The Right to Be Lazy by Paul Lafargue

The Right to Be Lazy by Paul Lafargue

Now in a new translation, a classic nineteenth-century defense for the cause of idleness by a revolutionary writer and activist (and Karl Marx's son-in law) that reshaped European ideas of labor and production.

Exuberant, provocative, and as controversial as when it first appeared in 1880, Paul Lafargue's The Right to Be Lazy is a call for the workers of the world to unite--and stop working so much Lafargue, Karl Marx's son-in-law (about whom Marx once said, If he is a Marxist, then I am clearly not) wrote his pamphlet on the virtues of laziness while in prison for giving a socialist speech. At once a timely argument for a three-hour workday and a classical defense of leisure, The Right to Be Lazy shifted the course of European thought, going through seventeen editions in Russia during the Revolution of 1905 and helping shape John Maynard Keynes's ideas about overproduction. Published here with a selection of Lafargue's other writings--including an essay on Victor Hugo and a memoir of Marx--The Right to Be Lazy reminds us that the urge to work is not always beneficial, let alone necessary. It can also be a strange madness consuming human lives.

Paul La Farge is the author of two novels: The Artist of the Missing (FSG, 1999) and Haussmann, or the Dis-tinction (FSG, 2001); and a book of imaginary dreams, The Facts of Win-ter. His short stories have appeared in McSweeney's, Harper's Magazine, Fence, Conjunctions, and elsewhere. His nonfiction appears in The Believer, Bookforum, Playboy, and Cabinet. He lives in upstate New York.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781681376820
ISBN 10	1681376822
Title	The Right to Be Lazy
Author	Paul Lafargue
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	The New York Review of Books, Inc
Year published	2022-11-15
Number of pages	200
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable