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The Right to Be Lazy (1883)

marxists.org

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Re: The Right to Be Lazy (1883)

#101

Post by WalterBright »

WaxProlix wrote: post #98
WalterBright wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Roughly how much "work" does every person in the world need to do so that every person in the world can live a minimal but decent lifestyle? It turns out people have to work harder for that than they do working under a free market system, where they get to keep what they earn.

> they get to keep what they earn. And 'earn' what they're allowed -- 'earn' is kind of a weasel word in that sentence.

It is not a weasel word. If free market workers were only "allowed" some money, they would all be working at minimum wage. I personally know many working for well into 6 figures.

It's under a non-free market system where the government sets your non-negotiable pay, i.e. what you're "allowed".

Re: The Right to Be Lazy (1883)

#102

Post by cassepipe »

mjfl wrote: post #38
giraffe_lady wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is consistent with the meaning of bourgeoisie then, which transposed to modern systems means more like "the owner class" than the contemporary social connotation of well-compensated professionals. Owners benefit from more/harder work, both their own and that of others, and so it (reasonably) becomes a class value for them. A non-owner worker doesn't benefit in the same way, but many still value work in the same wa…

so you're saying he's bourgeoisie. Yeah that's the irony. The irony is that he's rich enough to have that lifestyle and still have food, while poor people would not.

You are trying very hard not to think out of your box. First Lafargue was by no means rich nor a capitalist. Then this is not about promoting a "lifestyle", it is basically a proposal to have everyone work less by sharing the workload. Think of it what you will but do not misrepresent it. I suggest you actually read the book.

Re: The Right to Be Lazy (1883)

#104

Post by bigDinosaur »

Zircom wrote: post #83
giraffe_lady wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know but HN is pretty far from a marxist circle in my experience. And it does also have, at least in american english, a connotation very similar to that of yuppie eg more about social class than relationship to the means of production.

HN skews pretty neo liberal. A lot of holy-than-thou proselytizing of Western exceptionalism, as if Western culture actually earned it's place as the dominant culture on Earth through the virtue of simply being better than everyone else, who I guess just didn't want it bad enough, rather than a combination of luck, ruthless exploitation, and general disregard for the well-being of their fellow man.

Yikes, someone has a chip on their shoulder.

Re: The Right to Be Lazy (1883)

#105

Post by osigurdson »

WalterBright wrote: post #93
armchairhacker wrote: post #33

Roughly how much "work" does every person in the world need to do so that every person in the world can live a minimal but decent lifestyle? Of course, some people will want and take more than "decent", some people are disabled so its unreasonable to expect and unfair to demand for them to contribute the same amount, some people genuinely like to work all sorts of jobs (including hard labor), and speaking of, there a…

> Roughly how much "work" does every person in the world need to do so that every person in the world can live a minimal but decent lifestyle? It turns out people have to work harder for that than they do working under a free market system, where they get to keep what they earn.

What we need is for workers to control the means of production so that eventually one guy can become the king and rule by decree.

Re: The Right to Be Lazy (1883)

#106

Post by Aunche »

I wonder how many people who think that everyone would be better if they worked half the hours were laughing at Elon Musk for laying off what he though was deadweight and having to rehire them.

Re: The Right to Be Lazy (1883)

#107

Post by kelseyfrog »

least wrote: post #95
kelseyfrog wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but did I do something to offend you?

You made a clear rebuttal to my original comment, supported by what Marx wrote. I'd ask that you take ownership of your own argument rather than shifting it over to Marx. Your assertion was this: > Extending this to all labor is evidently disingenuous as the argument is contingent on the exchange of money and I hope at this point, given the above, you can see why. In order for me to agree with your assertion, I'd hav…

Take a step back for a moment. The point your making is that wage slavery shouldn't exist as an interesting or separate category because all organisms have to work to live. This is like saying that sex trafficking isn't conceptually important because species must reproduce to survive. It's so wildly beyond the pale that it's difficult to categorize it as a particular breech of logic other than simply and fundamentally confused.

Re: The Right to Be Lazy (1883)

#108

Post by zozbot234 »

Paul Graham has a very nice perspective on this: https://www.paulgraham.com/opensource.html (2005)

"I think the most important of the new principles business has to learn is that people work a lot harder on stuff they like. Well, that's news to no one. So how can I claim business has to learn it? When I say business doesn't know this, I mean the structure of business doesn't reflect it.

Business still reflects an older model, exemplified by the French word for working: travailler. It has an English cousin, travail, and what it means is torture.

This turns out not to be the last word on work, however. As societies get richer, they learn something about work that's a lot like what they learn about diet. We know now that the healthiest diet is the one our peasant ancestors were forced to eat because they were poor. Like rich food, idleness only seems desirable when you don't get enough of it. I think we were designed to work, just as we were designed to eat a certain amount of fiber, and we feel bad if we don't."

Re: The Right to Be Lazy (1883)

#109

Post by drdeca »

ruined wrote: post #86
nradov wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're asking the wrong question. Regardless of the specific number of work hours that would be necessary to live a minimal but decent lifestyle (however you choose to define that), some people will always choose to work longer and harder in order to raise their social status. That status is often denominated in money but it can also take the form of possession of scarce resources, athletic skills, physical appearanc…

social status is, by definition, cultural, and cultural values are malleable. i think it's also worth pointing out that work is perhaps not so connected to status as may be assumed. there is plenty of work that provides no status, and it seems to me that higher-status people work less.

By definition of “social status” or by definition of “cultural”?

That something is malleable doesn’t imply that it is infinitely malleable.

Also yes, more work does not correspond to higher status in any monotonic way like that. This doesn’t cause any problem for the claim that some people would opt to do more work in order to gain more status?

Re: The Right to Be Lazy (1883)

#110

Post by matkoniecz »

heavyset_go wrote: post #23
matkoniecz wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> According to Lafargue, wage labour is tantamount to slavery It does seem to be quite useless way to look at the world. It seems that they are unaware of what slavery actually means or deliberately mislead. Or Wikipedia is inaccurate.

The abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass had this to say on the subject of wage labor[1]: > [E]xperience demonstrates that there may be a slavery of wages only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other From Wikipedia[1]: > Douglass went on to speak about these conditions as arising from the unequal bargaining power be…

> [E]xperience demonstrates that there may be a slavery of wages only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery

I agree, but claiming that it applies to all wage labour is ridiculous.

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