One of my mother‘s favorite books was a little essay written in 1883 by a french socialist “journalist, literary critic, political writer and activist”, Paul Lafargue. He must have been quite a character; the book, written while he was in jail, is entitled The Right to be Lazy and it’s available online. “It polemicizes heavily against contemporary liberal, conservative and even socialist ideas of work” (hence everybody), says the book’s own Wikipedia entry: Lafargue criticises “the primacy of the “right to work”, and argues that laziness, combined with human creativity, is an important source of human progress.” I cannot but agree with Lafargue, even though I’ve never actually managed to read the book.
