The right to be lazy, and other studies — John Shaqi
The right to be lazy, and other studiesLafargue, Paul
Philosophy
The right to be lazy, and other studies
Lafargue, Paul
Hours of labor; Social problems; Socialism; Working class
[24] Rabelais "Pantagruel," Book II. Chapter XXXIV. Translation of
Urquhart and Motteux.
[25] Paul de Cassagnac, like his father, Granier, was prominent as a
conservative politician, journalist and duelist.
APPENDIX
Our moralists are very modest people. If they invented the dogma of
work, they still have doubts of its efficacy in tranquilizing the
soul, rejoicing the spirit, and maintaining the proper functioning of
the entrails and other organs. They wish to try its workings on the
populace, _in anima vili_, before turning it against the capitalists,
to excuse and authorize whose vices is their peculiar mission.
But, you, three-for-a-cent philosophers, why thus cudgel your brains to
work out an ethics the practice of which you dare not counsel to your
masters? Your dogma of work, of which you are so proud, do you wish
to see it scoffed at, dishonored? Let us open the history of ancient
peoples and the writings of their philosophers and law givers. "I could
not affirm," says the father of history, Herodotus, "whether the Greeks
derived from the Egyptians the contempt which they have for work,
because I find the same contempt established among the Thracians, the
Cythians, the Persians, the Lydians; in a word, because among most
barbarians, those who learn mechanical arts and even their children are
regarded as the meanest of their citizens. All the Greeks have been
nurtured in this principle, particularly the Lacedaemonians."[26]
"At Athens the citizens were veritable nobles who had to concern
themselves but with the defense and the administration of the
community, like the savage warriors from whom they descended. Since
they must thus have all their time free to watch over the interests
of the republic, with their mental and bodily strength, they laid all
labor upon the slaves. Likewise at Lacedaemon, even the women were
not allowed to spin or weave that they might not detract from their
nobility."[27]
The Romans recognized but two noble and free professions, agriculture
and arms. All the citizens by right lived at the expense of the
treasury without being constrained to provide for their living by any
of the sordid arts (thus, they designated the trades), which rightfully
belonged to slaves. The elder Brutus to arouse the people, accused
Tarquin, the tyrant, of the special outrage of having converted free
citizens into artisans and masons.[28]
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