The Right to be Lazy, by Paul Lafargue is a book with too many claims to tame—too much that only adds up if I stop adding altogether. So, let’s hold our but-buts, buckaroos. Let’s let the ideas flow over and see what they wash off. When I say work isn’t necessary, ethical, or ᖇEᗩᒪ, treat them claims tender. They're delicate blooms.
I know the landlord’s demand their rent and the debt’s demand their due. I know this work game is 99.9% mandatory. But it’s for sure a game, and it’s for suuuure rigged.
Personally, it’s been a tough game. I’ve never liked competition. I’d rather be the streaker, dancing nude on the field of play, juking security guards slapstick style, while crowds gape in pleasant confusion.
But that’s no way to make a living.
Wait. Make a living?
So, let’s talk about The Right to be Lazy. Lafargue (Karl Marx’s son-in-law) wrote The Right to be Lazy from a prison cell in 1865. He was never jailed for long but his Marxist activism landed him clink-side from time-to-time. Here is a taste of the humor he summoned from his cell.
“Shame on the proletariats! Where are those gossip mongers depicted in our fables and our old-time tales, brassy and bold and boozy? Where are those buxom girls always on the move, cooking and singing, propagating life and sowing joy wherever they go, giving painless birth to strong ruddy children?” - The Right to be Lazy
Writing something in prison glazes it with a provocative hipness, and The Right to be Lazy is whimsically in-your-face. Lafargue advocates that creditors let debtors pay them back in prayers — “They’re a sight more likely to send you to paradise than your black-sack padres.” He demands wage work be capped at 3 hours a day — “work is going to become a mere condiment to flavor the tasty dish of laziness.”
(っ◔◡◔)っ≋Y≋U≋M≋M≋Y≋
Lafargue’s hot takes hold a modern relevance that edges on eerie. He cites the “boundless productive power” of his time as evidence of the lunacy of capitalism’s boundless human labor project.
“Every machinated minute therefore equals a hundred hours of a working woman’s labor . . . every minute of machine work gives the worker ten days of rest.” - The Right to be Lazy
Hey yeah, why doesn't the self-checkout at my grocer deposit its labor replacement into our collective bank of rest? Why not demand that it does?
Where six checkers worked for $10 p/hr, there now stands one (working extra hard). Why not keep all six employed at ⅙ the time and pay them $60 an hour? I’ll be generous, let’s call it $50, because the grocer has gotta buy & maintain the machines, yada yada.
I’m no dullard. I know it is more c̴̮̝̿̕͠o̴̍̃̈́͝m̴̂͊̕p̵̏̓̕l̴̛̈̎͘͝ë̸͚̼̉͌͐̇͝ẍ̴̌̈́ than that. But these c̶͆̄̃̊̇̕o̸͇̍͑͐̆͠m̴̊͛́̋̆͊͐̉̕͝p̵͝l̷̢͔̊͊ë̷̙́̀͐x̸̛̉̅̾͠i̸͆̅t̴ỉ̸̈́e̶̽̀͂͠s̷͒̀ are composed of a ludacris comitment to endless economic growth. It’s like I’m trying to clean a house, but it’s more c̴̮̝̿̕͠o̴̍̃̈́͝m̴̂͊̕p̵̏̓̕l̴̛̈̎͘͝ë̸̉ẍ̴̌̈́ than that because it’s full of greedy ghosts hell bent on haunting.
The c̶͆̄̃̊̇͑̕o̸͇͈̜̪̍͑͐̆͠ͅm̴̊͛́̋̆͊͐̉̕͝p̵͐̓͌͊̐͝l̷̢͔̊͊ë̷̙́̀͐x̸̛̉̅̾͠i̸͆̅t̴ỉ̸̈́̋e̶̽̀͂͠s̷͒̀ belong in a grave.
“Thus, even as they clench their own bellies, the working class unduly bloats the bellies of the bourgeoisie condemned to over-consumption.” - The Right to be Lazy
I like this concept of a dual damnation. The working class is damned to toil as the bourgeoisie is damned to consume. This is why the machine that does the work of six people doesn’t grant six people rest. The working class and the bourgeoisie push the toil/consume wheel together, faster and farther till the workday is back up to its arbitrary 8 hours. How much faster can the wheel spin til it tears itself apart.
“The major problem of capitalist production is no longer finding producers and maximizing their efforts but finding consumers, exciting their appetites, and manufacturing false needs.” - The Right to be Lazy
Doesn’t it seem like not shopping is harder than shopping? Digital billboards dominate the visual field of my commute. I turn away from them and look into the eyes of an I-will-fight-for-YOU attorney ad on the side of a bus. I arrive at work. The app I use to clock-in has ads for other apps that I must (before I clock in to work!) X out. All my life, a store.
“All of our products are adulterated to promote sales and limit their lifespan. Our era will be called the Fake Age.” - The Right to be Lazy
And this was ≋1≋8≋6≋5≋ yo! I bet every generation thinks they’ve reached Peak Fake. But the 40-hour workweek seems timeless.
If I ask you what feels more ᖇEᗩᒪ, laziness or industriousness? A day stiff with duties to the economic growth of our nation, or a day stretching out like a well sunned kitty? Which feels more ᖇEᗩᒪ: the right to work, or the right to not work?
“Stupefied by their vice, the workers have not been able to see that in order to have work for everybody, it must be rationed like water on a ship in distress.” - The Right to be Lazy
Out here in Phoenix, the first cars have begun to drive themselves. For a modest price I can go from . . .
ATM → to → Grocery → to → home
. . . interacting with machines alone. Each time a JOB is removed it is not replaced—not 1-for-1 anyway. Where could this lead to mass unemployment? No wonder Universal Basic Income is on the table. Within the decade we will—with the crazy-maker answer of 𝒷𝑒𝒸𝒶𝓊𝓈𝑒 𝒸𝒶𝓅𝒾𝓉𝒶𝓁𝒾𝓈𝓂—be paid to shop.
“Sailors, dockhands, will have to sit down and learn how to twiddle their thumbs.” - The Right to be Lazy
Lafargue argues from that old utopian angle of a return to hyper-local economies (a solution more imaginable in 1865). I do believe localizing one's consumption, to whatever degree is accessible, is good for the soul. I believe that thumb-twiddling is exceptional for the soul.
“If the working classes would root out the vices that domineers them and debases their nature, they would rise up in all their terrible strength and call not for the Rights of Man, which are only the rights of capitalist exploitation, or the right to work, which is only the right to be poor, but for the passage of an ironclad law prohibiting any man from working more than three hours a day, and the Earth, the old Earth, trembling with joy, would feel a new universe of life leaping within her…” - The Right to be Lazy
Oh, I’m so down. Every JOB I’ve ever held eventually feels like a distraction. A big ‘BUT I HAVE TO’ shouting over a calling I’m afraid to answer. Outside obligation, in the 𝓁𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝑜𝒻 𝒹𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓂 & 𝒸𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃, be fire dragons . . . and money █▓ BURNS ▒░ so easy.
But it occurs to me that ≋L≋A≋Z≋Y≋ doesn’t mean the absence of creation. ≋L≋A≋Z≋Y≋ is the rest of genesis. It means doing the thing that leaves you with mo0o0o0ore of yourself. It’s trite but bears stating hear: sex, group meals, art, coffee with an old friend, walking, reading, are all ≋L≋A≋Z≋Y≋ .
I dream of a life as a cosmic lay-about, where my work, liberated from productivity indoctrination, jumps out the ≋L≋A≋Z≋Y≋ pond of my soul.
“As for the bourgeois incapable of furnishing valid proof of their good-for-nothingness, they will be allowed to follow their instincts: there are quite enough disgusting jobs to accommodate them.” - The Right to be Lazy
It would be a silly land where work becomes the option for those who can’t embrace doing nothing. It seems like nothing is bad for biz, and what’s bad for biz is good for nothing
.Then, all at once, 𝙁𝙐𝙇𝙇𝙔 𝘼𝙐𝙏𝙊𝙈𝘼𝙏𝙀𝘿 𝙇𝙐𝙓𝙐𝙍𝙔 𝘾𝙊𝙈𝙈𝙐𝙉𝙄𝙎𝙈 . . .
“Our machines breathe fire, have limbs of steel, never grow weary, never need to sleep. They are marvelously productive and behave docilely—even as they go about their sacred work. And yet the minds of great capitalist philosophers continue to be dominated by the prejudice of wage labor, the worst sort of slavery. They still don’t understand the the machine is humanity’s savior . . . the god who will give him leisure and liberty.” - The Right to be Lazy
ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ OOPS! ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
ᴅɪᴅ ᴛʜɪꜱ ᴍᴀᴋᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ꜰᴇᴇʟ ᴀɴʏᴛʜINɢ ᴡᴏʀᴛʜ ꜰᴇᴇʟɪɴɢ? ɪꜰ ꜱᴏ, ᴍᴀʏʙᴇ . . .
ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ ꜱᴏᴍᴇᴏɴᴇ ᴇʟꜱᴇ ᴍɪɢʜᴛ ꜱᴛᴀɴᴅ ᴛᴏ ɢᴇᴛ ꜱᴏᴍᴇᴛʜɪɴɢ ꜰʀᴏᴍ ᴛʜɪꜱ? ɪꜰ ꜱᴏ . . .