From the past we have a vision of the future
Paul Lafargue, the multi-racial French son-in-law of Karl Marx, is best known as the author of the Right to be Lazy, the most popular radical text after The Communist Manifesto. This new collection of his essays spotlights his compelling satiric wit.
Lafargue unmercifully attacked the work ethic, before it was defined by Max Weber, advocated maternity leave in the French Chamber of Deputies in the 1890s, promoted voting for a popular race horse to ridicule an electoral circus, exposed the farce of papal infallibility and generally advanced the widest range of cultural critiques in the 19th Century, and yet he remains largely unknown.
Correcting the historical record, however, is not the ultimate aim of this volume. Lafargue’s criticisms and caustic attitude serve as an antitoxin in our age of mass manipulation.
