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Leisure time, for Russell, should
no longer be spent merely recovering
from work. On the contrary, it should
constitute the largest part of our lives
and be a source of play and creativity.
THE MODERN WORLD
The morality of work is
the morality of slaves, and
the modern world has
no need of slavery.
Bertrand RussellRussell believes, would be one that
took education seriously—because
education is surely about more than
training for the workplace. It would
be one that took the arts seriously,
because there would be time to
produce works of quality without
the struggle that artists have for
economic independence. Moreover,
it would be one that took the need
for enjoyment seriously. Indeed,
Russell believes that such a society
would be one in which we would
lose the taste for war because, if
nothing else, war would involve
“long and severe work for all.”
The balanced life
Russell’s essay may appear to
present something of a Utopian
vision of a world in which work is
reduced to a minimum. It is not
entirely clear how, even if it were
possible to reduce the working day
to four hours, this change would
lead to the social revolution that
Russell claims. Nor is Russell’s faith
in the idea that industrialization
can ultimately free us from manual
labor entirely convincing. The raw
materials for industrial production
still need to come from somewhere.
They need to be mined and refined
and exported to the place of
production, all of which depends
on manual labor. Despite these
problems, Russell’s reminder that
we need to look more closely at
our attitudes to work is one that
remains relevant today. We take as
“natural” the length of the working
week and the fact that some kinds
of work are rewarded more than
others. For many of us, neither ourwork nor our leisure are as fulfilling
as we believe they could be, and at
the same time we cannot help
feeling that idleness is a vice.
Russell’s idea reminds us that not
only do we need to scrutinize our
working lives, but that there is a
virtue and a usefulness to lounging,
loafing, and idling. As Russell
says: “Hitherto we have continued
to be as energetic as we were
before there were machines; in
this we have been foolish, but
there is no reason to go on being
foolish forever.” ■