| This question <19|24> overall <19|21> Martin: <14|33>. |
| Question 63: Is it a character flaw to be lazy in an exploitive system? |
| [20] Martin: Is laziness a character flaw? Under the capitalist mode of production, from what Marx says, it is not necessarily a character flaw to be lazy. This is odd. |
| He says that the value of a commodity is determined not by the actual labour time put into its production but the labour time that is socially necessary to produce the commodity under the prevailing socially normal conditions of production and with the socially average degree of skill and intensity. |
| This means that a lazy or partially disabled worker will produce less value per hour or per week. |
| If he/she works for themselves, they will be able to sell their produce for less, and have to live on less income. If they work for a capitalist they may find that he/she(?) is unwilling to pay them the average wages for such work on the grounds that they are less efficient. Or they may not get employed at all. |
| It is odd that Marx's analysis does not necessarily require any judgement that laziness is a character flaw. Some theories of the rise of capitalism have praised the protestant work ethic. Capitalism is actually very efficient in intensifying the rate of work of large sections of the workforce, while often a significant minority are unable to find work. Although they then get demoralised, it is not clear it is always laziness that prevents them working again. |
| In societies with a collectivistic ethic however, laziness may be called a character flaw. For example in the feudal middle ages, Sloth was one of the seven deadly sins, and harrassed by the church even though some of its victims, one suspects, may have been physically or mentally ill. Under attempts at state socialist regimes at times there were campaigns of socialist emulation to promote the virtues of hard work, and at times there was concern about workers working below capacity when demoralised by shortage of raw materials or cynicism about the regime. |
| But Marx tends to relate ideas of morality to the actual relations of production of the society, and in the case of capitalism, he does not seem to imply that laziness is in itself particularly condemned as a character flaw. Besides that might imply criticism of the section of the capitalist class that just live off interest or the land without even doing any entrepreneurial activity. They clearly are not regarded as morally at fault by the powers that prevail under the capitalist mode of production. |
| Have I overlooked something? |
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