Blogger has been kind enough to offer a two for one deal on the small ads business, so it's only fitting that my chutzpah gets the better of me and I mention the second reprint that has recently been produced by the 'small party of good boys'.
Printed by the Socialist Party as part of its socialist classic series* that includes John Keracher's How the Gods were Made and Anton Pannokoek's Marxism and Darwinism, Paul Lafargue's Right to be Lazy is one of those long list of socialist classics that everyone has heard of but very few have actually read. You can tell that by the fact that even now, over one hundred and twenty years after it was originally written, the left wing of capitalism are still brazen enough to undertake their 'Right to Wage Slavery' campaigns every once in a while when petitions and quick fix recruiting permits.
I read the pamphlet a few years ago and it is a wonderfully acerbic read - well recommended, and to the best of my knowledge since the last Charles H. Kerr edition has been long out of print. The Socialist Party's pamphlet has the added extras** of reprints of articles by Lafargue that insome cases were originally translated for, and published in the Socialist Standard, in the period of 1904-1915.
As it's not a case of me doing the 'turning rebellion into money' schtick - like people are really breaking out their cheque books whilst they read this - I thought I would just let you know that an online text of Right to be Lazy is available here, and the articles that appeared in the Socialist Standard all those years ago - when socialists thought revolution was still a living breathing possibility, rather than just an overpriced trendy vodka bar in Central London - are available here.
However, if you do want the tactile feeling of the pamphlet in your sweatly palms then it is available for £2 from the usual stockists.
* What did small bands of revolutionaries do before the advent of the photocopier?
** And you thought it was only your favourite DVDs that had the added extras. Welcome to the 21st century.
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