Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever

Post by pessimizer » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 12:31 AM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #44

perfunctory wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what actually happened[1]: half the workforce gets laid off. The article says as much: > In a sane world, Russell thought, the factory would simply halve working hours, maintaining the same wages but greatly increasing the time that the workers could devote to the joys of leisure. But, as Russell observed, this rarely happens. Instead, the factory owner will opt to keep half the workers on the same hours and lay of…

The reason this didn't happen is two fold. First, workers gain skill by the hour. It's more efficient to have forty hour work weeks for a workforce of half the size than twenty hour work weeks with the same size. Second, many things in the economy are arms races. Housing[0], cost of education, status goods, actual arms for our militaries, etc. We have enough productivity for things like food to be very, very cheap bu…

Post by paulryanrogers » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 12:46 AM UTC

grecy wrote: post #65

Barrin92 wrote: post #10

>we also need to challenge the cultural ethic that teaches us to value ourselves in proportion to our capacity for “economically productive” labour. Human beings are more than just workers. We need to learn how to value idleness. I think much more than valueing idleness it's also a massive indictement of the system we live in. The number of people who I've talked to who legitimately don't know what to do without work…

The day I drove into Mexico it was a huge shock to see so many people around just enjoying their time - paying with their younger relatives on the beach, playing guitar, singing and dancing. My fascination and disbelief at the amount of leisure time everyone has continued for two years through all of Latin America, and then for another three years when I drove right around Africa. Having come from years grinding at a…

Post by pessimizer » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 12:52 AM UTC

jondubois wrote: post #32

Interesting article. It poses a huge dilemma. As more jobs become redundant, how should 'useless people' be compensated relative to 'useful people' without whom the economy could not operate? To complicate matters, many of the 'useless people' could be highly skilled and could theoretically launch their own businesses and start competing against established businesses and take away some market share... But if the mar…

Post by gerdesj » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 12:55 AM UTC

allenu wrote: post #121

caymanjim wrote: post #115

I'm a huge fan of sloth. I frequently take many months off between jobs, sometimes a year or more. I refuse to work more than 40 hours a week except for genuine emergencies (things like outages; being behind schedule never counts), and I'm close to drawing the line at four days a week. I always take at least three weeks off a year, and that's in a bad year. I take "mental health days" often and with no guilt. If you…

I like your attitude. How, if I may ask, did you end up with your current philosophy? Was it through past experiences where people did take your time and you gave in? I love the idea of taking lots of time off, but on a personal level I have a lot of guilt surrounding that. I know it's not rational since ultimately it's my life, but it's still something I need to work on to get over. If you have tips on changing my m…

Post by xwdv » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 12:58 AM UTC

dragonsky wrote: post #108

xwdv wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone is going to say human beings are more than just workers it would be helpful to say exactly what else they can be that doesn't involve work.

I think the point is that you can be whatever you want. It's a change from being forced to do something just to pay the bills to doing what you want because you want to do it due to personal interest. It seems to me that many people need to be told what to be interested in. It is the reason we have fads of interest, driven by media exposure or personalities. It is very rare for somebody to decide to do something with…