In praise of idleness

Considered 'the Voltaire of his time', Bertrand Russell was a fearless iconoclast who stood unbowed before political and religious leaders; his disdain for conventional thinking and accepted beliefs set him apart from his academic peers and at odds with the authorities throughout his long and storied life. In his celebrated essay, In Praise of Idleness, Russell champions the seemingly incongruous notion that realising our full potential - and thus enjoying the greatest possible success and happiness - is not accomplished by working harder or smarter, but through harnessing the extraordinary power of idleness. Russell's penetrating insights and exquisite turns of phrase feel as fresh and relevant today as when they were first written. Arguing that we can achieve far more by doing far less, and that traditional wealth accumulation is a form of cultural and moral poverty, Russell demands greater depth from our age of abundant creativity and heralds the next wave of enlightened entrepreneurs. Replete with a new introduction and afterword, and interspersed with comic illustrations, informative notes plus a curated selection of Russell's best quotes from many of his acclaimed works, this unique edition of In Praise Of Idlenessis given new life by New York Timesbest-selling author and internationally acclaimed humourist, Bradley Trevor Greive.

What Hacker News says

pmcarltonAug 2026

I've never heard a really good refutation of Bertrand Russell's "In Praise of Idleness" (1935) where he asks this same question. It just seems to be cultural baggage. In his day, it was exemplified by the attitude of "why do the poor need leisure time", "idle hands are the devil's playthings", etc, and today is exemplified in some of these comments — "I don't want to give my tax money to X" where subsidizing X doesn't hurt that person, may in fact make them and most other people better off, but is still morally/culturally repugnant.

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swed420Jul 2026

Relevant:

In Praise of Idleness

https://ia801002.us.archive.org/27/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.4...

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onraglanroadJun 2026

Have you ever read Bertrand Russell's critique of the gold standard in his essay The Modern Midas? It's in the collection "In Praise of Idleness".

It's worth reading all of them, even if you disagree with most of it.

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olddustytrailJul 2025

Bertrand Russell published a collection of essays in 1935 titled _In Praise Of Idleness_ which are well worth reading.

One of the essays is called _Between Scylla and Charybdis_ (the original rock and a hard place!) which explains why he rejects the commonly accepted idea that an intellectual should naturally be politically either a Communist or a Fascist. Remember Fascism was not a dirty word at this point; the Nazis destroyed it's legitimacy through their actions.

Anyway, if you want a better understanding read that. And the rest because they're very interesting.

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wencDec 2024

I’m certainly a big fan of the European lifestyle (which was in some sense foretold by Bertrand Russell’s In Praise of Idleness, where he argued that raw labor will become less necessary in the future and people should spend more time indulging in high value creative activities).

I do wonder if it’s possible to sustain without some form of labor and innovation however. A lot of what Europe enjoys today was the result of past innovation and labor. Europe doesn’t exist in a vacuum and there are competitive forces at work — even if it doesn’t aspire to grow economically, it will in some sense decline in relative terms if the rest of the world grows faster.

Decline can be slow but it can also be quick. Germany for instance has declined significantly in the past few years due to its reliance on Russian gas. It probably doesn’t feel like it on the ground but if you look at the numbers Germany is not currently doing well (though it still has lots of competitive advantages, not least its people).

Japan has also declined significantly in relative terms since the 90s despite not appearing like it has, but if you’re a Japanese young person your prospects for career growth is actually fairly limited so most people who were in the lost generation are conditioned to have modest ambitions. Japanese people are still some of the most able people in the world but the cultural proclivity towards making rapid advances has been muted significantly. Its hard to launch startups or to do anything that isn’t incremental there.

Some folks are thinking we’d all be happier if we were hobbits living a bucolic self sustaining existence insulated from the rest of the world. But that kind of life is only possible because someone else took care of Mordor.

Quality of life is more fragile than we think. Civilizations decline from complacency.

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gradschoolfailSep 2024

[PS] B Russell, In Praise of Idleness

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