Another important reason that "idleness is more relevant than ever" is climate crisis
https://cepr.net/documents/publications/climate-change-works...
Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever
41–50 of 278 posts
Re: Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever
#42All this thought about the economy and working and idleness doesn't take things far enough. What we really need to abolish is human metabolism. The fact that we need to eat and hustle to grow and acquire calories and nutrients is the real oppressor. We need to scientifically find out how to stop metabolism so we all don't need to work and will never starve. Attack the root of the problem. Next in line is mortality.
Re: Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
If workers controlled the workplace, this is precisely what would happen. It's only because the people doing the work don't control the work that this seems fanciful.
You know, what's funny is that we'll never be sure if that's the case[0]. What guarantee is there that the median socialist voter wouldn't vote for more work for everyone because they want fancier tvs, or more dazzling musical spectacles, or fancier video games, bigger homes, etc? What if society doesn't democratically vote for idleness and quality of life / tranquility? [0] I mean unless there's a real and successfu…
Fancier TVs are not going to make their ~miserable~ (edit: too heavy word) lifes more meaningful. That's what capitalism has made you believe in order to keep you in its chains voluntarily.
Re: Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever
#44Why did Keynes believe that, say, a doubling of efficiency (through technology) would half work time for everyone? Sure it’s a solution to the equation, but so is what actually happened[1]: half the workforce gets laid off. This halves the costs, which facilitates price reduction and thus a competitive edge. Did Keynes believe that benevolence would win over profit? Don’t get me wrong, I wish it had, but that seems a…
> 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 but it just drives up prices elsewhere.
[0] Specifically land value, but also housing in the physical sense since raw materials and labour are not unlimited.
Re: Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever
#45Earlier 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…
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> From above, we can only conclude that capitalism and profit-oriented economy are insane
I don't see the conclusion. I can only see there are many specific problems with capitalism.
Re: Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever
#46Why did Keynes believe that, say, a doubling of efficiency (through technology) would half work time for everyone? Sure it’s a solution to the equation, but so is what actually happened[1]: half the workforce gets laid off. This halves the costs, which facilitates price reduction and thus a competitive edge. Did Keynes believe that benevolence would win over profit? Don’t get me wrong, I wish it had, but that seems a…
Was Keynes right about anything?
Re: Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever
#47You get to praise idleness only after you burn out writing Principia Mathematica.
Re: Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever
#48Earlier 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…
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Re: Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever
#49Re: Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
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> From above, we can only conclude that capitalism and profit-oriented economy are insane I don't see the conclusion. I can only see there are many specific problems with capitalism.
The quote starts with "In a sane world" and from the rest of the quote we can see that we're not living in such world. Isn't that enough to conclude that the (most of the) world is not sane, ie insane?