[lbo-talk] lbo-talk Digest, Vol 46, Issue 1

[Michael McIntyre]

If you're rich and want to work, why bother to work for money?  Right  
now, I can look across the room and see about 300 books lovingly  
acquired from the Seminary Co-op Bookstore that I haven't had time to  
read yet.  They're arranged on my shelves to correspond to a number  
of projects that I'd love to take on but can't for lack of time.  If  
I hit the lottery next week, I'd quit my job and spend my time doing  
that work.  If rich folks, by and large, want to develop their powers  
through work, but can't think of how to do so without getting paid  
for it, aren't we back to either the Protestant Ethic or some form of  
fetishism?

Michael McIntyre
mcintyremichael at mac.com
http://morbidsymptoms.blogspot.com

On Feb 11, 2007, at 6:23 AM, lbo-talk-request at lbo-talk.org wrote:


> Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2007 22:54:52 -0800 (PST)
> From: andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] hard work
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Message-ID: <272527.45626.qm at web50412.mail.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
>
> A third possibility to add to Michael's two
> explanations of why the rich bother to work: Marx was
> right. Work that's self-directed is a source of
> self-realization, identity, disalienation, and
> community. Idleness is boring and empty. There are
> only so many spas, walking tours of Italy, hours on
> the beach in Tahiti, and affairs with movie starlets
> or your friends' trophy wives and husbands that you
> can stand before going batty. Presumably the rich can
> choose work they like, and having the permanent
> possibility of an escape hatch makes a big difference
> even if it's work that is a lot like what people who
> _have_ to work do.