By Bertrand Russell

I

Like most of my generation, I was brought up on the saying “Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.” Being a highly virtuous child, I believed all that I was told and acquired a conscience which has kept me working hard down to the present moment. But although my conscience has controlled my actions, my opinions have undergone a revolution. I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached. Every one knows the story of the traveler in Naples who saw twelve beggars lying in the sun (it was before the days of Mussolini), and offered a lira to the laziest of them. Eleven of them jumped up to claim it, so he gave it to the twelfth. This traveler was on the right lines. But in countries which do not enjoy Mediterranean sunshine idleness is more difficult, and a great public propaganda will be required to inaugurate it. I hope that after reading the following pages the leaders of the Y. M. C. A. will start a campaign to induce good young men to do nothing. If so, I shall not have lived in vain.

像大多数同代人那样，我受过这句谚语的教诲：“恶魔总捉弄懒汉”。作为一个循规蹈矩的孩子，我深信所受的一切教诲，并具有一种促使我勤恳工作至今的良心。这种良心虽然支配着我的行动，但我的观念与过去却有天壤之别。我想在当今世界上工作过于繁重，工作即美德这一信念导致了极大的危害，现代工业国家需要宣扬的东西与历来所宣扬的截然不同。大家都知道一个到那不勒斯旅行的人的故事，当他看到12个乞丐躺着晒太阳时（这是发生在墨索里尼时代之前），想施舍一个里拉给其中最懒的一个。当场 11 个名丐一跃而起求对，于是，他把里拉给了第 12 个。这位旅行者所作所为当然无可厚非。在那些享用不到地中海阳光的国家，悠闲非同小可，需要大加广泛宣传方能开此先河。我希望基督教青年会的领袖们读了以下篇章后，开展一场运动，劝导善良的年轻人无所事事。倘若如此，我总算不会虚度此生。

Before advancing my own arguments for laziness, I must dispose of one which I cannot accept. Whenever a person who already has enough to live on proposes to engage in some everyday kind of job, such as school-teaching or typing, he or she is told that such conduct takes the bread out of other people’s mouths, and is, therefore, wicked. If this argument were valid, it would only be necessary for us all to be idle in order that we should all have our mouths full of bread. What people who say such things forget is that what a man earns he usually spends, and in spending he gives employment. As long as a man spends his income he puts just as much bread into people’s mouths in spending as he takes out of other people’s mouths in earning. The real villain, from this point of view, is the man who saves. If he merely puts his savings in a stocking, like the proverbial French peasant, it is obvious that they do not give employment. If he invests his savings the matter is less obvious, and different cases arise.

在陈述我的懒惰主张之前，我必需排除一种无法接受的看法。当一个人已经可以维持生活所需，他仍筹划着从事某项日常的工作，如教员或打字员，人们就会告诉他（她）：这样做等于从他人口中夺走饮食，因而是不义之举。如果这一论点可以成立，那我们只消游手好闲就可能饱食终日了。这样说的人忘记了一个事实：一个人所赚来的通常供他花费，而其消费之行为又为别人提供了就业机会。只要一个人不断将其收入用于消费，那他为别人提供糊口之食的数量就与他从别人口里夺得的数量一般多。如此看来，真正的罪人是节俭者。就像众所周知的法国农民那样，假如他把节约下来的钱放进袜筒里，显而易见这钱并不提供就业的可能；如果他这钱用来投资，情况就不会如此简单，结果也将完全不同。

One of the commonest things to do with savings is to lend them to some government. In view of the fact that the bulk of the expenditure of most civilized governments consists in payments for past wars and preparation for future wars, the man who lends his money to a government is in the same position as the bad men in Shakespeare who hire murderers. The net result of the man’s economical habits is to increase the armed forces of the State to which he lends his savings. Obviously it would be better if he spent the money, even if he spent it on drink or gambling.

最通常的一种做法是把节约下来的钱贷给政府。鉴于大多数文明国家的政府，公共开支的大部分是用于偿还旧日战争负债或用来备战这一事实，贷款给政府的人就与莎士比亚描写的雇佣凶手的歹徒同属一类。这种人节省而换来的结果，不过是把他贷给国家之款项用来增强这个国家的武力而已。如果他花掉这些钱，即使是用来酗酒或赌博，显然也要好得多。

But, I shall be told, the case is quite different when savings are invested in industrial enterprises. When such enterprises succeed and produce something useful this may be conceded. In these days, however, no one will deny that most enterprises fail. That means that a large amount of human labor, which might have been devoted to producing something which could be enjoyed, was expended on producing machines which, when produced, lay idle and did no good to anyone. The man who invests his savings in a concern that goes bankrupt is, therefore, injuring others as well as himself. If he spent his money, say, in giving parties for his friends, they (we may hope) would get pleasure, and so would all those on whom he spent money, such as the butcher, the baker, and the bootlegger. But if he spends it (let us say) upon laying down rails for surface cars in some place where surface cars turn out to be not wanted, he has diverted a mass of labor into channels where it gives pleasure to no one. Nevertheless, when he becomes poor through the failure of his investment he will be regarded as a victim of undeserved misfortune, whereas the gay spendthrift, who has spent his money philanthropically, will be despised as a fool and a frivolous person.

但是，人们会这样告诉我，如把节余的钱投资于工商企业，情况就完全不同。如果这样的企业有所成就，生产出有用的东西，这一说法就无懈可击了。然而，今天没有人能否认多数企业是失败了。那就是说，大量人力原本可以用来生产供人享用的东西，却消耗于制造机器上，待造出机器后就闲置一边，毫无用处。因而，把节省的钱投资于走向破产的公司的人既害己又坑人。如果他把钱花在诸如宴请他的朋友这种事情上，他们（就如我们希望的）将欢欣快乐，而凡领受他的钱的人，如屠夫、面包师傅和贩卖私酒的也会如此效仿。但如果他把钱（让我们假定）用在某地铺设电车轨道，而这个地方并不需要，那他就把大量劳力浪费在不能给任何人带来快乐的场所。然而当他因投资失败而穷困潦倒时，人们会把他看成是一个不该遭遇不幸的牺牲者，而对那种挥金如土、博施广济的人，他又会被被鄙视为迂腐与轻薄的人。

All this is only preliminary. I want to say, in all seriousness, that a great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by the belief in the virtuousness of work, and that the road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organized diminution of work.

上述的一切只是引子。我想郑重表明的是：把工作视为美德的信条在现代世界酿成大量危害，通向幸福与繁荣之路在于有计划地缩减工作。

First of all: what is work? Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth’s surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid. The second kind is capable of indefinite extension: there are not only those who give orders but those who give advice as to what orders should be given. Usually two opposite kinds of advice are given simultaneously by two different bodies of men; this is called politics. The skill required for this kind of work is not knowledge of the subjects as to which advice is given, but knowledge of the art of persuasive speaking and writing, i.e. of advertising.

首先，什么是工作？工作分为两种：第一种是相对地改变地面上的或接近地面的物体的状况而成为他物；第二种是告诉别人去做。前一种工作人们不喜欢做，报酬更是微薄；后一种是人们所乐意且报酬优厚的工作。第二种工作的范围可以无限扩展：不仅有发号施令的人，而且有一般指点着该发什么号令的人。常有这样的情况，两个有组织的团体同时提出两种对立意见，这就是所谓的政治，这类工作所需要的技能不是与所提意见相关的某种专门知识，而是能文善辩之才，即宣传鼓动的才干。

Throughout Europe, though not in America, there is a third class of men, more respected than either of the classes of workers. These are men who, through ownership of land, are able to make others pay for the privilege of being allowed to exist and to work. These landowners are idle, and I might, therefore, be expected to praise them. Unfortunately, their idleness is rendered possible only by the industry of others; indeed their desire for comfortable idleness is historically the source of the whole gospel of work. The last thing they have ever wished is that others should follow their example.

除美洲外，在欧洲各国另有第三种人，他们比上述两种人更受人敬佩。这种人由于拥有土地，能向别人收取租税，让他们获得生存和工作的特权。这些土地所有者是懒散的人，因而，人们也许以为我会颂赞他们。很可惜，他们的懒散只是由他人的勤劳带来的；他们向往安乐悠闲的欲望历史上确实是人们对劳动全部信仰的根源。他们最不愿意的事就是别人步其后尘。

From the beginning of civilization until the industrial revolution a man could, as a rule, produce by hard work little more than was required for the subsistence of himself and his family, although his wife worked at least as hard and his children added their labor as soon as they were old enough to do so. The small surplus above bare necessaries was not left to those who produced it, but was appropriated by priests and warriors. In times of famine there was no surplus; the warriors and priests, however, still secured as much as at other times, with the result that many of the workers died of hunger. This system persisted in Russia until 1917, and still persists in the East; in England, in spite of the Industrial Revolution, it remained in full force throughout the Napoleonic wars, and until a hundred years ago, when the new class of manufacturers acquired power. In America the system came to an end with the Revolution, except in the South, where it persisted until the Civil War. A system which lasted so long and ended so recently has naturally left a profound impression upon men’s thoughts and opinions. Much that we take for granted about the desirability of work is derived from this system and, being pre-industrial, is not adapted to the modern world. Modern technic has made it possible for leisure, within limits, to be not the prerogative of small privileged classes, but a right evenly distributed throughout the community. The morality of work is the morality of slaves, and the modern world has no need of slavery.

自文明之初直到工业革命前，一般来说，一个人辛苦劳作所生产的东西，除维持自身和家庭的生存所需外，所剩无几，即使他的妻子也像他一样拼命工作，他的孩子稍大一些也成了附加的劳动力，也不会有多少剩余。在维持权简单的生活所需之外的微小节余，并不为生产者所拥有，而被那些武士和僧侣们侵吞。遇到饥荒没有剩余之时，武士和僧侣却依然像平时那样索取，其后果只能是迫使许多劳动者饿死。这种制度在俄国持续到1917年为止，而在东方各国直至今日仍有存留；在英国，虽有工业革命兴起，但在拿破仑战争时期这种制度仍全盛不衰，直到一百年前新的工厂主阶级得势时为止。在美国，这一制度随着大革命而告终，而南方一直持续到南北战争。一种制度延续长久，而且直到新近才得以结束，很自然地会在人们的思想和观念中留下深刻的印象。我们当然可以认为人类孜孜不倦工作的愿望很大程度上源于这种制度。然而适用干前工业化社会的并不适用于现代世界。现代技术则可以使闲暇在一定限度内不为少数特权阶级所专有，而均等地分属于整个社会。努力工作是奴隶的道德，现代世界不需要奴隶制度。

It is obvious that, in primitive communities, peasants, left to themselves, would not have parted with the slender surplus upon which the warriors and priests subsisted, but would have either produced less or consumed more. At first sheer force compelled them to produce and part with the surplus. Gradually, however, it was found possible to induce many of them to accept an ethic according to which it was their duty to work hard, although part of their work went to support others in idleness. By this means the amount of compulsion required was lessened, and the expenses were diminished. To this day ninety-nine per cent of British wage-earners would be genuinely shocked if it were proposed that the King should not have a larger income than a working man. The conception of duty, speaking historically, has been a means used by the holders of power to induce others to live for the interests of their masters rather than their own. Of course the holders of power conceal this fact from themselves by managing to believe that their interests are identical with the larger interests of humanity. Sometimes this is true; Athenian slave-owners, for instance, employed part of their leisure in making a permanent contribution to civilization which would have been impossible under a just economic system. Leisure is essential to civilization, and in former times leisure for the few was rendered possible only by the labors of the many. But their labors were valuable, not because work is good, but because leisure is good. And with modern technic it would be possible to distribute leisure justly without injury to civilization.

很明显，在原始公社里，农民享有自由，他们不愿意把生产上的一点结余分给以此为生的武士和僧侣，因而或者少生产点或者多消费点。起初他们纯被强制去从事生产，并奉献出结余。但是逐渐地，发现了能够诱使大多数人接受一种道德观，这种道德使他们相信辛勤劳作乃是他们的义务，即使拿出生产所得的一部分去供养那些闲散之八，也应毫无怨言。依靠这一方法，所需的强制份量得以减弱，政府的费用也缩减了。时至今日，如果有人提出国王的收入不应比一个工人多，99％的英国工人都会感到震惊。从历史上来说，义务这一概念是掌权者用以诱使人们为他们的主人的利益而生存，而不是为自身利益而生存的一种方式。当然掌权者也在自欺欺人，他们尽力使自己确信，他们的利益同大多数人的利益是一致的。不过有时这也是真的，例如：雅典奴隶主利用一部分闲暇，对文明事业作出了永久的贡献。如在不公正的经济体制下，这是办不到的。对于文明来说，闲暇是不可或缺的，过去少数人的闲暇只能靠大多数的劳动来给予。而多数人的劳动之所以是可贵的，并非因为劳动本身有多好，而是因为闲暇是有益的。随着现代技术的进步，把闲暇公平地分配给大家已成为可能，而无损于文明的发展。

Modern technic has made it possible to diminish enormously the amount of labor necessary to produce the necessaries of life for every one. This was made obvious during the War. At that time all the men in the armed forces, all the men and women engaged in the production of munitions, all the men and women engaged in spying, war propaganda, or government offices connected with the War were withdrawn from productive occupations. In spite of this, the general level of physical well-being among wage-earners on the side of the Allies was higher than before or since. The significance of this fact was concealed by finance; borrowing made it appear as if the future was nourishing the present. But that, of course, would have been impossible; a man cannot eat a loaf of bread that does not yet exist. The War showed conclusively that by the scientific organization of production it is possible to keep modern populations in fair comfort on a small part of the working capacity of the modern world. If at the end of the War the scientific organization which had been created in order to liberate men for fighting and munition work had been preserved, and the hours of work had been cut down to four, all would have been well. Instead of that, the old chaos was restored, those whose work was demanded were made to work long hours, and the rest were left to starve as unemployed. Why? Because work is a duty, and a man should not receive wages in proportion to what he has produced, but in proportion to his virtue as exemplified by his industry.

现代技术使得每个人为维持生活所需付出的劳力有可能大大缩减。在战争期间这是显而易见的。那时所有在军队服役的男人，所有从事军火生产、侦探活动、战争宣传工作或在政府中从事有关战争事务的男男女女，全都撤离生产岗位。尽管如此，协约国方面一般劳动者的总的物质福利水平却高于战前或战争开始后。这一事实的重要性为财政状况所掩盖：债务似乎显示着未来可以供养现在。然而，这自然是不可能的；画饼不能充饥。战争确实说明了依靠科学的生产组织，只需现代全世界的一小部分工作能力，就能维持全人类过上美好舒适的生活。战争期间为使得人们从事战斗和制造军需品所产生的科学组织，战后如果能继续保持的话，那将每个工作日缩减为4小时，一切都还会是很好的。恰恰相反，战后，先前那种混乱的状态恢复了，那些受支配而工作的人又得劳累终日，其他人则因失业而忍饥挨饿。这是为什么？因为工作是一种义务，一个人的工资收入不是以他的生产量来衡量，而是以表现其勤劳的品性来衡量。

This is the morality of the Slave State, applied in circumstances totally unlike those in which it arose. No wonder the result has been disastrous. Let us take an illustration. Suppose that at a given moment a certain number of people are engaged in the manufacture of pins. They make as many pins as the world needs, working (say) eight hours a day. Someone makes an invention by which the same number of men can make twice as many pins as before. But the world does not need twice as many pins: pins are already so cheap that hardly any more will be bought at a lower price. In a sensible world everybody concerned in the manufacture of pins would take to working four hours instead of eight, and everything else would go on as before. But in the actual world this would be thought demoralizing. The men still work eight hours, there are too many pins, some employers go bankrupt, and half the men previously concerned in making pins are thrown out of work. There is, in the end, just as much leisure as on the other plan, but half the men are totally idle while half are still overworked. In this way it is insured that the unavoidable leisure shall cause misery all round instead of being a universal source of happiness. Can anything more insane be imagined?

这就是今天在完全不同于当初的情况下实施的奴隶制道德。难怪其结果已是悲惨至极。我们举个例子说明：假定在一定的时间内，一定的人数从事铁针生产。比如说每天工作 8 小时，他们所生产的铁针足以满足世界上的需要。有人发明了新技术，这样同样的人数可生产两倍的铁钉。但全世界并木需用这么多的铁钉：即使铁价一降再降，销路也不会更好。在一个明智的世界中，所有经营铁钉的人都会把8小时工作改为4小时，这样其他一切就可照常运行。但在现实世界中，人们认为这样做会导致混乱，就仍坚持工作8小时，于是铁钉生产过剩，有的工厂主破产，一大半从事铁针生产的工人丢了工作。结果，空出的闲暇时间同上面所提的另一种情况正相同，但有一半的人完全空闲着，另一半人却工作过度。这样看来，不可避免的闲暇必定造成四处的悲惨景象，而不是成为普遍幸福的源泉。试想还有什么比这更愚蠢呢？

The idea that the poor should have leisure has always been shocking to the rich. In England in the early nineteenth century fifteen hours was the ordinary day’s work for a man; children sometimes did as much, and very commonly did twelve hours a day. When meddlesome busy-bodies suggested that perhaps these hours were rather long, they were told that work kept adults from drink and children from mischief. When I was a child, shortly after urban working men had acquired the vote, certain public holidays were established by law, to the great indignation of the upper classes. I remember hearing an old Duchess say, “What do the poor want with holidays? they ought to work.” People nowadays are less frank, but the sentiment persists, and is the source of much economic confusion.

穷人也应有闲暇，这种观念一直为富人所害怕。在19世纪初的英国，男人一般每天工作15小时；儿童通常工作12小时，有时干15小时如有爱管闲事的人提出，一天工作时间太长，人们会对他说：工作能防止成年人酗酒，防止儿童做坏事。当我还是孩子时，在工人取得选举权后不久，按照法律他们也有一般公民享有的假期，这件事却引起上流社会极大的愤慨。我记得曾听到一位年老的公爵夫人说：“穷人要假日做什么？他们只应该工作。”今天的人虽然不像过去那么直言不讳，但这种看法仍很顽固，这也正是许多经济纠纷的根源。

II

Let us, for a moment, consider the ethics of work frankly, without superstition. Every human being, of necessity, consumes in the course of his life a certain amount of produce of human labor. Assuming, as we may, that labor is on the whole disagreeable, it is unjust that a man should consume more than he produces. Of course he may provide services rather than commodities, like a medical man, for example; but he should provide something in return for his board and lodging. To this extent, the duty of work must be admitted, but to this extent only.

我们现在抛开迷信，坦率地考虑一下工作的伦理。每个人的生活必需消费一定数量的人类劳动产品。我们不妨假定劳动总体上是令人讨厌的，那么，某个人的消耗多于他的产出便是不公道的。当然，一个人可以提供服务，而不是从事商品生产，例如医务人员；但他也应做出一定的贡献以抵偿他吃住方面的消费。在此限度内，必须承认工作的义务性，但仅仅以此为限。

I shall not develop the fact that in all modern societies outside the U. S. S. R. many people escape even this minimum of work, namely all those who inherit money and all those who marry money. I do not think the fact that these people are allowed to be idle is nearly so harmful as the fact that wage-earners are expected to overwork or starve. If the ordinary wage-earner worked four hours a day there would be enough for everybody, and no unemployment — assuming a certain very moderate amount of sensible organization. This idea shocks the well-to-do, because they are convinced that the poor would not know how to use so much leisure. In America men often work long hours even when they are already well-off; such men, naturally, are indignant at the idea of leisure for wage-earners except as the grim punishment of unemployment, in fact, they dislike leisure even for their sons. Oddly enough, while they wish their sons to work so hard as to have no time to be civilized, they do not mind their wives and daughters having no work at all. The snobbish admiration of uselessness, which, in an aristocratic society, extends to both sexes, is under a plutocracy confined to women; this, however, does not make it any more in agreement with common sense.

在现代所有社会中，除苏联外，很多人逃避起码的工作责任，那种靠继承遗产的和找有钱的配偶的人俯拾皆是，对此我不想多加评论。我并不以为这些逍遥自在的人与那些说工人们应过度劳动或挨饿的人一样有害。假设具有某种真正适当的合理组织，普通工人每天工作4小时就可养家糊口，也不会有失业现象。这种想法使富人们十分震惊，因为他们确信穷人不懂如何利用这么多的闲暇时间。在美国，有些人虽然早已富有，但仍然经常长时间地工作；很自然，这些人认定空闲是对失业者的严厉惩罚，对于给有工资收入的人以闲暇的想法他们是极为愤愤不平的；事实上，即使他们的儿子有所空闲也会遭到谴责。颇为奇怪的是，他们期望其子努力工作以致受教育的时间也没有，但对其妻。其女无所事事却毫不在意。对悠闲自得欣羡不已的势利眼光，在贵族社会男女两性都有，而在财阀统治的社会中只限于妇女；但是，这并不表明它就更合乎常理。

The wise use of leisure, it must be conceded, is a product of civilization and education. A man who has worked long hours all his life will be bored if he becomes suddenly idle. But without a considerable amount of leisure a man is cut off from many of the best things. There is no longer any reason why the bulk of the population should suffer this deprivation; only a foolish asceticism, usually vicarious, makes us insist on work in excessive quantities now that the need no longer exists.

必须承认，明智地利用空暇时间是文明与教育的成果。一个人一辈子习惯于长时间劳作，一旦空下来，定会深感厌烦。但一个人如没有充分的闲暇，就和许多美好的事物无缘。今日已没有任何理由剥夺多数人应享有的这种权利；只有一种往往是替人受苦的愚昧的禁欲主义迫使我们疲于奔命，而现在已毫无必要了。

In the new creed which controls the government of Russia, while there is much that is very different from the traditional teaching of the West, there are some things that are quite unchanged. The attitude of the governing classes, and especially of those who control educational propaganda, on the subject of the dignity of labor is almost exactly that which the governing classes of the world have always preached to what were called the “honest poor.” Industry, sobriety, willingness to work long hours for distant advantages, even submissiveness to authority, all these reappear; moreover, authority still represents the will of the Ruler of the Universe, Who, however, is now called by a new name, Dialectical Materialism.

在支配俄国政府新的信条中，虽有许多与西方传统教义完全调异的东西，但还有些是一成未变的。统治阶层，特别是那些从事教育宣传的人，关于劳动高尚的说法同世界上统治阶级一贯提倡的所谓“老实贫民”的说法几乎一样。勤劳、节制。甘心为长远利益而长时间工作的意愿，甚至对权威的服从等，所有这一切都重新出现；而且，权威仍然代替着宇宙主宰的意志，只是如今更换了新名——辩证唯物主义。

The victory of the proletariat in Russia has some points in common with the victory of the feminists in some other countries. For ages men had conceded the superior saintliness of women and had consoled women for their inferiority by maintaining that saintliness is more desirable than power. At last the feminists decided that they would have both, since the pioneers among them believed all that the men had told them about the desirability of virtue but not what they had told them about the worthlessness of political power. A similar thing has happened in Russia as regards manual work. For ages the rich and their sycophants have written in praise of “honest toil,” have praised the simple life, have professed a religion which teaches that the poor are much more likely to go to heaven than the rich, and in general have tried to make manual workers believe that there is some special nobility about altering the position of matter in space, just as men tried to make women believe that they derived some special nobility from their sexual enslavement. In Russia all this teaching about the excellence of manual work has been taken seriously, with the result that the manual worker is more honored than anyone else. What are, in essence, revivalist appeals are made to secure shock workers for special tasks. Manual work is the ideal which is held before the young, and is the basis of all ethical teaching.

俄国无产阶级取得的胜利，同其他一些国家女权主义者的胜利具有某些共同之处。长期以来，男子承认女子的崇高的圣洁性，并宣扬圣洁性的权力更值得追求，以此来安慰女子的自卑感。女权主义者终于决定要二者兼得，因为她们中；司的先导者完全相信男人所说的美德之可贵，却无法相信政治权力是无用的这样的话。在俄国，对于体力劳动也有类似的情况。以往富人及其奉承者发表“可敬的劳苦工作”的赞美之词，颂扬简朴的生活，宣扬一种教条：穷人比富人更易进入天堂。总之，他们尽力使体力劳动者确认改变物体在空间的位置的工作是特别高尚的，这就同男人竭力让女人相信他们之所以特别高尚在于她们性别上的奴役一样。在俄国，所有关于体力劳动之高尚的说教，使得体力劳动者比其他任何人更受尊重。复兴这一信条的目的同过去不一样：从本质上说，他们所做的是鼓动工人们投入特殊的任务。体力劳动成为摆在青年人面前的理想，而且是所有道德教育的基础。

For the present this is all to the good. A large country, full of natural resources, awaits development and has to be developed with very little use of credit. In these circumstances hard work is necessary and is likely to bring a great reward. But what will happen when the point has been reached where everybody could be comfortable without working long hours?

就目前看来，这样做可能是有好处的。一个大国，具有丰富的自然资源有待开发，且是在缺乏资金的情况下进行开发。在这种情况下，艰苦的工作是必要的，且会产生很好的效果。然而，当达到不必长时间工作就能使每个人舒适地生活之时，那又将如何呢？

In the West we have various ways of dealing with this problem. We have no attempt at economic justice, so that a large proportion of the total produce goes to a small minority of the population, many of whom do no work at all. Owing to the absence of any central control over production, we produce hosts of things that are not wanted. We keep a large percentage of the working population idle because we can dispense with their labor by making others overwork. When all these methods prove inadequate we have a war: we cause a number of people to manufacture high explosives, and a number of others to explode them, as if we were children who had just discovered fireworks. By a combination of all these devices we manage, though with difficulty, to keep alive the notion that a great deal of manual work must be the lot of the average man.

在西方，对待这个问题的方式是各种各样的。我们并不企图去实现经济上的公正，因而生产总量的大部分流入那些根本不从事劳动的少数人手里。由于对产品生产缺乏集中统一的控制，生产出来的东西有许多是社会所不需要的。由于一部分工人被迫过度工作，这样很多劳力因没有工作而闲在一旁。当所有这些方法证明不适用时，只好诉诸战争：促使一些人去制造烈性炸药，另一些人去引爆，好像是刚发现烟火的孩子。我们千方百计地综合运用这些方法以维持这样的观念，那就是一般平民百姓注定要从事大量繁重的体力劳动。

In Russia, owing to economic justice and central control over production, the problem will have to be differently solved. The rational solution would be as soon as the necessaries and elementary comforts can be provided for all to reduce the hours of labor gradually, allowing a popular vote to decide, at each stage, whether more leisure or more goods were to be preferred. But, having taught the supreme virtue of hard work, it is difficult to see how the authorities can aim at a paradise in which there will be much leisure and little work. It seems more likely that they will find continually fresh schemes by which present leisure is to be sacrificed to future productivity. I read recently of an ingenious scheme put forward by Russian engineers for making the White Sea and the northern coasts of Siberia warm by putting a dam across the Kara Straits. An admirable plan, but liable to postpone proletarian comfort for a generation, while the nobility of toil is being displayed amid the ice-fields and snowstorms of the Arctic Ocean. This sort of thing, if it happens, will be the result of regarding the virtue of hard work as an end in itself, rather than as a means to a state of affairs in which it is no longer needed.

在俄国，由于经济匕已较为公平合理，产品生产有了集中统一管理，对这个问题应有不同的解决方式。一旦能够满足全体人民的生活需要和基本的舒适程度，那么合理解决这个问题就归结为逐步地缩短工作时间，在各个阶段，允许人民运用表决权决定：是增加闲暇时间还是生产更多的产品。然而，既然把艰苦工作视为高尚的品德，这就很难看出怎样才能达到多通少劳的天堂。看来他们更可行的办法是，不断地寻求新的方式，以此使当前的闲暇奉献于未来的生产。最近我读到一些俄国工程师提出的一条巧妙的计划，建议筑一道横跨喀拉海的堤坝，以使白令海与西伯利亚北方海岸变暖。这确实是令人钦佩的计划，但可惜的是，在北冰洋的冰天雪地中，当劳动显示出它的美德时，无产阶级的幸福将推迟一代人。这类事情如果真的实行，那是把艰苦工作的美德本身作为目的，而不是作为达到不再需要这样工作的境地的一种手段。

III

The fact is that moving matter about, while a certain amount of it is necessary to our existence, is emphatically not one of the ends of human life. If it were, we should have to consider every navvy superior to Shakespeare. We have been misled in this matter by two causes. One is the necessity of keeping the poor contented, which has led the rich for thousands of years to preach the dignity of labor, while taking care themselves to remain undignified in this respect. The other is the new pleasure in mechanism, which makes us delight in the astonishingly clever changes that we can produce on the earth’s surface. Neither of these motives makes any great appeal to the actual worker. If you ask him what he thinks the best part of his life, he is not likely to say, “I enjoy manual work because it makes me feel that I am fulfilling man’s noblest task, and because I like to think how much man can transform his planet. It is true that my body demands periods of rest, which I have to fill in as best I may, but I am never so happy as when the morning comes and I can return to the toil from which my contentment springs.” I have never heard working men say this sort of thing. They consider work, as it should be considered, as a necessary means to a livelihood, and it is from their leisure hours that they derive whatever happiness they may enjoy.

人类的生存虽然需要一定数量的体力劳动，但它显然不是人生的目的之一。倘若如此，我们就该把每个筑路工人看作高于莎士比亚。在这个问题上我们误入歧途有两个原因：一是由于必须使人感到知足，这一点致使几千年来富人一直宣扬劳动的高尚，而使他们自身却一直使之保持卑贱的境况；二是对机器生产新的兴趣使得我们为自身在地球上作出了惊人灵巧的变化而欣慰。然而这两个动机都不能使从事实际劳动的工人感兴趣。如果你询问他认为什么是生活中最美好的，看来他不会说：“我喜爱体力劳动，因为它使我体会到我在实践人类最高尚的事业，因为我乐于想像人类对其所居住的行星能改造到什么程度。诚然我的身体需要休息，我必须尽量满足这个需要，但每当天色破晓，我能重新投入乐在其中的艰苦工作。”我以前从未听到工人们这样说过，他们理所当然地把工作视为谋生的一种必要手段，而他们所能享用的无论什么样的乐趣都只能从空闲的时光中得到。

It will be said that while a little leisure is pleasant, men would not know how to fill their days if they had only four hours’ work out of the twenty-four. In so far as this is true in the modern world it is a condemnation of our civilization; it would not have been true at any earlier period. There was formerly a capacity for light-heartedness and play which has been to some extent inhibited by the cult of efficiency. The modern man thinks that everything ought to be done for the sake of something else, and never for its own sake. Serious-minded persons, for example, are continually condemning the habit of going to the cinema, and telling us that it leads the young into crime. But all the work that goes to producing a cinema is respectable, because it is work, and because it brings a money profit. The notion that the desirable activities are those that bring a profit has made everything topsy-turvy. The butcher who provides you with meat and the baker who provides you with bread are praiseworthy because they are making money but when you enjoy the food they have provided you are merely frivolous, unless you eat only to get strength for your work. Broadly speaking, it is held that getting money is good and spending money is bad. Seeing that they are two sides of one transaction, this is absurd; one might as well maintain that keys are good but keyholes are bad. The individual, in our society, works for profit; but the social purpose of his work lies in the consumption of what he produces. It is this divorce between the individual and the social purpose of production that makes it so difficult for men to think clearly in a world in which profitmaking is the incentive to industry. We think too much of production and too little of consumption. One result is that we attach too little importance to enjoyment and simple happiness, and that we do not judge production by the pleasure that it gives to the consumer.

也许有人会说，空闲时间少是工人们所乐意的，可是他们如果在一天24小时中只工作4小时，就不懂得如何安排其余时间了。在现代世界中如果这一说法是正确的，那便是对我们文明的谴责；其实即使在过去这种说法也是不对的。以前人们有时间休息放松，而现在由于讲究效率，对此就有了一定的限制。现代人认为做任何事都另有目的，并非为事情本身而做。例如，那些严肃的人总是指责爱好看电影的人，说这会教唆青年人做坏事。但是与电影相关的所有工作又受到尊敬，因为这是一项工作，而且带来收益。这种认为赚钱是有价值的活动的观念使得世间万物是非颠倒。那些供给我们肉和面包的屠夫和面包师是值得称赞的，因为他们是在赚钱；而你如享用他们供给的食物，除非纯粹为了给工作增添力气，否则你也是微不足道的。一般说来，人们都认为，赚钱是善行，而花钱是恶的。其实这是一个问题的两个方面，这就如同一个人认定钥匙是好的，而锁孔是坏的那样的想法一样荒谬。劳动产品的价值必须完全依照产品消费后带来的益处去衡量。在我们社会里，个人为私利而工作；而他工作的社会目的在于他所生产的得以消费。生产的个人与社会目的上的区别，在这个营利是勤劳的动力的世界上，人们很难清醒地考虑问题。我们过多地考虑生产，而对消费考虑太少。其结果之一就是对享受和起码的幸福漠不关心，而且对生产不是以它能给消费者带来的乐趣为准则而进行评判。

When I suggest that working hours should be reduced to four, I am not meaning to imply that all the remaining time should necessarily be spent in pure frivolity. I mean that four hours’ work a day should entitle a man to the necessities and elementary comforts of life, and that the rest of his time should be his to use as he might see fit. It is an essential part of any such social system that education should be carried farther than it usually is at present, and should aim, in part, at providing tastes which would enable a man to use leisure intelligently. I am not thinking mainly of the sort of things that would be considered “high-brow.” Peasant dances have died out except in remote rural areas, but the impulses which caused them to be cultivated must still exist in human nature. The pleasures of urban populations have become mainly passive: seeing cinemas, watching football matches, listening to the radio, and so on. This results from the fact that their active energies are fully taken up with work; if they had more leisure they would again enjoy pleasures in which they took an active part.

我提出把每个工作日缩减为4小时，并不意味着主张所有余暇时间都必须花在纯粹的无聊事情上。我的意思是每天工作4小时就可以满足一个人的生活所需和基本的舒适生活，其余时间可以自行安排。教育应比现在长足发展，教育的一部分目的是要教给人如何善于利用空暇时间，这样说来，4小时工作制是这样社会制度的重要组成部分。我主要不是指那类被认作“高级趣味”的事。乡村舞蹈，除了偏远地区外，已经绝迹，但促使这种娱乐方式得以发展的必仍存在于人类的天性中。城市居民的娱乐方式基本已变成消极的，如看电影、看足球赛、听广播等等。这是由于人们的活动精力已全被一天的繁重工作所耗尽；如果人们有了更多的闲暇时间，他们仍会重新享受积极参与娱乐活动所带来的快乐。

In the past there was a small leisure class and a large working class. The leisure class enjoyed advantages for which there was no basis in social justice; this necessarily made it oppressive, limited its sympathies, and caused it to invent theories by which to justify its privileges. These facts greatly diminished its excellence, but in spite of this drawback it contributed nearly the whole of what we call civilization. It cultivated the arts and discovered the sciences; it wrote the books, invented the philosophies, and refined social relations. Even the liberation of the oppressed has usually been inaugurated from above. Without the leisure class mankind would never have emerged from barbarism.

在过去，有闲阶级的人很少，大量的人是劳动阶级。有闲阶级享有的种种权利，是没有社会正义上的根据的；因而必然出现压迫、冷漠以及制造各种谬论，以维护其特权。这些事实大大地减弱了有闲阶级的优势，然而尽管有这类缺陷，它却为我们所说的绝大部分文明有所贡献。例如艺术的培养，科学的发现，写书，阐发哲学和提出文雅的社会礼仪等，甚至被压迫阶级的解放也常常发动于上述文明的事业。没有有闲阶级，人类决不能摆脱野蛮阶段。

The method of a hereditary leisure class without duties was, however, extraordinarily wasteful. None of the members of the class had been taught to be industrious, and the class as a whole was not exceptionally intelligent. It might produce one Darwin, but against him had to be set tens of thousands of country gentlemen who never thought of anything more intelligent than fox-hunting and punishing poachers. At present, the universities are supposed to provide, in a more systematic way, what the leisure class provided accidentally and as a byproduct. This is a great improvement, but it has certain drawbacks. University life is so different from life in the world at large that men who live in an academic milieu tend to be unaware of the pre-occupations of ordinary men and women; moreover, their ways of expressing themselves are usually such as to rob their opinions of the influence that they ought to have upon the general public. Another disadvantage is that in universities studies are organized, and the man who thinks of some original line of research is likely to be discouraged. Academic institutions, therefore, useful as they are, are not adequate guardians of the interests of civilization in a world where every one outside their walls is too busy for unutilitarian pursuits.

但是，世袭有闲阶级不承担义务，特别是浪费时光。这个阶级的成员没有一人经受过艰辛，而就其一个阶级整体来说才智也不高。这个阶级本可以产生像达尔文那样的人，但结果出现同达尔父相反的成千六万乡绅，他们除了猎狐和惩罚偷狩者外，不去想任何更有意义的事。现在的大学以较为系统的方式提供了以前有闲阶级偶然地且作为副产品所提供的东西。这是一个巨大的进步，但仍有某些缺点。大学生活与外界世界过干不同，使得那些生活在学院环境的人并不理会普通人的急难和问题；再说，他们发表意见的方式往往不适当，本应能影响民众的，结果却失去了力量。另一个缺点是，由于大学学习是条条框框的，这就是可能打击想从事独创性研究的人。因此，大学虽有它的好处，但对学院外的文明的利益却不能给予充分的维护；而在院墙之外的人们忙忙碌碌，无暇顾及非功利的事情。

In a world where no one is compelled to work more than four hours a day every person possessed of scientific curiosity will be able to indulge it, and every painter will be able to paint without starving, however excellent his pictures may be. Young writers will not be obliged to draw attention to themselves by sensational pot-boilers, with a view to acquiring the economic independence needed for monumental works, for which, when the time at last comes, they will have lost the taste and the capacity. Men who in their professional work have become interested in some phase of economics or government will be able to develop their ideas without the academic detachment that makes the work of university economists lacking in reality. Medical men will have time to learn about the progress of medicine. Teachers will not be exasperatedly struggling to teach by routine things which they learned in their youth, which may, in the interval, have been proved to be untrue.

在每天工作不超4小时的世界中，每一位具有科学好奇心的人都能全心投入，每一个画家都能从容地去作画，力求画艺精湛，而不必挨饿受冻。青年作家要依赖经济上的独立方可创作不朽之作，他们往往不得不用刺激性的低劣作品去吸引人的注意，以求糊口；等到经济好转时，往往已丧失了才气和能力。在专业工作中，对经济或管理方面有兴趣的人，到那时将能发挥其观点而无学究气，这种学究气使得大学里的经济学家经常脱离实际。医生也将有时间研究医药的进展，教师也不必煞费苦心地沿用固定的方法去讲授他们在年轻时所学的东西，因那些东西随着时间的变迁，可能已被证明是不成立的了。

Above all, there will be happiness and joy of life, instead of frayed nerves, weariness, and dyspepsia. The work exacted will be enough to make leisure delightful, but not enough to produce exhaustion. Since men will not be tired in their spare time, they will not demand only such amusements as are passive and vapid. At least one per cent will probably devote the time not spent in professional work to pursuits of some public importance, and, since they will not depend upon these pursuits for their livelihood, their originality will be unhampered, and there will be no need to conform to the standards set by elderly pundits. But it is not only in these exceptional cases that the advantages of leisure will appear. Ordinary men and women, having the opportunity of a happy life, will become more kindly and less persecuting and less inclined to view others with suspicion. The taste for war will die out, partly for this reason, and partly because it will involve long and severe work for all. Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle. Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen instead to have overwork for some and starvation for others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines. In this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish for ever.

总之，在这样的世界中，拥有的将是幸福和愉快的人生，而不再是忧郁低沉的状况。必要的适当工作就可愉快地欢度闲暇时光，而不致使人疲惫不堪。由于人们闲暇时不劳累，他们需要的将不只是那些消极平淡的娱乐，至少1％的人将利用其业务以外的时间从事一些有关公共事务的重要事情；由于人们的生活不依靠这些事情，池们的创造力将不受妨碍，而且将不再固守老一代学者的陈规。闲暇的长处不只是表现在这些特殊的情况之中。普通入由干生活过得舒畅，将变得更富仁慈，更少有害人之心，更少对别人怀疑猜忌。好战的心理将消失，这部分是出自上述原因，部分还由于战争会给全体人员带来过度和繁重的工作。在所有的道德品质中，善良的本性是世界上最需要的；但善良的本性乃是悠闲和安逸的结果，而不是来自艰苦奋斗的人生。现代的生产方式让我们有可能得到悠闲和安逸，然而，我们舍此而不取，以致一部分人劳累过度，另一部分人忍饥挨饿。我们至今还像在没有机器的时代一样，耗尽了力气；在此事上，我们一直愚蠢至极，但决没有永远做傻瓜的理由。