In this month’s issue of Current Affairs, Joshua Cho writes In Defense of Laziness: “Aside from the absurdity of knowing that the phrase ‘pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps’ was originally intended to prove the absurdity of succeeding without outside help (because the very act is literally impossible to perform), the continued irony of rich people who don’t work accusing the working poor of being ‘lazy’ shouldn’t be lost on us. It’s true that there are many rich people who work a lot, but they are not rich because they work hard. … Capitalists are quite literally people who receive money from owning a lot of investments, rather than working for every dollar like everyone else. … Nobody ‘earns’ a billion dollar fortune. And the bootstrapping myth only perpetuates the absurd pattern where the most victimized and hardworking people are accused of laziness by those who don’t really work. … Socialists shouldn’t shy away from the fact that a lot of the policies they champion would save people from pointless work, freeing up their time to do other things. … When people attack socialists for wanting an easy world that encourages laziness, we shouldn’t hesitate to agree. We should instead ask: ‘What’s wrong with laziness?'”
4 March 2020