In Praise of Idleness (1932) | Hacker News Reader

In Praise of Idleness (1932)

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84 pointshemapani24 comments

I always like the idea Bertrand Russel raised where if a company realizes it needs half its staff that it would be best to instead reduce all staff to half-hours worked then previous.

Not sure if this is the essay or not. Sorry for the off-topic if it's not this essay.

Too bad with the current additional requirements on employers it's not that simple (health insurance, social security, etc...). Plus the fact that I'm sure some people would prefer not to have 3 places of employment to fill X-hours per week of pay and would rather have 1 employer (simplicity, less commuting, etc). Still, a nice idea in theory.

Maybe if most work was able to be done remotely, and work was done on a contract basis?

I think the point was that once technology reaches a certain point where it's easy and efficient to do things we need (like produce clothes and food) then it's better to reduce everyone's hours by half or so (and keep paying them a living wage) rather than producing tons of useless crap and making everyone work 50 hours a week.

Perhaps, but the organization that is providing the work is still likely to want to make, sell and profit from as much crap as it can along with all the other crap makers.

Implement basic income and universal healthcare, via taxes. Remove pensions for retirement and unemployment (obsoleted by basic income). With this, and taking into account that a minimum wage is not needed with basic income either, you take away all the overheads of hiring a worker. Want to hire someone to work 1 hour a day for $30? Fine, as long as they agree. You then pay taxes for your earnings, and not for hiring people.

Main problem with introducing basic income is that you are effectively punishing hard-working people for their effort (with taxes) and reward people that don't want to work with the free money. Unless you have millions of slaves or immigrants (or, futuristically thinking, robots) at your disposal this will make your country go bankrupt very quickly. Which is a common problem with socialism, but made exponentially worse.

Basic income is for everyone, workers and the unemployed, rich and poor alike. Or at least it should be. Every dollar you earn should be a bonus, on top of basic income, or else like you said, you create disincentives to work. If you're referring to the "fairness" of the distributed tax burden, that's a problem with or without basic income.

Lots of people care very strongly about personal property, including the money they earn and don't want the state to take what they earn and give it to "useless freeloaders". I think that, if you're advocating for what amounts to asking everyone to carry the entire world together including the people who can't "carry their own weight", you need to unapologetically sell a philosophy of why it's good to help others. You can't wave away "fairness" for people whose mental process is "I have mine, you have yours, I'll only give you from mine if you give me from yours at equal or greater value".

I see your point, but think about one thing: how many people are stuck in a jobs they hate just because they have to pay the bills? If you give them basic income that covers all their basic needs then first thing they will do is they will quit their jobs. Also, I can imagine that many women would leave their jobs to stay at home with their children (or to finally give birth to one). That's at least few millions of people that would immediately loose incentive to work.

Fairness of taxes is mainly theoretical exercise because this world isn't and never will be fair. So we need to deal with the fact that people don't like paying taxes and will do many things to avoid it, including quitting their jobs.

I am sorry to say that but your view of the basic income sounds rather shallow. I would encourage you to read up on the subject.

> I am sorry to say that but your view of the basic income sounds rather shallow. I would encourage you to read up on the subject.

I'm not the parent, but can you suggest some good resources for doing so?

Actually, the part about mothers working less to spend more time with their children was actually noticed [1] And that was just an experiment, where participants knew it won't last forever. In real life effect might be stronger.

What really is shallow is the understanding of how economy works by proponents of basic income. As I wrote earlier: to make it possible you need either robots or slaves, because most consumer goods don't grow on trees and even the ones that do grow on trees still need some manual labor to be done before they can be bought with your basic income money. Disincentivising work will make them less available and therefore more expensive.

The last large scale implementation of unconditional basic income was in ancient Rome, and see how that ended for them :)

[1]http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/ssrgai.htm#Disposable

If people's disposable income drops to basic income level because they quit their jobs, there will be less demand for non-essential consumer goods. The idea that people will voluntarily starve themselves to death because they're too lazy to work while fruit rots on or under trees is ludicrous.

But why do they quit their jobs? If it's to start a business, educate themselves, obtain skills for landing a job they enjoy more, etc, then all those are good things, and not a downside to basic income.

And if they're just too damn lazy to work, and are satisfied with whatever minimal amount of basic income they receive, and have no drive to do better, then maybe employers are better off without them?

While this system would allow for lazy people, it would also allow people to become free to pursue what they find interesting and worthwhile. Motivated, interested and passionate workers are more productive, creative, efficient and dedicated.

I don't think our society could suddenly switch to a basic income system. However, I think a gradual change would allow for such a system to be implemented over time. I think proper welfare and healthcare are good places to start. Gradually adding to it, where people's who's jobs have become obsolete and they are getting too old to re-skill, can get support. Then people who simply lose their jobs from automation replacement or being obsolete, can seek for support.

Eventually we can phase in the base income. If you are smart or lucky enough, you can get paid more. Otherwise you can pursue other aspects of life - entertainment probably being the most popular one.

Now i do think getting the money to do this in the first place is problematic. The only way it would probably function, is if those who work get paid a LOT of money. Therefore the taxes obtained from them cover the rest of the populations base income. Now some would not like this because the few are essentially carrying the many. However, with the number of people and limited work, there will always be someone willing to work to get that money, or those who just have a pure passion for their work. Being highly competitive also means most people probably wont be able to hold down their job for a long period. Others will replace them as they are smarter/younger/better/lucky etc.

Its not a perfect system, but it is probably better than the alternative we face in the next 10-30 years, with capitalisms heavily unbalanced wealth distribution and insufficient jobs to provide an income for people to survive on.

If any jobs are so unpleasant that people voluntarily quit them en masse, employers will have to increase wages, automate, or eliminate those jobs. This is how a market is supposed to operate.

Why is it a bad thing that women (or indeed men) look after their own children?

Do people mind paying taxes? They'd mind a lot more if their country was invaded, members of their family were attacked, or they faced death because hospitals no longer existed.

I mind paying taxes. I don't fear the boogeyman, the most likely entity to attack me is the state I'm paying taxes to, and I always paid for my medical care (state-run hospitals are a joke).

What else you got? :)

> how many people are stuck in a jobs they hate just because they have to pay the bills? If you give them basic income that covers all their basic needs then first thing they will do is they will quit their jobs.

Sounds like slavery. Is it humane to have a system designed so that people are stuck doing work they hate just to avoid starvation and homelessness? When we could greatly improve overall wellbeing through increased automation and redistribution?

I don't see why people who hate their jobs, which means they probably aren't very effective at them, should have to work. What if everyone applying a job is someone who actually wants to and is able to do that job? That would make hiring a lot easier, and employees would be happier and more engaged.

If someone wants to stay home and eat Cheetos every day, why should I care?

You have to stop thinking this way. As technology progresses we need fewer and fewer people working. Its not just because people dont want to work-- its because they cant, because we dont need them to work. Crop yield is high. Robots build the expensive things and child slaves build the cheap things. The service jobs are still there, but we're just about to the point where taxi drivers, waiters, and fast food workers are going to be priced out by automation. Get out of your mind that you are hard working and everyone else is lazy. There is enough excess in the system to feed, clothe, educate, and care for every person no matter what they do during the day. And you can still be richer than them. You just cant be grossly-evil-rich to the point where you have to corrupt the financial and political system to make more money.

Some interesting comments from the past:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9015092

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1396167

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1187681

Although it's a pleasant read, it doesn't take into account opportunity cost. Everything I do every day requires me not to do something else. There are valuable jobs that aren't urgent that never get done until I automate my way out of my current role. Russell always did treat economics as a zero sum game, when in reality it's quite expansive.

There are also jobs that need doing today and are physically possible to do, but nobody is doing them because we haven't invented them or realized they are possible yet. The Romans could have employed scientists to photograph the surface of Pluto. Physics haven't fundamentally changed since then. Only our understanding of what is possible has changed. A thousand years from now, people will marvel at all the jobs we in the early 21st century could have been doing to advance the quality of life for people around the world (and indeed all life on Earth), had we only known those things were possible.

I love this essay by Bertrand Russell. It's just a shame it remains a utopia for the typical person.

probably for a typical person (whatever that means) but definitely not for a typical HN reader.

This is a great essay. And obviously pertinent!

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