
Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever - pepys
https://www.newstatesman.com/2020/08/why-bertrand-russells-argument-idleness-more-relevant-ever
======
caymanjim
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 don't own your time, people will
take it from you.

I'm perhaps speaking from a place of privilege, but it's not that hard to
achieve. I've been doing this my whole life, from minimum wage jobs through
decades of professional career.

Sit on the couch. Take a vacation. Quit your job. Say no to overtime always
and forever. Blow off weekends often. Nothing is as important as others will
tell you it is. You're going to die some day and when you're on your death bed
you won't regret the times you did nothing.

~~~
allenu
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 mindset surrounding this, I'd love to hear it.

~~~
mettamage
I identify with his post. I always had a rebellious streak when it comes to
people judging me. In return, I don’t judge other people myself. It also saves
a lot of energy :)

That’s how I don’t feel guilty. I am not doing anything and you can do
whatever you want in life too.

I find it tough to achieve though. I am currently at 4 days per week but would
like to be at 3.5 days, that’s my optimum (lower than 3 days and I will go
insane of not exercising my mind).

~~~
perfunctory
> lower than 3 days and I will go insane of not exercising my mind

It's not like paid work is the only place where you can exercise your mind

~~~
mettamage
I agree but I find it the most practical place. If I can’t exercise my mind,
then there’s nothing for me at work other than obtaining an income (no SF
salary here so no financial independence possible).

~~~
6510
I do the same only I exercise the body at work.

~~~
mettamage
Nice one!

Fair enough, I thought about doing that too. I chose for the mind, but IMO the
body is a good option as well, especially because if you choose the right
profession (i.e. light to medium exercise), it probably means you'll live
longer.

------
Barrin92
>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 during the pandemic is
staggering.

It says a lot that as a society there is so little attention paid to
instilling curiousity in people and fostering people's potential that, left
without menial work to do, nobody knows what to do with themselves.

~~~
perfunctory
> The number of people who I've talked to who legitimately don't know what to
> do without work during the pandemic is staggering.

The pleasures of urban populations have become mainly passive: seeing cinemas,
watching football matches, listening to the radio, and so on. This results
from the fact that their active energies are fully taken up with work; if they
had more leisure, they would again enjoy pleasures in which they took an
active part.

\-- Bertrand Russell
[http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html](http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html)

~~~
marcusverus
I'm not sure that this little nugget of wisdom has withstood the test of time.
The average number of hours worked has fallen dramatically since the 30s[0]
even as interest in passive entertainment has skyrocketed.

[0][https://eh.net/encyclopedia/hours-of-work-in-u-s-
history/](https://eh.net/encyclopedia/hours-of-work-in-u-s-history/)

~~~
josho
The core of it stands that 'urban populations have become mainly passive'.
Perhaps I'd consider revising to replace passive with consumers. So, we've
been taught and continually urged to spend our idle hours consuming. So, it
isn't a surprise to me that most folks don't know any other way to spend their
time.

~~~
goldenkey
Consumption usually costs money and increases money velocity, which leads to a
better economy. So it's a bit different than "idleness."

~~~
brokenmachine
A better economy... Please define "better".

~~~
goldenkey
Money is worse when its velocity is low. This is associated with hoarding of
cash.

The world could have 10000T in cash but if no exchange happens, everyone is
poor.

~~~
brokenmachine
Endless consumption is a delusion, regardless of how much "better" the economy
appears.

Idleness doesn't necessitate consumption, and it's interesting that that
conclusion was jumped to.

------
Xophmeister
Why 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 little naive.

[1] It occurs to me that another solution is to keep the work force, but
double the work. This also happened; it seems like there are plenty of jobs
that are just busy work with no real purpose.

~~~
perfunctory
> 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 off the rest. The gains from the advances of
> technology will be realised not as an expansion of leisure but rather as
> drudgery for some and jobless destitution for others, with the savings
> enjoyed only by the winner, the factory owner.

~~~
3pt14159
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.

~~~
pessimizer
Zeroth, the more unemployed, the more downward salary pressure on the
employed.

edit: the reasonable expectation is that half of the workers are fired _and_
the remaining workers' salaries are cut. The Luddites were a result of
noticing technological improvements lowered wages and employment at the same
time.

~~~
Joker_vD
It's kinda weird how the labour is almost always in oversupply.

~~~
marvin
Won't be if basic income becomes available :)

------
subsubzero
Reading the title and actually reading what Bertrand Russell was talking about
are two different things. Russell when he refers to leisure isn't talking
about sitting on a porch staring up at the sky(or binge watching netflix), he
is talking about pursuing interesting hobbies and learning into subjects not
core to ones occupation(but also a little plain idleness as well). With most
people in tech jobs and especially if you have a family, time is extremely
constrained. I would love to get more involved in astronomy, study into
physics and just learn more about various areas of history. Due to the
pandemic work has for me increased tremendously and become very stressful. I
sometimes wish I was unemployed so I can focus on these side projects which I
love, but couldn't deal with the loss of income. If I had the extra time I
would be extremely busy so to speak, so its strange when I hear about people
who are bored during the past few months who are not working.

------
Thorentis
Some of the highest goods (as in, virtuous or wholesome things) are those that
are sometimes described by workaholics, or parents of over achievers, as
"useless" or "wastes of time".

Art, music, sport, leisure, time with family- all these things (and more) put
us in touch with the greater things in life. We collectively live out the
human experience in a way that crashes through barriers of language, and in my
opinion, we also encounter the transcendental.

Work is simply a means - not an end in itself. I work so I can provide for my
family. The good I am pursuing is the welfare of my family. That gives my work
a higher meaning. Those engaged in charity work or volunteer work (also a
higher good) are usually paid the least.

I find that the people who fall into the trap of treating their work as an
end, are the ones the most susceptible to burn out, depression, and low life
satisfaction.

Make time for the "useless" things. Go for a walk, read a book, look at the
birds, listen to music, write a poem, get out those pencils you never use,
play an instrument, watch a good film, go fishing, spend time with your kids,
buy something nice for your wife. But for goodness sake, forget about work for
enough time each week. You'll feel infinitely better.

~~~
chii
> virtuous, wholesome, ... higher good ...

what counts as virtuous etc, is just a set of beliefs you have. The person who
"treating their work as an end" is not less happy, in the same way that a
worker ant is happy doing what they were born to do (work themselves to
death). Assigning your value judgement on someone else's life decisions just
another way to be on a high horse. Who's to say that the workaholics are wrong
to live the way they do?

------
UncleOxidant
FIRE (Financial Independence/Retire Early) is now a popular goal among the
young. If you retire early, however, you're going to have to figure out what
to do with all the leisure time. It would perhaps be better to have people
working fewer hours, but over more years - a longterm 3-day workweek would
allow for plenty of leisure as well as work.

~~~
icelancer
I can only speak for myself, but I know a lot of people with similar goals to
me - I've worked a full-time job since I was 17, and upon leaving college,
have always worked 2 or more jobs (typically one-full time, one
entrepreneurial venture or part-time internship to gain experience - currently
I just work two full-time jobs, one of them my own company, and do some
sporadic consulting as well).

I'm in my late 30's and plan on "retiring" in my early 50's. I had kids in my
late 20's, so we're good there (it's been tough of course). I doubt I'll stop
working and will probably switch to working 2-3 days a week for a few months
at a time, or getting on a few boards of directors and being an
advisor/consultant, or something like that.

I work 70+ hours/week on average and have done so for over a decade. I know
this pace isn't sustainable; I'm falling behind every year that passes me
while I watch 23 year olds put in the hours I used to. So for people our age,
we have to put the work in now if we want leisure time later.

America is turning into a winner-takes-most society and I don't see that
changing anytime soon. It will become harder and harder to be a "punch the
clock" person and retire at a normal age, especially as life expectancy
continues to get pushed out.

~~~
gthtjtkt
This honestly sounds just like my nightmares.

I'd rather go live in a tent than spend 10+ years putting in 70+ hour weeks
just to retire when all of my best years are behind me.

~~~
icelancer
Feel free. Different strokes. I spent 3 years of my life professionally
gambling as one of my full-time jobs and lived more in those 3 years than most
do in a lifetime, and founded a company with an eight-figure valuation that is
a lot of fun to run. If I worked some boring desk job that I hated, sure.

Besides, my best years are ahead of me. I'll be in great shape in my 50s with
nothing but time and options. The idea that your 20s and 30s are the best
years of your life is a very antiquated concept.

~~~
zemvpferreira
Plenty of us here founded companies with eight-figure valuations. Not that
uncommon on hacker news.

I did and I’ve never worked-worked more than 30 hours per week except for
short bursts at a time. The more critical your work is, the more time you
should dedicate to being at your best.

I don’t take any umbrage at your chosen path nor do I disagree that america is
a winner take most society. But when most is a bunch of unnecessary consumer
faff, maybe enough is better to shoot for.

These days I work 15-20 hours per week. I spend as much time as I want
abroad/surfing/screwing around on the internet. I’m 35. I don’t care to fly
first class or buy Vuitton. But I do have all my meals and my bed made for me.

~~~
icelancer
Well I work two jobs plus consulting, so it's like 30-35 hrs/job if that
works!

I agree RE: consumerism. I save / invest most of my money and spend it on
services like you (though I cook most of my meals since it's a hobby of mine;
but same idea with a nanny, housekeeper, etc). I wear mostly free clothing
from vendors and my suits (such that I need them) are all from Indochino; I
drive a 12 year old used SUV around and live in a modest townhome in a not-
great area of my city.

I have "enough." I enjoy work, a lot. I get the feeling a lot of people don't
like working, or like their job, or something. It's not a chore. 70 hours a
week producing and working is indeed a hell of a lot of fun. Especially for
those years when it was gambling... but hey, what I do now is still almost as
fun.

EDIT: Well, I have enough for me. Not for my family. To retire at age 40
requires a hell of a lot more money than I have now for obvious reasons, even
if I don't plan on giving my kids a ton of money to live off of.

~~~
zemvpferreira
It sounds like your priorities are on track. There are far worse things to do
in life than to accumulate generational wealth and save your kids from the
drudgery of meaningless jobs. How much money do you think you’ll need to be
comfortable?

That said I still have a problem with the idea that working 70 hours out of
every week is good - even if you feel energized, certainly you can’t be
operating near your peak.

Take the world’s best in the world’s most star-driven market, Ronaldo. How
many hours does he work every week? 10 real work hours, plus 10-15 of
preparation? Would we expect him to be a better footballer if he also took a
shift doing data analysis at McKinsey nights and weekends? Or is it better
that he focus on being close to 100% of his potential on every match?

I’m sure you’re extremely good at what you do and I’m genuinely thrilled to
see what you’ll produce when you can afford to be better-rested (if you don’t
burn out before). I’m sure it will be your best work.

~~~
andreilys
Ronaldo most certainly "works" more than 25h a week.

I think it's very difficult to become world class working <40h a week. At the
same time I don't think this is something everyone should strive for. If you
want a nice relaxed/balanced life, there's nothing wrong with that.

However the world would be a much sadder place without the obsessive-
compulsives that spend an inordinate amount of time on their craft.

------
bjornsing
We could start by not calling it “idleness” when we paint pictures, learn
physics or read philosophy...

~~~
chii
i think the utilitarian mindset is very pervasive (but for good reason) - work
that does not generate excess value is called idleness. If you paint a
painting for yourself to enjoy, and have no desire nor ability to sell it to
somebody else, it's called idleness.

There's a reason why these activities are often funded by patronage in the old
days (nobles and kings etc).

------
pmoriarty
Also see Bob Black's _" The Abolition of Work"_:

[https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/bob-black-the-
abolit...](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/bob-black-the-abolition-of-
work)

~~~
kiliantics
Or, similarly and more recently, Graeber's idea of "bullshit jobs". As
mentioned in your link, we need to slow down economic growth if we're going to
have any shot at all of slowing down climate change, and that will
conveniently require us all to work a lot less :)

------
sushshshsh
Thanks to technology, the need for employment is at the lowest it has ever
been, if someone is willing to make a lot of sacrifices when it comes to
modern luxuries.

However, if one desires to live with luxuries such as, gasp, housing and
medical care, then life becomes extremely expensive, especially in US cities.

So increasingly as I see it, you either need to be making big bucks as a
developer/executive, or you need to be living in a tent on BLM public land
with your only expenses being food and a phone bill.

~~~
non-entity
> or you need to be living in a tent on BLM public land with your only
> expenses being food and a phone bill.

Can you actually [legally] do this?

~~~
walleeee
You just have to move around every 20 something days, although I don't know if
it's enforced.

~~~
sushshshsh
I can confirm it's not enforced, as it is difficult to track. I imagine that
the worst that would happen is you are just asked to move, particularly if you
have a giant camper or are making quite a bit of impact on the land you are
occupying.

------
umvi
> ... we have realised that it is worth taking an economic hit in order to
> preserve health.

Have we realized this? I think you'd find a sizable chunk of the country that
disagrees. And I also think it's still too soon to say.

> That, after all, is what money is for.

Money that we don't have. We can keep conjuring money out of thin air if we
want, but the effects of infinitely deepening debt seem negative in every case
study I've ever read (to say the least).

~~~
clairity
what the pandemic is making more obvious is that money is getting stuck in
idle and infirm hands. further, money is being injected into the wrong hands
in the economy. we need money being injected closer to productive hands (like
essential workers) rather than the current centralized system giving it to
far-removed capital holders, those who prefer rent-seeking and other non-
productive ways of stalling the velocity of the economy for their own benefit.

~~~
mensetmanusman
This.

We need our tax laws geared to increasing the velocity of money.

I believe that with the growing global middle class we actually do need to
print money faster than we are, because we don’t want to be in a situation
where people think that not spending is more valuable than spending. Wealth is
not zero sum, and these new families need to partake.

------
perfunctory
Another important reason that "idleness is more relevant than ever" is climate
crisis

[https://cepr.net/documents/publications/climate-change-
works...](https://cepr.net/documents/publications/climate-change-
workshare-2013-02.pdf)

~~~
kiliantics
Exactly this. I thought this must be the reason suggested by the headline and
was really sad to see barely any reference to it even in the comments...

------
LatteLazy
The core issue here is Democracy and Human greed. Why would a majority vote
for a 15h working week for everyone, when they could vote for a zero hour
working week for themselves and a 60h working weak for some poor beleaguered
minority? That's what we have today: employment rates are around 50%, the rest
opt out and vote republican. Republicans cut things used by working people and
throw money indiscriminately at pensioners and the rich (2 groups exempt from
having to work).

This is the exact same issue with UBI. The universality of it undermines
support.

------
ineedasername
It's always seemed strange to me that the average work week, decreasing
steadily for quite some period of time, seems to have stagnated around 40 hour
work-weeks for decades, despite the massive increases in productivity
leveraged by technological advances.

Personally I decided long ago that I simply don't care enough about money to
try & advance upwards into high paying positions that would eat upwards of 60
hours a week, and possibly much more w/ off-time emails, phone calls, texts,
etc. Instead I have a 40-hour work week, occasional emergencies where I of
course do a little extra. I'm paid well for it, and have turned down every
overture of advancement because I neither want the extra stress nor do I want
to leave behind meaningful work in place of important-but-not-enjoyable work
I'd have to do if I moved up a level. Instead I get to perform mission-
critical work solving interesting problems, and get home early enough to have
a nice family dinner, talk to my kids about their day, get beat by those same
kids in Fortnite, and pursue multiple hobbies. Not only do I get ample
vacation time, I don't work in a place that frowns upon actually using it.

I don't see why everyone couldn't have jobs that allow for this sort of
lifestyle.

------
brushfoot
The article sets up a bit of a false dichotomy. It's partly inherent in using
_idleness_ as the alternative to economically productive work. Did Russell
himself use that term (edit: yes :-))? I'm guessing it's supposed to be
provocative, to make it stick. But I'd imagine that's part of the problem.
Many people would balk, and I think rightly so, at the connotations. There's
nothing positive about undirected free time over a long period. And the
article doesn't help with glosses like "Netflix in pyjamas."

The best alternatives to economically productive work are equally productive
in different domains. For example, take gardening. You might be surprised at
the quality of aerobic exercise you get working a large yard and garden. I
recently took a heart rate monitor and found I could replace my morning jog.
My heart rate was actually higher on average, and the sense of purpose was a
welcome distraction from the work.

Unfortunately few are taught these kinds of healthful alternatives. I can only
imagine what a difference in health and cognition there would be if schools
taught hands-on agriculture and gave students garden plots.

~~~
wiz21c
> There's nothing positive about undirected free time over a long period.

I could easily fill that time with dozens of ideas. But you see, I'm lucky
enough to be a "creative" person. That is, I'm in love with the things I
invent. The more I invent, the more passionnated I am. I can sustain an
incredible level of activity just to achieve goals I create myself. But these
goals are mostly non economic. So being able to just do my stuff without
having to prove an economical value to it would be very much welcome.

~~~
aslfksdfl
>I'm lucky enough to be a "creative" person

This is the kind of insanity Russel's original essay alludes to. If we weren't
taught to fill every hour with "productive" work, then anyone could foster
their creativity with idle pursuits that aren't limited by their ability to
produce value.

People feel like they're not creative because they feel the constant need to
produce something of value and are afraid to experiment with anything else.
Creativity requires that type of experimentation.

The fact that we claim some people are creative and some are not is a complete
facade. It's similar to saying "oh I can't draw" or "I'm bad at math" — well
no, you've likely just spent less time practicing it... maybe you're too
afraid to fail to even try.

~~~
wiz21c
You're right. And unfortunately, as you said, things are not as clear cut even
for me. For example, it took me long (and the good will of my beloved) to
accept that I should work less and have more time for me, that it'd be much
better for my health. Sometimes too I feel guilty of not contributing to
society by "traditional" means, etc. So you're right, the inescapable
necessity of work is still in our culture :-/

------
trabant00
> Instead, the factory owner will opt to keep half the workers on the same
> hours and lay off the rest.

People are the hardest resource to manage for a business. Finding them.
Keeping them. Motivating them. Training them. Etc. Double the workers with
half the working time is a lot more expensive.

So business will never choose to do this. If this would be better for society
(emphasis on IF) then only regulation will make it happen.

------
golemotron
You get to praise idleness only after you burn out writing Principia
Mathematica.

------
musha68k
Josef Pieper's "Muße und Kult" comes to mind as well:

[https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/08/10/leisure-the-
basis-o...](https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/08/10/leisure-the-basis-of-
culture-josef-pieper/)

------
bmcn2020
From the article: "Recalling the famous example of the pin factory that Adam
Smith used to explain the division of labour, Russell imagined a new
technology that will halve the amount of time it takes to make a pin. If the
market for pins is already saturated, what will happen?

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 off the rest. The gains from the advances of
technology will be realised not as an expansion of leisure but rather as
drudgery for some and jobless destitution for others, with the savings enjoyed
only by the winner, the factory owner."

This is, amazingly and depressingly, the only thing that will ever happen.
This is capitalism, unfortunately, and profits flow up, not down. Capitalism
seems to work best when the bottom feeders continue to feed at the bottom, in
the same ways, without dramatic changes in behavior.

Can regulation fix this?

That's like asking if regulation can solve racism, or stop domestic violence.
It can help, but it won't minimize it to such a significant level that it will
mitigate the issue.

Russell's argument is great, but the cold harsh winds of our capitalist
reality blow in the other direction.

~~~
0-_-0
> Can regulation fix this?

What if it was illegal to work more than X hours per week? X=20 for example.

Actually, let me answer my own question: Everyone would need to have 2 jobs,
and every company would employ twice the number of people.

~~~
bmcn2020
I think that's the most likely scenario

------
aww_dang
>"Recalling the famous example of the pin factory that Adam Smith used to
explain the division of labour, Russell imagined a new technology that will
halve the amount of time it takes to make a pin. If the market for pins is
already saturated, what will happen?

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 off the rest."

The cost for a single pin will be reduced and the labor required to consume a
single pin will also be reduced. Money saved is an opportunity for leisure.

------
hirundo
> Bertrand Russell wrote “In Praise of Idleness” in 1932, at the height of the
> Great Depression, idleness was an unavoidable reality for the millions who
> had lost their jobs

What a passive attitude. Unless you're in a straight jacket idleness is a
thoroughly avoidable reality. Hustle matters most when you're broke and
unemployed. If you're doing it right being unemployed is a full-time job, job
hunting. Or building your own.

~~~
ozim
You know that people live in places where: job market is limited, market for
their skills is limited.

Even if you apply to every shitty job in your area you might run out of
options. What then? Move to another city or another country? To do that you
have to have some funds. If you have a house or property in one place you
probably won't move so easily as well. So it might be that one has to wait it
out.

------
jxramos
All 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.

~~~
perl4ever
I'm not sure if you're serious or presenting what you think is an absurdity,
but I instantly knew human photosynthesis must be an existing science fiction
trope, even though I don't actually know a title offhand.

Frankly, I expect this sort of thing before fusion power that is "too cheap to
meter".

See:

[https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/151099/story-
inclu...](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/151099/story-including-
gene-splicing-to-give-humans-photosynthesis-capability)

~~~
jxramos
The problem is we're just too energy intensive. There's an interesting
exchange about average daily calorie needs (2k Cal) and how much sunlight
collection you'd need to satisfy that energy need. Cool stuff. Bottom line,
our bodies don't present enough surface area to get the job done.
[http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/2018/02/ask-
physicist-...](http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/2018/02/ask-physicist-
how-many-calories-are-in.html)

------
every
Speaking from experience, simply wait for retirement. Then your idleness cup
shall runneth over. But even that too shall eventually prove to be a bore...

------
m3nu
There are already movements applying this. Early retirement (FIRE), Tim Ferris
4-hour work week. Stoicism is also useful.

~~~
paulryanrogers
Indeed. But we can't all resell uppers and market self-help books/speaking
engagements. So it's off to find our own niches or miners in need of shovels!

------
neonate
[https://archive.is/3UiIz](https://archive.is/3UiIz)

------
throwaway7281
I distinguish at least two kinds of work: one where you earn money because you
have no other sources of income. And work that relates to whatever you are
doing on you own behalf - which can be very productive as well.

The first kind of work is a productive factor, like capital or land. It's just
the brains and hands of a piece of flesh that does what it is told. A worker
is always subordinated to capital, you are working for the capital of others.
You never get the full reward, whereas people you never met will earn a share
of every piece of value you provide.

It's funny, almost every second product I buy these days comes from firms
which went to one or even multiple private equity hands in the past two
decades. It is one of the reasons why I reduce my consumption to a minimum.

Neoliberalism hates equality, it hates social progress and it has absolutely
no idea of how to do something different that would benefit society at large.
There is no society for capital, there is revenue, returns and all human
activity you are observing is partially there, because there is someone who
just wants their profit.

Poles are melting, climate changes, species die out, capitalism (as it is
implemented; the theory is much more progressive) could not care less about
killing its own foundations.

It reminds me of avant-garde capitalists operation like facebook. It could
only start on an open web, and its endgame is own all you presence online.
Walled gardens, armes guards, cash flow.

~~~
perl4ever
>You never get the full reward

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_didn%27t_build_that](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_didn%27t_build_that)

------
jondubois
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
market is already saturated and consumers are already satisfied beyond their
perceptual capacity, launching a business in such a saturated industry could
not be regarded as a 'useful' activity in a broad sense (it's a zero-sum
game). This means that being able to capture economic value (profits) from an
industry would not necessarily imply that someone is useful; in fact, an
increase in profits may not bear any correlation with an increase in consumer
satisfaction in that industry; in a saturated market, the profits for a
specific company or individual could entirely be the result of political
lobbying, social scheming, or luck and have nothing to do with increased
consumer satisfaction.

Given that useless people are still capable of capturing profits from an
industry by starting their own business, it would be highly unethical for the
incumbents (those who own the means of production in the saturated markets) to
try to stop the 'useless people' from trying to compete (since that would deny
them access to the same fair playing field which the incumbents themselves had
benefited from in the past). Yet at the same time, it may be more efficient
overall if, instead of trying to compete in a saturated market, 'useless
people' would accept the reality that they are in fact useless and instead of
trying to compete, they would get paid to be idle.

But if useless people get paid to be idle, then how will useful people who
still need to work feel about that? Also, even for people who have useful
skills, there may be more people who have those skills than there are
positions to fill. How then do we choose which people should have a job and
which should not? Does it make sense to select them based on skill if the
skill level of the employee does not affect consumer satisfaction?

It seems like this would create an incentive for useless idle people to
pretend to be or have been useful; they can't just accumulate enough money to
go idle without having a backstory to go with it. Yet at the same time it is
in the interest of incumbents (owners of the means of production) for these
people to go idle instead of competing with them. To appease those who are
still working, every member of the idle class needs an excuse (e.g. they sold
their company to Google for a few million $). The economy then becomes
centered around manufacturing backstories for new members of the idle class...
Until the point where everything is automated and everyone can be idle.

I think the biggest problem with this story is that if we remove the market
selection mechanism? What kind of alternative selection mechanism should be
used instead?

~~~
pessimizer
I'm not sure if this rises to the level of a "huge dilemma" when we don't even
compensate the "useful people" enough to live. As more jobs become redundant,
the standards of the wealthy will become more extravagant, and require more
bodies to fulfill. The difference in the income of owners will continue to
drift farther from the income of workers.

Middle class people don't even have servants anymore, so we've got a long way
to go before we have to worry about anything but an arbitrary number of
unemployed decided through fiscal and monetary policy.

~~~
jondubois
Try starting a business without any personal connections and watch it fail
over and over again while customers keep telling you how much they like your
product but you just can't compete with corporations financially. If
corporations were on a level playing field with everyone else and they did not
have a financial advantage in terms of having front row access to cheap money
printed by the Fed, or their business didn't revolve around constantly trying
to destroy small business competitors, I would have agreed that it would not
be such a huge dilemma.

------
dr_dshiv
Because efficiency can lead to leisure or layoffs, what will the future bring?

Capitalism suffers if half of workers are unemployed. Because it is actually
_in the market 's best interest_, we will develop social - political
structures that enable improved efficiency and high employment (because more
workers employed means more commerce and a bigger economy)

------
sebastianconcpt
Why a partisan article is being discussed here?

Really.

This is material affiliated to the Labour Party in the U.K. which is
associated to the International Socialist.

Why is it a subject here?

~~~
jkbbwr
Why are you so scared of different ideas?

~~~
sebastianconcpt
I'm not scared of _different_ ideas but I know the left _censors_ different
ideas.

But the reason I ask is this:

 _Please don 't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That
destroys the curiosity this site exists for._

------
natalyarostova
Bertrand Russell may or may not have been right, but he was definitely an
elite who felt he knew what was best for the masses, even if he didn't take
his own advice.

This is the guy that dedicated portions of his life to proving mathematics was
derived from logic, who is arguing it's okay if people just wanna idle around.

~~~
commandlinefan
> proving mathematics was derived from logic

A luxury he had because he didn't have to spend all of his time in the hamster
wheel. That's how I _would_ idle around if I had the option to (well, ok, not
that, because he already did it, but something like that).

------
d_burfoot
I get upset when I read essays like this that don't mention the role that the
government plays in creating drudgery and destroying leisure. A good way to
highlight this is to point out that in the US, the government at all levels
spends about $20K/person/year. If that money was just redistributed to
individuals, we would actually be living in the leisure-filled world predicted
in the early part of the century. Instead the money is mostly just frittered
away.

~~~
archi42
Ignoring the obvious "citation needed" for the $20k, think about what that
money is spent on. There is some pretty nice stuff among that list, like
public roads or schools.

~~~
mensetmanusman
Budget / number of americans

