William Morris - Useful Work versus Useless Toil

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.

Une des principales causes de l’ennui, me semble-t-il, est la disparition de la créativité dans la vie quotidienne. Voilà un problème que William Morris a bien vu. Dans Nouvelles de nulle part (1890), Morris dépeint une société postrévolutionnaire en 2005, dans laquelle chacun est investi dans une activité créatrice de son choix.

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 n

British polymath John Ruskin famously voiced his frustration at this: We want one man to be always thinking, and another to be always working, and we call one a gentleman, and the other an operative; whereas the workman ought often to be thinking, and the thinker often to be working, and both should be gentlemen, in the best sense. As it is, we mak