罗素：论闲散
IN PRAISE or IDLENESS 论闲散/悠闲颂
摘自《In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays》 。First published in the United Kingdom by George Allen & Unwin Ltd in 1935.
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.
像大多数同辈人一样，我曾受到这个谚语的教诲：“撒旦要捉弄懒汉”。我作为一个循规蹈矩的儿童，相信所受的一切教诲，并由此而萌生了能使我一直勤奋工作至今的自觉性。这种自觉性虽然支配着我的行动，但我的看法却与过去完全两样。我认为在当今世界上工作过于繁重，工作即美德这种信念造成了极大的危害，在现代工业国家所需要宣传的东西同以往一向宣传的东西很不同。大家都听说过一个到那不勒斯旅行的人的故事，当他看见大街上12个乞丐躺在那里晒太阳时(此事发生在墨索里尼时代以前)，他想布施一个里拉给其中最懒惰的人。有11个乞丐一下子跃起乞讨，于是，他把里拉给了第十二个乞丐。这个旅行者所做的当然是对的。在那些享受不到地中海日光的国家中，闲散并非易事一件，需要广加宣传才能开此先河。我希望青年会的领袖们读了这篇文章后，开展一场运动，引导善良的年轻人无所事事。倘能如此，我便没有白活着。
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.
在陈述我的关于懒惰理论之前，需要排除一种我不能接受的说法。每当个人早已满足生活所需，但他仍准备从事某种平常的职业，如教员或打字员，人们就会对他说，这样做等于从别人口中夺食，因此是不义之举。如果这个论点是正确的，那么我们只需游手好闲就能饱食终日了。这样说是忘记了下列事实： 一个人所赚得的通常就是他所消费的，而由于消费之需要又为他人提供了职业。只要一个人不断消费他所赚得的，那他为别人提供糊口之食的数量就像他从别人口中夺得糊口之食的数量一样多。从这个观点来看，真正的罪人是节约者。正如法国人常说，一个农民如果只把他节约下来的钱放在一只长袜中，很明显这钱不会为别人提供职业；如果他把节约下来的钱用来投资，事情虽无多大了不起，结果却完全不同。
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.
把节约下来的钱贷给政府，这是最通常的一种做法。鉴于现代大多数文明国家的政府，公共支出的大部分是用以偿还战争赔款或准备在未来战争这个事实，因此贷款给政府的人就与莎士比亚剧中雇佣凶手的坏人同属一类。此人节省而得到的结果，不过是使他贷给国家之款，用来增长国家的武力而已。如果他用掉赚来的钱，即使是用来酗酒或赌博，那也显然要好得多。
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，如果把节省下来的钱用于投资工商企业，情况就完全不同。如果这种企业办成了，生产出有用的东西，这种做法就无懈可击了。然而，今天没有谁能否认大多数企业是失败的。那就是说，大量人力本来可以用来生产供人们享用的东西，却消耗于制造机器了，待到机器造出来之后放在一边，于人无用。因此，把节省下来的钱投资于最终将会破产的公司的人既坑了自己又害了他人。如果他把钱花在宴请他的朋友上，他的朋友(就如我们所希望的)将得到愉快。这样凡领受他的钱的人，无论是屠夫、面包师傅和贩卖私酒的人都会高兴。但如果他把钱(让我们假定)用来在某地修筑电车轨道，而这个地方并不需要，这样就把大量劳力消耗在不能给任何人带来快乐的地方。然而这种人因投资失败而穷困潦倒时，人们会把他看成是一个不应该遭到不幸的牺牲者，而对那种慷慨疏财、博施广济的人，人们会把他看作是一个迂腐而又轻薄的人。
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.
上述所说的这一切只是引子。我想认真说明的是，把工作视为美德的信念在现代世界上造成了大量灾难，通向幸福和繁荣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： 第一种是改变地面上的或接近地面的一个物体同另一个物体的位置；第二种是告诉别人如何做。前一种是人们不喜欢做而且报酬也低的工作；后一种是人们喜欢做而且报酬也高的工作。第二种工作的范围可以无限扩大： 不仅有发号施令的人，而且也指挥发号施令人的人。常常发生这样的情况，那就是两个党派同时提出两种对立的意见，这就是所谓政治，这类工作所需要的技能不是与提出的意见有关的某种专门的知识，而是能文善辩之才，也就是宣传鼓动的能力。
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.
除美洲之外，在我们欧洲各国还有第三种人，他们比上述两种人更受人尊敬。这种人由于拥有土地，所以能使别人为取得生存和工作的权利而向他们缴纳租税。这些土地所有者是懒散的人，因此，人们可能以为我会颂扬他们。很可惜，这种人之所以能够懒散，正是由于别人勤劳；他们向往获得安乐懒散的欲望在历史上确实导致了人们对劳动的全部信仰。他们所最不愿意的事就是别人仿效他们的榜样。
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之前，一般说来，一个人辛勤劳动所能生产的东西，除维持自身和家庭的衣食所需外，所剩无几，即使他的妻子像他一样辛勤劳动，他的孩子稍大一点就开始劳动以补充他们的劳作，也不会有什么剩余。在维持极简单的生活所需之外的微小剩余，并不为生产者所有，而被那些不从事生产的武士和僧侣侵吞。遇到饥荒没有剩余之时，武士和僧侣却仍然像平时一样索取，其结果只能是逼得很多劳动者饿死。这种社会制度在俄国一直持续到1917年为止，而在东方各国直到今天仍在实行；在英国，虽然工业革命早已兴起，但在拿破仑战争时期这种制度仍然存在，直到一百年前新的工厂主阶级得势时为止。在美国，这种社会制度随着大革命的兴起就结束了，但在南方却要到南北战争才告结束。由于这种社会制度延续已久，而且直到新近才结束，因此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大都是来源于这种社会制度。然而适用于工业化社会以前的并不一定适用于现代世界。现代技术之进步可以使闲暇在一定限度内不为少数特权阶级所专有，而为整个社会人人享受。努力工作是奴隶的道德，然而现代世界不需要奴隶制度。
Since then, members of the Communist Party have succeeded to this privilege of the wamors and priests.
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，在原始公社中，农民享有自由，他们不愿意把生产上所剩的一点结余分给依赖这种奉献为生的武士和僧侣，因此他们或者少生产点或者多消费点。起初，他们纯被强制而不得不从事劳动，并奉献出结余。但渐渐地发现能够诱使他们信奉一种道德，按照这种道德使他们相信辛勤劳动乃是他们的义务，即使把生产得来的一部分拿出来供养那些闲暇之人，亦以为理所当然。依靠这种方法，减少了强迫性，管理费用也缩减了。今天，如果有人提出国王不应比一个工人收入多，百分之九十九的英国工人都会感到吃惊。从历史上来说，义务这个概念是掌握权力的人用来诱使人们为他们的主人和利益而生存，而不是为自己的利益而生存的一种手段。当然掌握权力的人掩盖这一事实，使人相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，雅典奴隶主利用他们的一部分闲暇，对文明的事业作出了永久的贡献；但在公正的经济制度情况下，这是办不到的。对于文明的发展来说，闲暇是重要的，在过去，少数人的闲暇只有靠多数人的劳动来提供。而多数人的劳动之所以价值很大，并不是因为劳动本身是有益的，而是因为闲暇是有益的。随着现代技术之进步，已有可能公平地把闲暇分配给大家，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.
现代技术的进步使得每个人为维持生活所需付出的劳力有可能大大缩减。这在战争期间是显而易见的事。那时所有参加军队的男人，所有从事军需品生产、从事侦探活动、从事战争的宣传工作或在政府中担任有关战争的公务的男男女女，全都不再从事生产事务。尽管如此，协约国方面一般工人的总的物质福利水平却高于战前和战后。这一事实的重要性为财政方面的状况所掩盖： 债务似乎使人以为未来可以供养现在。然而这自然是不可能的事；画饼不能充饥。战争确实说明了，依靠科学的生产组织，仅用现代全世界一小部分工作能力，就能维持全人类过上美好舒适的生活。战争期间为了使得人们能够从事战斗和制造军需品，创造了科学组织，战后如果继续保持这种组织，那么将每日工作时间缩减为4小时，一切都还会是很好的。然而情况正相反，战后，从前那种混乱状况恢复了，那些由人支配自己工作的人又得劳累终日，另外一些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生产多少来衡量，而是以表现其勤奋的德性来衡量。
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?
这就是在今天完全不同于当初的情况下实施的奴隶制的道德。无怪乎其结果一直悲惨至极。让我们举一个例子来说明。假定在一定的时间内，一定的人数从事铁针生产。每天工作8小时，他们生产出来的铁针足以满足世界上的需要。当有人发明了新技术，使得同样的人数能生产两倍的铁针。但全世界并不需要这么多铁针。即使针价再降，销路亦不会再增。在某个理性的世界中，所有经营铁针的人都会把8小时工作改为4小时，这样其他一切就会照常进行下去了。但是在现实世界中，人们认为这样做会引起混乱，因此仍坚持8小时工作，于是铁针生产过剩，有的工厂主破产，半数从事铁针生产的工人失业，究其终极来看，空出的闲暇时间同上面讲到的情况正相同，但由于有一半的人完全空闲在那里，因此另一半人就仍需过度工作。这样看来，原是普遍幸福源泉的不可避免的闲暇，必定到处造成悲惨景象。试想还有什么事比这更愚蠢呢？
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.
穷人也应该有闲暇，这种观念一直是富人所害怕的。在19世纪初的英国，男人一般每天劳动15小时；儿童经常每天劳动12小时，有时要干15小时。如果有爱管闲事的人提出，一天工作这么多小时太长了，人们会对他说，工作能防止成年人酗酒，防止儿童做坏事。当我还是儿童时，在工人取得选举权后不久，他们按照法律规定也有了一般公民享有的假期，然而这件事却引起上流社会的人极大的愤慨。我记得曾听到过一位年老的公爵夫人说：“穷人要假期做什么？他们只应该工作。”今天的人虽然不像过去的人那么直言不讳，但这种看法仍很顽固，这也正是现在许多经济纠纷的起因。
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.
在现代一切社会中，除了苏联之外，很多人逃避起码的工作义务，那种靠继承遗产和找有钱的配偶而生活的人比比皆是，对于这个事实我不想多说。我并不认为这些逍遥自在的人像那些说工人应该过度劳动或挨饿的人一样有害。
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.
如果实行某种真正适当的合理组织，普通工人每天工作4小时就足以养家糊口，失业现象也不会有。这种想法使那些富人感到震惊，因为他们确信，穷人不会懂得如何使用这么多的闲暇时间。在美国，有些人虽然早已富有，但仍然习惯于工作时间很长；很自然地，这种人认为闲暇是对失业者的严厉惩罚，他们对于给有工资收入的工人以闲暇的想法是极为愤怒的，事实上，即使他们的儿子闲暇下来也会遭到谴责。更为奇怪的是，他们希望其子努力工作，致使他们没有时间受教育，但对其妻、女无所事事却满不在乎。对闲暇自得羡慕不已的势利眼光，在贵族社会的男女两性中都有，而在财阀政治的社会中只限于妇女；但是这并不说明它就更合乎常理。
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，明智地利用空余时间是文明与教育的结果。一个习惯于整天长时间工作的人，一旦空下来，一定会感到厌烦。但一个人一生中没有充分的闲暇，就接触不到许多美好的事物。今天没有任何理由剥夺多数人应该享有的这种权利；只有一种往往是代人受苦的愚昧的禁欲主义出来逼使我们仍然坚持过量的工作，而不顾现在已不再需要这样了。
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.
在支配俄国政治的新的信条中，虽然有许多完全不同于西方传统教义的东西，但也还有些事毫无改变。统治阶层，特别是那些领导教育宣传部门的人，关于劳动高尚的说法几乎同世界上统治阶级一贯宣传的所谓“诚实贫民”的说法完全一样。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等，所有这些仍然存在；而且，权威仍然代表着宇宙主宰的意志，只不过现在换了新的名称——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.
在俄国无产阶级取得胜利，同在某些国家中女权主义者取得的胜利具有某些共同之处。往昔，男子承认女子的崇高地位，并因女子的才智较低，故宣扬地位比权力更值得追求，以此来安慰女子。女权主义者终于决定要兼有这两者，因为她们中的倡导者完全相信男人对她们所说的美德之可贵，但不相信男人对她们所说的权力是无用的。在俄国对于体力劳动也有同样的情况。往昔，富人和奉承他们的人发表赞美“可敬的劳苦工作”，颂扬简朴的生活，宣传一种教义，那就是所谓穷人比富人容易进入天堂。总之，他们竭力使体力劳动者相信改变物质在空间中的形式及其位置的工作是特别高尚的，所有这些就同男人竭力让女人相信她们之所以特别高尚在于她们性的约束一样。在俄国，一直认真地赞扬体力劳动之高尚，使体力劳动者备受尊重。复兴这种信仰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，而且是一切道德教育的基础。
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?
就目前而言，这样做可能是有好处的。具有丰富自然资源的大国有待开发，而这种开发是在缺乏资金的情况下进行的，在这种情况下，艰苦的工作是必要的，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都过上舒适生活之后，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，对付这个问题的方式是不同的。我们并不企图在西方实现经济上的公平合理，所以生产总量大部分流入那些大都不劳动的少数人手里。由于对产品生产缺乏集中统一的管理，因此我们生产出大量社会所不需要的产品；由于一部分工人被迫做过度的工作，这样很多具有工作能力的人就因没有工作而闲在一旁。当所有这些方法被证明不适用时，就只好诉诸战争： 驱使一些人去制造烈性炸药，另一些人去引爆，就像刚发现爆竹的儿童一样。我们费力地综合运用这些方法以保持这样的观念，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.
在俄国由于经济上已较为公平合理和实现了产品生产的集中统一管理，因此对这个问题应有不同的解决办法。只要全体人民的生活需要和基本的舒适能够得到满足，那么对这个问题的合理解决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来决定，是增加闲暇的时间，还是组织生产更多的产品。然而，既然把艰苦工作作为高尚的美德，这就很难看出怎样才能把多逸少劳的天堂作为奋斗的目标。因此，看来俄国当局更恰当的办法是，不断地寻求新的方法，靠这些新的方法，使当前的闲暇奉献于未来的生产。最近我读了一些俄国工程师提出的一条妙计，建议筑一道横跨喀拉海的长堤，以增高白令海与西伯利亚北方海岸的气温。计划之宏伟令人钦佩，但可惜的是在北冰洋的冰天雪地中，当劳动显现出它的美德时，无产阶级的幸福将推迟一代人。这类事情如果真的实行，那将是把艰苦工作的美德作为目的，而不作为达到不再需要艰苦工作的境地的一种手段。
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，但体力劳动显然不是人生的目的之一。如果是的话，那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。一是由于必须使穷人经常感到知足，这一点使得几千年来富人一直宣扬劳动高尚，并使他们自身在这方面保持卑贱的地位；另一是由于对机器产生新的兴趣，这使得我们为我们在地球上作出了惊人灵巧的变化而高兴。然而这两个动机都不能使从事实际劳动的工人感兴趣。如果你问一个从事实际劳动的工人，他认为他的生活中最美好的地方在哪里，看来他不会说：“我喜欢体力劳动，因为它使我体会到我在实践人类最高尚的事业，因为我乐于想象人类对其所栖息的行星改造到什么程度。诚然我的身体需要休息，我必须尽可能满足这个需要，但每当东方初晓，我能重新投入那令我感到心满意足的艰苦工作时心情最为愉快。”我以前从未听到工人们说这种话。他们理所当然地把工作视为谋生的一种必要的手段，而他们所能享有的不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，因为他们在一天24小时之中只工作4小时，就不知道其余时间干什么好了。如果这种说法在现代世界中是正确的，它就是对我们今日的文明的谴责；其实即使在过去这种说法也是不对的。过去人们有时间休息，而现在由于讲究效率，对此就有一定的抵制。现在的人认为做任何事都是另有企图目的的，绝不是为事情本身而做的。例如，那些认真的人总是非难爱好看电影的人，因为他们说这会教唆青年人去做坏事。但是所有与电影有关的工作又受到尊敬，因为这是一种工作，而且可以用来赚钱。这种认为赚钱是有出息的活动的观念使得世间一切事情都是非颠倒。那些供给我们肉和面包的屠夫和厨师是值得称赞的，因为他们是在赚钱；而你如果享用他们制出的食物，除非纯粹为了增强你工作的力气，否则你也是微不足道的。广义说来，人们都认为，赚钱是善行，而花钱是恶德。其实这是一个问题的两个方面，这就如同一个人以为钥匙是好的，而锁孔是坏的那样的想法同样荒谬。劳动产品的价值完全应该根据产品经过消费后所得到的好处去衡量。在我们的社会里，个人为私利而工作；而他工作的社会目的却在于消费他所生产的产品。个人和社会在生产目的上的这个区别，使人们在勤劳的动机是为了营利的世界上，很难清醒地考虑问题。我们对生产考虑过多，而对消费考虑太少。这样做的结果之一就是对享受和起码的幸福太不重视，而且对生产不是以它能给消费者带来的乐趣为标准而进行评价。
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.
我提出把每天工作时间缩减为4小时，并不是意味着主张所有余暇时间都必须花在纯粹的无聊活动之中。我的意思是每天工作4小时完全可以满足一个人的生活所需和起码的舒适生活，其余时间可以由各人自己用于合适的事上。对于教育应比现在更发展，而且教育的一部分目的是要教给人如何善于利用空暇时间的社会制度来说，4小时工作制是它重要的组成部分。我主要不是指那些被看作是“高级趣味”的事。乡村跳舞，除穷乡僻壤之外，已经绝迹，但促使此种娱乐方式得到发展的愿望必仍存在于人类的天性之中。城市里人们的娱乐方式大部分已变成消极的；如看电影、看足球比赛、听广播等等。这是由于人们的活动力量已全被一天的繁重工作所耗尽；如果人们的闲暇多了，他们仍会重新享受积极参加娱乐活动所带来的愉快。
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，大量的人是属于劳动阶级。有闲阶级享有的种种权利，在社会正义上说是没有根据的；于是必然出现压迫、冷漠和制造出种种谬论，以维护有闲阶级的特权。这些事实大大有损于有闲阶级的优点，然而尽管有这种缺点，它却为我们所说的文明的绝大部分贡献了力量。例如艺术的培养，科学的发现；写书、阐述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轫于上述种种文明的事业。没有有闲阶级，人类决不能脱离野蛮的阶段。
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，不承担义务的世袭有闲阶级特别浪费时光。这个阶级的成员中几乎没有一人受过有关刻苦的训练，而就其一个整体的阶级来说没有什么出色的才智。这个阶级本来可以产生出像达尔文那样的人，但结果产生出来的是同达尔文相反的成千上万乡绅，他们除了猎狐和惩罚偷偷捕鱼的人之外，不去想任何更有用的事。现在的大学用较为系统的方式提供了从前有闲阶级偶然地、并作为副产品所提供的东西。这是一个大的进步，但还存在一些缺点。大学生活与外界过于不同，这使那些生活在学院环境中的人并不了解普通的男人和女人的偏见和问题；再说，他们发表意见的方式往往不适当，所以本应能影响民众的，结果却失去了力量。另外一个缺点是，由于大学里设置的课程是固定不变的，这就使得有志于探索新奇方面问题的人可能受到妨碍。因此，大学虽有它的用处，但对院墙之外的文明的利益却不能给以有力的维护；而在院墙之外的人们过于忙忙碌碌，无暇顾及非实用的事情。
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.
在每天工作不超过4小时的世界中，每一个具有科学好奇心的人都能如愿以偿，每一个画家都能从容地去涂料着色，对自己的画刻意求新，而不必担心挨饿受冻。青年作家要靠经济上的独立才能去创作不朽之作，他们往往出于不得已要用刺激性的低劣作品去吸引人的注意，以求糊口；等到经济上好转时，往往已丧失了才气和能力。而在每天工作不超过4小时的世界中，就不会再有这种现象。在专业工作中，对经济或管理方面有了兴趣的人，到那时将能发展其观点而无学究气，这种学究气使得大学里的经济学家常常脱离实际。医生也将有时间研究医药的进步，教师也不用卖力地沿用一成不变的方法去讲授他们的年轻时学的东西，因为这些东西随着时间的流逝，可能已被证明是不正确的了。
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，在这样世界中，见到的将是幸福和愉快的人生，而不再是精疲力尽和忧郁消沉的状况。必要的适当工作将足以使闲暇时愉快度过，不会使人疲惫。由于人们闲暇时不劳累，他们将不只需要那些消极平淡的娱乐，至少百分之一的人将用其业务以外的时间来从事某些有关社会的重要的事情；由于人们的生活不依靠这些事情，他们的创造力将不受妨碍，而且将不再固守老一辈学者的陈规。闲暇的优点不仅表现在这些特殊的情况之中。普通的男女由于生活过得愉快，必将变得更仁慈和更少害人之心，更少对别人怀疑猜忌。好战的心理将消失，这部分是由于上述的原因，部分还由于战争将会给全体人民带来过度和繁重的工作。在一切道德品质之中，善良的本性在世界上是最需要的；但善良的本性乃是快乐和安逸的结果，而不是得自艰苦奋斗的人生。现代的生产方法使我们全都有可能得到快乐和安逸，然而，我们舍此而不取，使得一部分人劳累过度，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；我们一直做了傻瓜，但绝没有永远做傻瓜的理由。
