The wisdom of a
learned man cometh by opportunity of
leisure, and he that hath little business shall become wise.
(Ecclesiastes)
Work is redundant. Instead of
working we
should all become gentlemen and ladies of leisure, a word taken from
the Middle
English 'leisour' meaning freedom or opportunity.
The
work ethic is so integral to our society and way of life that one
hesitates to
suggest that it may have run its course. Richard Cumberland, an
18th-century
Bishop of Peterborough, once summed up the underlying philosophy when
he said:
"It is better to wear out than to rust out." After the second world
war the right to work was included in the United Nations Declaration of
the
Universal Rights of Man. Indeed so unacceptable is unemployment that
the UK
government has now abolished the word: the unemployed are now
classified as 'job
seekers'. They can only claim benefit if they are prepared to work.
Work is an
end in itself.
This obsession with work is a very
recent phenomenon in our history, and
dates from the post war period. In the past people worked because they
had to
not because they wanted to. Aristotle believed the main purpose of life
was the
proper use of leisure by self-development through education,
contemplation,
philosophy, music and sport. In his Utopia Thomas More set aside
several hours a
day of leisure to be spent reading, playing games like chess, attending
lectures, holding conversations and listening to music. Thackeray in
the
nineteenth century wrote of the "leisure, independence and high
ideals" that propelled Britain to its cultural heights.
Myths about work
Myth 1: Hard work makes you rich
"Lethargy bordering on sloth remains
the
cornerstone of our investment style" - Warren Buffet (the world's 2nd
richest man)
Work makes you poor.
The West Germans work the shortest hours in the world, take the
longest holidays, start work latest, retire earliest... and have
the highest wages in the world. The Bangladeshis work the longest
hours in the world, take the shortest holidays, start work
earliest...and have the lowest wages in the world.
In general the harder people work the less
productive the country.
Thus people in OECD countries work less hard than in the developing
world. The exception is North America. Americans still work harder and
take shorter holidays than any other industrialised nation. While it is
true
that North America is still the richest country in the world it lags
far behind
every country in Europe when it comes to basic provisions for
health and welfare,
is racially divided, crime-ridden and socially crumbling.
In Europe, the British work the longest hours and together with
the Portuguese have the lowest labour costs. Despite this, as
the UK Government itself admits in its third annual White Paper
on industrial and economic competitiveness, a gap of as much as 25 per
cent exists between the UK and
other European countries' competitiveness performance.
Myth 2: Unemployment is expensive
Politicians repeatedly tell us that
unemployment is expensive to the taxpayer, but
this is because they think it is what people want to hear rather
because it is true. The UK government
budget is now ?300 billion a year. There are around 1.8 million
unemployed who receive ?47 per week unemployment benefit giving a total
of ?84.6 million i.e. less than .03% of total government expenditure.
The truth is that keeping people
unemployed is far cheaper for
the government than subsiding them to do work no one needs, which
is one of the main reasons governments abandoned Keynsian style
policies and why they are reluctant to adopt workfare
schemes today. Indeed, the taxpayer pays a high price to keep people
economically active. It is true that governments
bribe
foreign companies to set up factories, but this is for political not
economic reasons. The
cost is always greater than keeping people unemployed.
Myth 3: Unemployment leads to social
unrest
In Europe Spain has the highest rate of
unemployment which averages 23%. In regions such as Andalusia and
Extremadura it is even higher with a third of the workforce out of
work. Among young people too the rate is
high: the latest estimates for the under-25s is over 40%. Half of the
unemployed have been out
of work for a year or more. And yet, if you travel around Spain people
look happy and there are few protests. Politicians do not even make
unemployment their top
priority.
By contrast it is the British, who have
unemployment of 8% and who work some of the longest
hours in Europe, who are the least contented with their lives of any
country in the European Union,
according to recent survey by the European Commission.
The Costs of Work
In a recent survey by the charity Parents
at Work in Britain,
which not only works the longest hours in Europe but also has
the highest divorce rate, 70 per cent of employees said that work
keeps them from their loved ones and almost 80 per cent said pressures
at work have led to illness. More than 70 per cent said they wanted
to change their work hours, and 10 per cent said they were considering
giving up their jobs.
According to a survey of British and Australian accountants published
to coincide with the first National Go Home on Time Day eight
out of ten British accountants said they never left the office
on time for fear of being seen to be shirking - even though most
of them recognise that long hours are bad for productivity.
Among the catastrophes in which human fatigue has played a part
are the Exxon Valdez oil spillage, the Challenger crash, the Bhopal
disaster, and the Clapham Junction railway crash.
This fanatical dedication to work even affects our legal system. A
survey
in Scotland showed that 70% of jurors were unemployed, housewives,
or the retired. Only 2% were professional people who were too
busy to do juror service, thus making the verdicts given by juries
unrepresentative of the population as a whole and leading some people
to question the jury
system itself, the cornerstone of British justice.
The Value of Laziness
I have, all my life long, been
lying till noon; yet I tell all young men, and tell them with great sincerity,
that nobody who does not rise early will ever do any good. - Dr. Samuel Johnson
"A driving force [for the invention]
was my laziness as it was hard to master new songs one after another," Daisuke
Inoue inventor of the karaoke
It is fashionable to criticize the
work-shy and couch-potatoes
but the truth is industriousness is a greatly overrated virtue.
Indeed it is hard to see that it is a virtue at all. For a start
it is a inimical to invention. If people liked work they would
hardly seek to eliminate it by looking for more efficient ways
of doing it. Idleness is the mother of invention.
To like work is analogous to liking pain: it is unnatural. Humans are
naturally idle. This is true of most animals and is a necessary
survival
mechanism for reducing the amount of unnecessary energy the animal
expends. A cat for instance will sleep as much as 16 hours a day
and spend as little as 1/2 hour hunting.
The work ethic is the ethic of the slave, the drudge, the drone,
the serf, the helot, the peasant, invented by his master to keep his
nose to the
grindstone. Having been born and bred for centuries to be a beast of
burden, the working man is at a
loss to know what else to do with his time. Even his leisure hours
he has to fill with work, thus perversely making the leisure
industry the biggest in the world. The superior man seeks a life
of leisure and freedom from the tedium of work which he leaves
to donkeys who have nothing better to do with their time.
Conclusion
"To be able to fill leisure
intelligently
is the last product of civilisation" - Bertrand Russell
Unemployment is rising all over the world.
Even in Japan the lifetime
employment system is under threat. Most governments have given
up even the pretence that they can do anything about it, even
though they acknowledge that it is one of the major problems facing
society. Every year the unemployment total increases inexorably.
The reality is that work is rapidly becoming redundant.
Unemployment is here to stay and there is nothing we can do about
it. Nor should we seek to do so. Unemployment is a sign of progress, it
shows that humanity is at last being freed from the drudgery of
work to have time for personal development. A life of leisure, once the
exclusive preserve of the rich, is now open to all. Doing nothing
should not be considered a soft option but a lifestyle choice
requiring determination and commitment. We need to rediscover
the pleasures of idleness and teach people the art of doing nothing.
Time is the
most precious thing on earth and to waste it working is a sin. Instead
of trying to eliminate unemployment, which
is neither achievable nor desirable, we should be seeking instead
to remove the stigma attached to it and to give back pride to
those unable or unwilling to work.
Suggestions on how to reduce your
work time
We all need to do less. Here are a few
practical suggestions
on how to reduce your work load
In the words of
a newsletter from the internet bank Egg "throw a sickie and bed down
for the day, where all you need to think about is how to pamper
yourself next."
Never
do overtime.
Try each day to
get into work later. Arrive a few minutes late and
see how long you can extend it.
Take your full lunch hour and extend
it by as
long as possible.
Leave dead on time, and if possible
a few minutes early.
Never volunteer for any job. Always try to
talk your employers out of undertaking any new work
Thinking of
starting your own business? Don't. You will kill
yourself working and probably lose any capital you've put into the
enterprise. If you have to work, try to get a job in government or a
large bureaucratic organisation.
Look for ways of reducing your expenditure
rather than increasing your income.
How to become rich without working
Is it possible to become rich
without working and without any initial
capital?
Its not difficult if you go
about it the right way.
Here are a few suggestions
Plant trees. Clearly you
have to be selective about which trees you plant and this will depend
on where you live. You could for example plant teak trees. The cost of
the sapling is negligible. In some countries the government will
subsidize you to plant them. There is no need to plant them on prime
real estate; you can use waste land. The tree does not require looking
after. It is insect resistant. It doesn't require pruning or fertilizer
or watering. Planting them requires no special expertise. Just
leave it for 20 years, after which it should fetch around $2800. The
total initial investment in the land and the sapling is unlikely to be
more than $50 per tree, giving you an annual return of 22% - tax free.
Compare that to the return of the most successful investor of the
twentieth century, Warren Buffet, who achieved an annual return
of 19.75% over 20 years. Remember that an investor in his company
Berkshire Hathaway, the 14th largest in the world, would pay around
half of all her profits in tax when she came to sell her shares. You
would pay nothing
The
work ethic is so integral to our society and way of life that one
hesitates to
suggest that it may have run its course. Richard Cumberland, an
18th-century
Bishop of Peterborough, once summed up the underlying philosophy when
he said:
"It is better to wear out than to rust out." After the second world
war the right to work was included in the United Nations Declaration of
the
Universal Rights of Man. Indeed so unacceptable is unemployment that
the UK
government has now abolished the word: the unemployed are now
classified as 'job
seekers'. They can only claim benefit if they are prepared to work.
Work is an
end in itself.
