and 3) that the "capitalists" in this situation are performing labor by performing transactions (but also probably many other things as well).

Your argument basically hinges on the notion that the value of goods is static and that certain types of labor have zero value.

Re: The Right to Be Lazy (1883)

#76

Post by lampshades »

archarios wrote: post #24

IDK about y'all, but being lazy generally makes me feel horrible. I love getting things done. I hate having to labor simply to enrich others and for me to survive. But I love doing work that I think is meaningful and makes a difference so much more than chilling all day. Chilling needs to happen, but not all the time!

I feel physically ill if I’m completely unproductive.

Re: The Right to Be Lazy (1883)

#77

Post by kelseyfrog »

least wrote: post #75
kelseyfrog wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might help to read more about Marxism to avoid a reductio ad absurdum. The general argument as laid out in Capital vol 1 is highlighted in the working day[1]. This section introduces the contradiction between laborer and capitalist, namely, that a laborer is paid for his or her time, while the capitalist in turn receives the product of creation. The point is that this is a rather strange exchange. Instead of the l…

> The point is that this is a rather strange exchange. Instead of the laborer's product of creation being bought as a commodity, the capitalist pays the laborer for their time. The capitalist makes a profit (in their subsequent transactions[2]) because the the money gained by reselling what the laborer produces nets a profit[3]. Were that this was a fair trade, there would be no profit to make.[4] > 3. Yes, even when…

I regret to inform you that this argument is not mine; it's Marx's. You're more than welcome to direct your complaints to him, but he may take a while to respond.

Be assured though, if you take the time to read Capital, your criticisms are addressed. I'd encourage you to read it. It's a much better way to understand the argument than a HN comment section. Good luck!

Re: The Right to Be Lazy (1883)

#78

Post by antisthenes »

heavyset_go wrote: post #41
least wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The concept of "wage slavery" is basically, "you are not free to not earn a wage because you will starve". This is the baseline for basically pretty much all life on earth. You will die unless you perform labor to interrupt death. Your body itself must perform labor in order to generate the energy and to allocate the resources you provide it to survive as well. If you expand the definition of slavery to encompass l…

Wage labor isn't a natural baseline, though. It's an arbitrary system that benefits certain people at the expense of others, and is just as natural as feudalism, monarchism, etc. If you want to make an argument from history and nature, you can't ignore that early human societies didn't have wage labor, nor were there asset owning classes that didn't work and depended on the labor of others. Those kind of relations ev…

> It's an arbitrary system that benefits certain people at the expense of others, and is just as natural as feudalism, monarchism, etc.

Yeah, but for a person coming into it, it sure is a hell of a lot easier to just earn a wage and buy existing goods, rather than be self-sufficient and grow your own crops, plant your own trees to harvest lumber and mine your own ore to make steel.

Nor is the shift back to hunting/gathering even possible at this point. The population of the planet is such that we would consume all animal and plant matter within months, if it were not replenished in highly structured ways on farms.

Re: The Right to Be Lazy (1883)

#79

Post by least »

heavyset_go wrote: post #41
least wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The concept of "wage slavery" is basically, "you are not free to not earn a wage because you will starve". This is the baseline for basically pretty much all life on earth. You will die unless you perform labor to interrupt death. Your body itself must perform labor in order to generate the energy and to allocate the resources you provide it to survive as well. If you expand the definition of slavery to encompass l…

Wage labor isn't a natural baseline, though. It's an arbitrary system that benefits certain people at the expense of others, and is just as natural as feudalism, monarchism, etc. If you want to make an argument from history and nature, you can't ignore that early human societies didn't have wage labor, nor were there asset owning classes that didn't work and depended on the labor of others. Those kind of relations ev…

> Wage labor isn't a natural baseline, though. It's an arbitrary system that benefits certain people at the expense of others, and is just as natural as feudalism, monarchism, etc.

Labor having value is in fact wholly arbitrary, which is why its value fluctuates depending on various market conditions. Fundamentally, it depends on people valuing living, which is why what I'm saying is not unnatural.

"Wage labor" is just "labor."

> If you want to make an argument from history and nature, you can't ignore that early human societies didn't have wage labor, nor were there asset owning classes that didn't work and depended on the labor of others.

Asset owning people do work, though. This notion falls apart under minute scrutiny. There's of course people that inherit wealth that only ever exchange it for consumption of goods or services, but those people are still inheriting labor from people that chose to give them it.

Re: The Right to Be Lazy (1883)

#80

Post by quickthrower2 »

elefanten wrote: post #51

Funny this guy was arguing, in 1883, that automation could reduce the average workday to 4 hours. Good example to consider when reasoning about the current AI wave

The thing that will reduce the workday is everyone deciding to do it. Imagine the silly meetings and pointless work that just can’t be done when you starve the machine of humute (human compute) hours. Innovation would be the result. Entire businesses may be untenable and rightly so.

Few things need long work days if we are happy to sacrifice some convenience. Supermarket hours can be fewer for example.

Jobs like police, doctors etc. maybe not but we should probably reward them more accordingly.

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