Paul Rafalgue "The right to be lazy"

A strange mania governs the working class of
all countries in which capitalist civilization rules, a
mania that results in the individual and collective
misery that prevails in modern society. This is the
love of work, the furious mania for work, extending
to the exhaustion of the individual and his
descendants. The parsons, the political economists,
and the moralists, instead of contending against
this mental aberration, have canonized work. Blind
and limited human beings, they have wished to be
wiser than their God; weak and unworthy
creatures, they have sought to honor what their
God has damned.


Now, if the mania for work is rooted in the laborers, if it smothers all other
natural instincts, and if, on the other hand, the amount of work demanded by
society is necessarily limited by the consumption and the quantity of raw material,
why devour in six months the work of the whole year? Why not rather equalize it
during the whole twelve months, and compel every worker to content himself with
five or six hours’ daily work the year through, instead of getting indigestion by
working twelve hours daily for six months? When their daily portion of work is
secured to them, the workers will no longer be jealous of one another; no longer will
they tear the work out of each others’ hands and the bread from each others’ mouth;
then, no longer exhausted in body and soul, will they begin to practice the virtues of
laziness. What the workers themselves refuse to perceive manufacturers have
demanded in the interest of capitalist exploitation: a legal limitation of working
hours

When the working class shall have thoroughly liberated itself from the vice that
governs it and degrades its nature, and shall have arisen in its giant strength, not
to demand the famous “Rights of Man” which are but the rights of capitalist
exploitation, not to proclaim the “Right to Work” which is only the “Right to
Misery,” but to forge an iron law forbidding every one to work more than three
hours a day, will the old earth, trembling with bliss, feel a new world stir within it.
But how can a manly decision be expected from a proletariat corrupted by
capitalist morals!
Like Christ, the embodied suffering of the slavery of ancient times, our proletariat, men, women and children, for a century has climbed the rough Mount
Calvary of suffering. For a century compulsory work has broken their bones,
martyred their flesh, destroyed their nerves; for a century hunger has tormented
their stomachs and stupefied their brains.
O, Laziness, have thou mercy upon this eternal misery! O, Laziness, mother of
the arts and the noble virtues, be thou balsam for the pains of mankind!

Proletarians, made stupid by the Dogma of Work, do you hear the language of
these philosophers, which is hidden away from you with jealous care? A citizen who
gives his work for money lowers himself to the rank of slavery; he commits a crimeThe Right To Be Lazy
Socialist Labor Party 27 www.slp.org
that deserves a whole year’s imprisonment!!