The Right To Be Lazy
Essays by Paul LaFargue
by Paul LaFargue
edited by Bernard Marszalek
with an introduction by Kari Lydersen
Publication date: June 2011
Paperback: $16
Purchase from AK Press
At once a masterpiece of critical theory and rip-roaring radical humor, this is one of the most spirited attacks on the notion of the "work ethic" ever to be published! Featuring a revised edition of the original English translation by Charles Hope Kerr, this collection also includes four of Paul Lafargue's lesser-known critique (including the "Cathecism for Investors"), as well as a biographical sketch by longtime Wobbly organizer Fred Thompson, a new introduction by Bay Area print activist Bernard Marszalek. Released in collaboration with AK Press, and including a tribute to Charles H. Kerr by labor journalist Kari Lydersen. Paul Lafargue (1842–1911) was a Cuban-born socialist revolutionary, perhaps most well-known as the charismatic son-in-law of Karl Marx. Follow Bernard Marszalek on the righttobelazy blog.
Praise for The Right to be Lazy:
"I'm delighted that this scholarly, informative and revealing edition of Lafargue's great anti-work polemic has come out. The ideas are even more relevant to today's enslaved societies than they were when they were first written."—Tom Hodgkinson, editor of The Idler, www.idler.co.uk
"We cannot be the creators of our own world until we confront the destructive nature of modern work—and supplant it."—Curtis White, author of The Barbaric Heart
"In an era stuck between exhaustion and despair, too much stupid work on one hand, only exceeded by the vast waste of the unemployed, it's high time we revisit the deep radicalism of our nineteenth century forebears. Twenty-first century Nowtopians are inventing new ways to work and to not work—following the inspired work of Paul Lafargue."—Chris Carlsson, author of Nowtopia, www.nowtopians.com