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In Praise of Idleness — Bertrand Russell

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Starting question

Essay thesis

Russell argues that modern societies have inherited a harmful worship of work. His main claim is that the path to prosperity is not more moralized labor, but an organized reduction of labor. > A great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by belief in the virtuousness of work, and... the road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organized diminution of work.
Then Node · AI

Inherited work ethic

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Russell begins inside the old moral training: 'Like most of my generation, I was brought up on the saying: Satan finds some mischief for idle hands to do.' He says he 'acquired a conscience' that kept him working hard, but his opinions underwent 'a revolution.'

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Then Pro / Supporting Point · AI

The reversal

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The central reversal is that the modern world suffers from too much work, not too little. Russell gives it comic force through the Naples beggars: when a traveler offered a lira to the laziest, eleven jumped up and the twelfth got the coin. > I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous. He then jokes that YMCA leaders should 'start a campaign to induce good young men to do nothing.'

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Jobs and bread

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Russell rejects the objection that taking an ordinary job 'takes the bread out of other people's mouths.' His reply is that earning and spending are two sides of one economic circulation. > What a man earns he usually spends, and in spending he gives employment. As long as a man spends his income, he puts just as much bread into people's mouths in spending as he takes out of other people's mouths in earning.

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The saver as villain

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The true economic suspect is the saver, not the spender. Money in a stocking employs nobody; government lending often feeds militarism; failed investment may waste labor on useless production. > The real villain, from this point of view, is the man who saves. > A large amount of human labor... was expended on producing machines which, when produced, lay idle and did no good to anyone. By contrast, parties at least help 'the butcher, the baker, and the bootlegger.'

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Kinds of work

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