Modern technique has made it possible for leisure, within limits, to be not the prerogative of small privileged classes, but a right evenly distributed throughout the community. ...
... I mean that four hours' work a day should entitle a man to the necessities and elementary comforts of life, and that the rest of his time should be his to use as he might see fit.
Source: Bertrand Russell : In Praise of Idleness, 1935, chap.1.
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＜寸言＞
ラッセルは1935年に出版した『怠惰への讃歌』（In Praise of Idleness）のなかで、組織（企業や官庁など）によって課される仕事は一日４時間で十分であり、残りの時間は各人が自由に使えるようにすべきだと述べています。もちろん、その４時間で得られるのは「生活必需品と基本的な快適さを得るための権利」にすぎません。したがって、より豊かな生活を望んで８時間以上働く人がいたり、学問や芸術に専念する人がいたりするでしょうし、余暇時間の使い方は人によって千差万別となるはずです。
ラッセルはこの本の中で、今日でいうベーシックインカムに相当する考え方（彼の言葉では vagabond wage＝「遊民賃金」）を述べています。近年になってようやくベーシックインカムを政策として掲げる政党（たとえば参政党など）が現れましたが、この考えそのものは新しいものではなく、少なくとも1930年代にラッセルがすでに提唱していたものです。
このエッセイは、第２次世界大戦前夜の暗い国際情勢に抗する意図をもって書かれました。1932年には日本が清朝最後の皇帝・溥儀を担ぎ出して満州国を成立させ、1933年１月30日にヒトラーがドイツの首相に就任し、1934年にはソ連で大規模な粛清が始まりました。
ラッセルは、国民全員が４時間働き、社会的に有益な仕事を皆に配分して失業をなくすなら、当時の科学と技術をもってしても、「生活必需品と基本的な快適さ」をほとんどの人が享受できる社会を実現することは可能なはずだと主張しています。
もちろん、今日の世界のように諸国が相互に深く結びついている状況では、一国だけで格差を是正すれば済むという問題ではありません。世界規模で格差を縮小していく必要があります。100年後か200年後かは分かりませんが、人類が核戦争で滅びない限り、この理想は「実現可能」であるとラッセルは信じていました。ただし、可能であっても、多くの人々がその道を選ぶかどうかは別の問題です。
Russell, in his 1935 book In Praise of Idleness, argues that the amount of work imposed by organizations -- such as companies and government offices -- need be (need to be) no more than four hours a day, and that the remaining time should be left for individuals to use freely. Of course, what can be secured by those four hours is only the "right to obtain the necessities and elementary comforts of life." Consequently, some people would choose to work more than eight hours in pursuit of greater material comfort, while others might devote themselves to scholarship or the arts; the ways in which people make use of their leisure would naturally vary widely from person to person.
In this book, Russell sets forth an idea corresponding to what is now called a basic income -- what he himself referred to as a "vagabond wage." In recent years, political parties -- such as the Sansei Party -- have begun to advocate basic income as a policy, but the idea is by no means new; Russell had already proposed it as early as the 1930s.
This essay was written with the intention of countering the darkening international climate on the eve of the Second World War. In 1932, Japan installed Puyi, the last emperor of the Qing dynasty, as the figurehead of the newly founded state of Manchukuo; on January 30, 1933, Hitler became Chancellor of Germany; and in 1934 the Soviet Union began its large-scale purges.
Russell maintains that if every citizen were to work four hours a day, and socially useful work were fairly distributed so as to eliminate unemployment, then -- even with the level of science and technology available at the time -- it should be entirely possible to create a society in which almost everyone enjoys "the necessities and elementary comforts of life."
Of course, in today's world, where nations are deeply interconnected, this is not a problem that can be solved by eliminating inequality within a single country. Inequalities must be reduced on a global scale. Whether this will take a hundred or two hundred years is unknown, but Russell believed that, so long as humanity does not perish in a nuclear war, this ideal remains "possible" of realization. Whether human beings will choose such a path, however, is another matter.
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ラッセル関係電子書籍一覧
#バートランド・ラッセル #Bertrand_Russell