Shiva Lingafemalemale

Idleness

The number May-June Kos is dedicated to The Rest . In a contribution entitled Idleness creative , Domenico De Masi remembers how Aristotle dreamed of a world free from fatigue and from work. Dream of Aristotle, destined to remain a mere utopia until the scientific organization of labor in industrial society and the subsequent technological progress in the current post-industrial society is not made possible tremendous increases in productivity.
In a famous lecture in 1930, JMKeynes said: "Three hours a day, therefore, are more than enough to satisfy the old Adam, who is in each of us." Even in those years Thirty B. Russell thought that "in this world is too much work ... The work ethic is the ethic of slaves, and the modern world does not need slaves ... If the wage earner worked four hours a day, there would be more than enough for all production and unemployment would end. "Giovanni Agnelli raised the question of unemployment caused by technological progress and in 1933 sought to avoid" a significant reduction of working hours, with the capture of more 'lazy' in favor of men. "
But Keynes is that Russell, who Agnelli expressed concern that the use was made of more free time in the hope that, as expressed Agnelli, the men know "to use their high physical, intellectual and moral."
Seventy-five years later, history seems to have done justice to those expectations, those hopes and of those concerns. As emphasized Masi, a young man of twenty years has a life expectancy of sixty others, amounting to 468,000. About 90,000 of these will work, will dedicate 195,000 hours of sleep, meals, personal hygiene and will total 153,000 hours of free time with the danger of ending Masi add to the alienation of labor alienation of consumerism . Masi points out that when Keynes, Agnelli and Russell reflected on these issues "were not yet invented the computer, the laser, fiber optics, the jet engine, antibiotics, contraception, artificial insemination, space flights, the nuclear fission, plastics, transistors, compact, mobile phone, ACT, internet, biotechnology, cloning. "He concluded:" With these developments, we have taken a new phase of civilization, in which we can produce more goods and services with less human effort, but we also have new types activity, mainly creative, in which increasingly converge on work, study, play. "
There may be truth, but this view of things seems to be a bit 'too triumphant optimism today the engine of everything that happens in the sky seems to be the global market. And the global market, rather than liberation from work, seems to have produced insecurity, low wages, the impoverishment of social achievements, pollution and waste.