The relationship between work and leisure is controversial. Reading Bertrand Russell’s thoughts on the subject sparked both inspiration and self-reflection.
Russell argues that the glorification of hard work is a “slave morality” and that modern society no longer needs slaves. He divides work into two types:
- Physical labor—arduous and poorly paid.
- Managing or persuading others—comfortable and well-paid.
The latter category, which includes politics and executive roles, thrives on persuasion rather than deep expertise. Success here depends on marketing oneself, not mastering a domain.
Russell claims there’s no justification for denying most people leisure. The idea that humans wouldn’t know how to fill their time if they worked only four hours a day reflects poorly on modern civilization. Historically, people knew how to enjoy leisure—until efficiency became a cult.
Russell makes an interesting claim: if we’d kept the efficiency methods from World War II, we could all be working four-hour days by now. Instead, we went back to the old system where some people work too much and others can’t find work at all.
But there’s a flaw in this argument. Those efficiency methods didn’t appear out of nowhere. They were created by people working hard under pressure. This is how innovation always happens. Look at tech today—companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, DeepSeek release major breakthroughs every few months precisely because people are pushing hard, not because they’re working less.
The real question isn’t “how little can we work?” but “how can we make work meaningful?”
I definitely agree that modern society should provide more leisure. And modern urban people have forgotten how to use leisure well. Today’s urban leisure has become passive – dining out, watching movies, attending sports games. You rarely see spontaneous folk dances anymore except in remote villages. Yet that same creative impulse still lives in us.
With true leisure time (not just time to recover from exhaustion), we might create new art forms – maybe not traditional dances, but experimental games, boundary-pushing music, or something crazy (in positive way)
For the past two years, I’ve worked 10-12 hour/day. I lose a lot leisure time. There is no doubt that my life is not balanced, but the process has given me deep industry knowledge and unexpected innovations.
What if I have 8 hours leisure time every day? I might find my true interests, spend my effort and energy into creative pursuits. In my case, it can be literature or Guitar (I haven’t played for almost a year, it is right next to me bed)
Just like how Paul graham discuss his attitude about the work:
Don’t let “work” mean something other people tell you to do. If you do manage to do great work one day, it will probably be on a project of your own. It may be within some bigger project, but you’ll be driving your part of it. choose a field, learn enough to get to the frontier, notice gaps, explore promising ones. This is how practically everyone who’s done great work has done it, from painters to physicists.