# The Racist, Exploitative History of ‘Laziness’ (Readwise) ## Metadata - Author: [[Devon Price]] - Full Title: The Racist, Exploitative History of ‘Laziness’ - Category: #source/articles - URL: https://momentum.medium.com/the-racist-exploitative-history-of-laziness-bb09d8b414dd ## Highlights - the people who are most oppressed are also the most likely to be branded ‘lazy’ ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h3hd37dzd0ecppv9d09w5fyj)) - The word “lazy” first appeared in English around 1540; even back then, it was used in a judgmental way to refer to someone who supposedly didn’t like work or effort ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h3hd46gqm63087pfavvzst2a)) - When we say someone is lazy, we’re saying they’re incapable of completing a task due to (physical or mental) weakness, but we’re also claiming that their lack of ability somehow makes them morally corrupt. They’re at once incapacitated and somehow to blame for it. The idea that lazy people are evil fakers who deserve to suffer has been embedded in the word since the very start. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h3hd5b56vpstgtd3368y8tqh)) ## New highlights added June 22, 2023 at 8:05 AM - One of the major factors that caused the hatred of laziness and the moralization of work to spread throughout the United States was the arrival of the [Puritans](https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Cambridge_Companion_to_Puritanism/jGcgAwAAQBAJ?hl=en). The Puritans had long believed that if a person was a hard worker, it was a sign that God had chosen them for salvation. Conversely, if a person couldn’t focus on the task at hand or couldn’t self-motivate, that was a sign that they had already been damned. This meant, of course, that there was no need to feel sympathy for people who struggled or failed to meet their responsibilities. By lacking the drive to succeed, they were displaying to the world that God hadn’t chosen them for heaven. When the Puritans came to the colonized land that would become the United States, their ideas caught on and spread to other, less pious colonists. For many reasons, a belief system that judged and punished the “lazy” was about to become very popular — and politically useful. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h3hdhcqrn6c9qf5e0x1ztwdr)) - Colonial America relied on the labor of enslaved people and indentured servants. It was very important to the colonies’ wealthy and enslaving class that they find a way to motivate enslaved people to work hard, despite the fact that enslaved people had absolutely nothing to gain from it. They also needed to find ways to [ideologically justify the existence of slavery](https://time.com/5171819/christianity-slavery-book-excerpt/) because many people of the period recognized (as we do today) that it was a morally abhorrent institution. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h3hdh1s7tfwxs7mt02s75kg8)) - A productivity-obsessed form of Christianity evolved from the older, more Puritanical idea that work improved moral character, and it was pushed on enslaved people. This form of Christianity taught that suffering was morally righteous and that slaves would be rewarded in heaven for being docile, agreeable, and, most important, diligent. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h3hdjgp252cxmc2923qc9vjv)) - On the flip side, if an enslaved person was slothful, resistant, or “lazy,” this belief system taught there was something fundamentally corrupt and wrong with them ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h3hdpwerg5ne0nzwe4k5xfha)) - This worldview became the foundation for American capitalism. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h3hdq7tzyyzet1ae3dsg61x2)) - Note: Yup. All of this: religious association, slavery, etc. all made a perfect path for capitalism and the rise of this concept in the industrial age. - The [Laziness Lie](https://medium.com/p/cf20356c3b5/edit) had been born. It would quickly be pushed onto other marginalized people, including indentured servants, poor White laborers, and Native Americans who had been forced into government boarding schools. These exploited groups were also taught that working hard without complaint was virtuous and that desiring free time was morally suspect. Wealthy aristocrats adopted a belief that idle time was only suitable for the rich and “cultured,” a sign of their superior minds and more restrained passions. This ideology remained highly popular in England as well. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h3he3ch604ha6vm3ttzgwry1)) - After the abolition of slavery in the United States, political cartoons and racist propaganda of the period continued to portray Black Americans as lazy, unreliable, and taking advantage of any benefits offered to them ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h3he3x67bd4q9k0t03791qkz)) - Note: Hmm, sounds familiar? Welfare? Child support? Government aid? - As the Industrial Revolution changed the landscape of the country, with more and more Americans working long hours in manufacturing plants, the Laziness Lie was pushed even further. The wealthy and highly educated began to claim that poor Whites also [couldn’t be trusted with “idle” time](https://www.eiu.edu/historia/cribelar.pdf). In fact, too many breaks could make a person antisocial. Propaganda from that time often claimed that if the working poor weren’t kept busy, they would resort to crime and drug use, and society would run amok. Laziness had officially become not only a personal failing but a social ill to be defeated — and it has remained that way ever since. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h3hea88kvt64dpxxhd1gf4m2)) - Note: Yup, still remains the exact same today. - The popularity of these books fed to the idea that poor people simply needed to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” if they wanted to live a comfortable life. In the 1950s and beyond, Evangelical preachers promoted a similar idea with the [Prosperity Doctrine](https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/9/1/15951874/prosperity-gospel-explained-why-joel-osteen-believes-prayer-can-make-you-rich-trump), which claimed that if a person devoted their life to serving Jesus, they would be rewarded with bountiful job opportunities, wealth, and success. Just as the Puritans once believed, Evangelical Christians came to believe that those who suffered and were excluded deserved it for having not tried hard enough. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h3hedb4bx4jvqc75wr4qyc21)) - For people who believe in the Laziness Lie, things like economic reform, legal protections for workers, universal health care, and welfare programs seem unnecessary. Those who want to succeed just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, after all. Research from the past three decades consistently shows that a [majority of Americans do](https://www.princeton.edu/~rbenabou/papers/beliefs%20qje%201%20web.pdf), in fact, think this way. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h3hegz0yvyz89j079gpcteaj)) - Note: Sad - Much like the parents I’ve seen discouraging their children from giving money to homeless people, many Americans believe that generosity, compassion, and mutual aid are “wasted” on the lazy. Furthermore, if we believe the world was created solely by independent people, we may come to think that there’s no need for us to be interdependent and compassionate. We may even come to see relying on other people as a threat to progress. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h3hehjzgm8c8qmra1w8dnsfh)) - Decades of exposure to the Laziness Lie has had a massive effect on our public consciousness. It’s made many of us critical of other people and quick to blame the victims of economic inequality for their own deprivation. It’s made us hate our own limitations, to see our tiredness or desire for a break as signs of failure. And it has created an intense internal pressure to keep working harder and harder, with no limits and no boundaries. This ideology was created to dehumanize those whom society had failed to care for, and with each passing year, the number of people who are excluded in these ways seems to only grow. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h3hej19edn2vfx98gxd00mws))