THE RIGHT TO BE LAZY !!!! ---- KARMA

Introduction
“Modern Management Science” is a Western Innovation. Did the West ,understand the basics of  WORK ? The answer  is a big NO. !!!! From foundations made of sand they have built-up this pseudo-science. (Many Indians have clouded their intellects after being indoctrinated with this fake science.). And the consequences have become very frightful for the entire world. Lacking sound philosophical foundations, the Western intellect is unsteady and wavering. The following product , ie the book “The Right to be Lazy” is the result of such wavering.

PAUL  & THE  RIGHT TO BE LAZY !!!!   -----KARMA

This is about  Paul Lafargue (January 15, 1842 – November 26, 1911), who  was the Cuban  son-in-law of  KARL MARX, having married his   second daughter  Laura. He was a French revolutionary Marxist socialist journalist, literary critic, political writer and activist. His famous and best known work is  “THE RIGHT TO BE LAZY” written in 1883. This book can be  freely  downloaded from the  the net, one of the links being http://libcom.org/library/right-lazy-paul-lafargue .  Quote from the book is given below, which highlights  how representatives of a section of the population in Europe  viewed  WORK (karma).

Laura 

“Chapter I - A DISASTROUS DOGMA.

A strange delusion possesses the working classes of the nations where capitalist civilization holds its sway. This delusion drags in its train the individual and social woes which for two centuries have tortured sad humanity. This delusion is the love of work, the furious passion for work, pushed even to the exhaustion of the vital force of the individual and his progeny. Instead of opposing this mental aberration, the priests, the economists and the moralists have cast a sacred halo over work. Blind and finite men, they have wished to be wiser than their God; weak and contemptible men, they have presumed to rehabilitate what their God had cursed. I, who do not profess to be a Christian, an economist or a moralist, I appeal from their judgement to that of their God; from the preachings of their religious, economics or free thought ethics, to the frightful consequences of work in capitalist society.” (http://libcom.org/library/right-lazy-paul-lafargue-1)

 
The BIBLE & WORK

In this first chapter of Lafargue's book , it is interesting to note, how Lafarge who is a materialist (MARXIST), draws attention to the views from THE BIBLE   relating to WORK. In the  paragraph quoted above,  he had already said  “….they have presumed  to rehabilitate what their God had cursed.”  Here he  is referring to Genesis 3:17-19, where work (labour) is a punishment from God.

He  strengthens his argument for laziness by quoting Mathew 6:25-33. “Jesus, in his sermon on the Mount, preached idleness: "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."  -Jehovah the bearded and angry god, gave his worshipers the supreme example of ideal laziness; after six days of work, he rests for all eternity.” (Chapter 1 of the book 'The Right To Be Lazy'))

And in the last paragraph of the book (Chapter 4) , Paul draws attention to the image of Jesus climbing Calvary with the wodden cross. Quote “Like Christ, the doleful personification of ancient slavery, the men, the women and the children of the proletariat have been climbing painfully for a century up the hard Calvary of pain; for a century compulsory toil has broken their bones, bruised their flesh, tortured their nerves; for a century hunger has torn their entrails and their brains. O Laziness, have pity on our long misery! O Laziness, mother of the arts and noble virtues, be thou the balm of human anguish!”  - This last sentence resonates with the fact that nascent Christianity was addressed to the slave population of the Roman Empire, until the time of Constantine.

Jehovah Taking Rest

Frankly The Bible is not of much help to Paul. GOD takes rest, on the seventh day. Does that mean he stopped working thereafter permanently or takes a one day break, after six days toil, and repeats this six day cycle, till the end of time ?  Or does the curse mean that God takes rest for eternity and that men will have to toil for eternity because of  HIS curse.? The Genesis story is not clear and leaves room for ambiguity. Paul  wants us to believe that Jesus,  Son of God, sermonizing to the masses, tells them they could afford to be lazy (idle) quoting the examples of birds and the lily. Though Jesus wished to be idle, later he was forced  to behave like a slave and this image is vivified by his carrying the wooden cross for his crucifixion. Did Jesus wish to redeem men from the curse of his father ? Was he instigating people against HIS FATHER.? And did the Roman authorities wish to chain Jesus and his followers to the status of slaves, though Jesus preached idleness? If Jesus preached idleness , what should we think about the proverb, that an idle mind is devils workshop.?

Considering the above messy possibilities , we have to admit to ourselves that the Indian concept of WORK (KARMA) is the most scientific, practical and noble one. 

The GITA & WORK

The Gita  expresses the fact that one is forced to move/act/work ,as per one’s own ‘Swabhava’ (character), and Swa-bhava is a product of the Gunas of Prakriti.  ie There is no freedom for the individual and each is under the effect of the Gunas. Further ‘Iswara’ or God here, never stays idle even for a fraction of a second. ‘Swa-bhava’ influences or decides Karma, whose effects add up and influence the Swa-bhava in the next birth. Thus a deleterious cycle of birth and death (Samsara) manifests, and the way to get out is to understand the reality of the cosmic process and to regulate one’s karma accordingly. Regulated Karma is done to exhaust one’s ‘vasana’s’ (tendencies or inclinations to movement/action) acquired from previous as well as this birth. (Ref. Chapter 3, Karma Yoga)

THE SOLUTION OFFERED BY PAUL LAFARGE TO THE PEOPLE OF EUROPE

After  extolling the virtues of being lazy, and citing examples  in its favour from The Bible,  empathizing with the working classes of Europe and also reminding all of the consequences of over-production, Lafarge offers  SOLUTIONs  to emancipate the above class  from drudgery . One amongst them is the law forbidding any man to work more than three hours a day. Then there are other recommendations impacting the social and hierarchical plane, which are ‘revolutionary’. But the one which is very significant  and of much interest to Indians is his advocacy of  conquering the new mechanical forces for social production.ie encouraging and providing an environment for the invention of more and more MACHINERY for production thereby relieving the proletariat from manual labour.

In recommending this solution, he had blundered badly. One of the consequences of development of industrial machinery is the concentration of wealth  about which Gandhiji had warned us in advance. An example is Bill Gates (software for machines)

 

 LAFRRGUE DISOWNED BY  "THE ORIGINAL  MARXIST"  AND HIS DEATH.

 At the age of 69, he and 66 year old Laura died together in a suicide pact.

Lafargue was the subject of a famous quotation by Karl Marx. Shortly before Marx died in 1883, he wrote a letter to Lafargue and the French Workers' Party leader Jules Guesde, both of whom already claimed to represent "Marxist" principles. Marx accused them of "revolutionary phrase-mongering" and of denying the value of reformist struggles. This exchange is the source of Marx's remark, reported by Friedrich Engels: “what is certain to me is that ,if they are Marxists, then I am not a Marxist".
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