Also, Parkinson’s Law: “Work expands so as to fill the time available for completion.” Combine Parkinson’s philosophy with increased mindfulness and you can get the same amount of work done in half the time!

Sorry, my 4yo came in showing me his flowers while I was typing…

http://www.doobybrain.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/never-enough-time-calvin-and-hobbes.jpg

He writes: “Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle.”

Some of the kindest and most altruistic people have lived lives of suffering and deprivation, and some of the most brutal and selfish have had enjoyed ease and security.

It is a commonplace that pain can cause one to be more empathic to others, and that ease and security can make people self-indulgent and self-absorbed. Sometimes, of course, it goes the other way–with suffering seeming to create bad “natures” and ease seeming to create good “natures”–but the main factor I think is one of character and values, not dollars and cents or possessions. Ease and suffering are both conditions, and conditions, like tools, can be turned to the good or the bad.

Russell, being of good nature, assumes that the only reason anyone would not be of good nature is because they lack security and ease. This is a well-intentioned but naive error, just as was the assumption that communism would lead to universal brotherhood and prosperity.

True, all things being equal, in conditions of plenty there will be somewhat less aggressive competition for basic resources. But there will always be more resources, power, status, and more to compete over, and there will always be those who enjoy making others suffer, or who don’t sufficiently care about others irrespective of how satisfactory are their own conditions.

Values–thus, “good nature” or “bad nature”– cannot be created or inferred from economic circumstances, or degree of pain or pleasure, or anxiety or ease. Mostly these are taught, by parents, teachers, leaders, and society overall.

@Benjamin – Credit is essentially a socially agreed upon promise. You borrow money so you can buy what I have today and you give me money in the future so I can buy what you have in the future. The underlying reality is the stuff; naturally lending money to someone who is not going to produce anything to buy in the future is a bad idea.

@cato – Some of the whywork.org site may be helpful. It is a difference of mind. If you do something and just happen to be paid for it as a side-effect it is still a leisure activity. If you wouldn’t or couldn’t do it without getting paid, it is work. Value is a subjective quantity, so the cabinet is valuable to you. Price is a social and objective quantity, so it may have no price because nobody is willing to buy it.

@Kin – Linked! Indeed we have forgotten. Ever seen Castaway with Tom Hanks. The transformation he undergoes from the frustrations in the beginning to one year later where he just stands there in the water with a spear waiting for the fish to come into his sights and then just nails it instead of jumping around throwing himself in the water. I suppose modern man would find the later productive

@Debbie M – Wait until you read Principia Mathematica where they spend 120 pages proving that 1+1=2

Quoting the latest post I wrote:
“…because we must do something always, we do a lot of things that create messes and troubles and then we spend the rest of the time fixing them. Probably making more messes and troubles because we are not very good at doing nothing.”

And so we have no way of stopping. And without stopping, we never figure out what exactly we need to do. Hence our world today…

So the question to ask is, what is the value of the work done per unit of time? And who is the
one doing the “valuing”?

I must say, I’m not too sure I would hitch my horses to Russell here (however pithy the essay title). That bit about not being able to eat your future bread ahead of time? Um, credit, anybody? I’m not saying one should do this, but it seems that we have very tangibly demonstrated that you can indeed screw your financial future in the present by overborrowing.

I would also say he’s a bit idealistic about how we would spend the rest of our time, but that’s a debate for another day.

I particularly like his reflections on what we could do with idle time if we all only worked 4 hours a day. By the way, DH and I have been thinking for some time that this would be ideal. Being idealistic, I agree with Russell that many people would use this time to write, try new things, create new solutions to problems etc. But I suppose there are many out there that think the average person would just watch 4 hours more a day of TV.

I also wonder if his idea that we can all survive on just 4 hours of work would hold true in a ‘low energy’ world. I’m not sure that there will be as much leisure time in the future, but who knows.