在《紐約評論》的廣告電郵上看到這篇簡短介紹。我沒讀過這本書，但由於此書作者是馬克思女婿，所以轉貼於下。

對這類議題有興趣的網友，可以參閱韋布倫(Thorstein Veblen)從另一個角度探討它的鉅著The Theory of the Leisure Class (《有閒階級論》) 。

THE RIGHT TO BE LAZY

By Paul Lafargue

Translated by Alex Andriesse; Introduction by Lucy Sante

Exuberant, provocative, and as controversial as when it first appeared in 1880, Paul Lafargue’s The Right to Be Lazy is a call for the workers of the world to unite -- and stop working so much! Lafargue, Karl Marx’s son-in-law (about whom Marx once said, “If he is a Marxist, then I am clearly not”) wrote his pamphlet on the virtues of laziness while in prison for giving a socialist speech. At once a timely argument for a three-hour workday and a classical defense of leisure, The Right to Be Lazy shifted the course of European thought, going through seventeen editions in Russia during the Revolution of 1905 and helping shape John Maynard Keynes’s ideas about overproduction.

Published here with a selection of Lafargue’s other writings—including an essay on Victor Hugo and a memoir of Marx—The Right to Be Lazy reminds us that the urge to work is not always beneficial, let alone necessary. It can also be a “strange madness” consuming human lives.

“The writing is vivid, pointed, hilarious. To paraphrase Elizabeth Bishop, Lafargue is scathing, but cheerful.” -- Michael Autrey, Booklist