Amid the headline-grabbing antics of the Prime Minister this week, some stories coming out of Labour party conference got buried. The most significant of these was shadow chancellor John McDonnell’s surprising promotion of idling. McDonnell said that a 32 hour working week should become the norm in ten years and that we should “work to live, not live to work”. In heralding the joys of doing nothing in particular, he has resurrected a forgotten tradition in the socialist movement.
McDonnell’s praise of idleness comes as a welcome rejoinder to the assumption that hard toil is at the centre of life. We all remember David Cameron’s praise of “hard-working families”. This is a uniquely miserable vision of who should be most valued in society. But it also comes as a welcome rebuke to lefty ideology which has also, in general, promoted the Protestant work ethic.
On the left, there have been plenty of fans of hard, unremitting toil.
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