“Another example of the uninteresting is work, which passes for one’s lifework, for the human calling. This is the origin of the prejudice that one has to earn his bread, and that it is shameful to have bread without having worked a bit to get it: this is the pride of the wage. Work has no merit in itself and does no honor to anyone, just as the life of the idler brings him no disgrace. Either you take an interest in work activity, and this interest doesn’t let you rest, you have to be active: and then work is your desire, your special pleasure without placing it above the laziness of the idler which is his pleasure. Or you use work to pursue another interest, a result or a ‘wage,’ and you submit to work only as a means to this end; and then work is not interesting in itself and has no pretension of being so, and you can recognize that it is not anything valuable or sacred in itself, but simply something that is now unavoidable for gaining the desired result, the wage. But the work that is considered as an ‘honor for the human being’ and as his ‘calling’ has become the creator of economics and remains the mistress of sacred socialism, where, in its quality as ‘human labor,’ it is supposed to ‘develop human capacities,’ and where this development is a human calling, an absolute interest.”

— Max Stirner, Stirner's Critics

“Owing to the productivity of machines, much less work than was formerly necessary is now needed to maintain a tolerable standard of comfort in the human race. Some careful writers maintain that one hour’s work a day would suffice, but perhaps this estimate does not take sufficient account of Asia. I shall assume, in order to be quite sure of being on the safe side, that four hours’ work a day on the part of all adults would suffice to produce as much material comfort as reasonable people ought to desire.”

— Bertrand Russell,
The Case for Socialism (§2)

It has to be noted that this essay is from 1935. As such, the comment about production in Asia etc is long outdated, no longer valid.

On account of the enormous technological and other changes since then, not 4 hours per day, not even 1 hour per day, but even shorter working hours could be feasible today.

This might as well be noted for many other quotes shared here.

This 15-min video makes a modern estimate, 130 years after the initial publication of CoB...

It is a moderate estimate. And it is in the context of USA, but more or less applicable to most of the world

(In the end, the estimate comes out to be 1-5 hours per week!)

https://youtu.be/yfFId-At_9g

“The goal of the future is full unemployment, so we can play. That’s why we have to destroy the present politico-economic system.”

— Arthur C. Clarke,
The Realist #86 (interview, 1969)

"The time is coming, at the present rate of world progress, when there will be no long, back-breaking drudgery, and people will work not more than four hours a day. That will be the work of electricity. The rest of the time we will be able to follow our natural bent."

— Charles P. Steinmetz (interview, 1923)

"Leisure will be occupied in productive diversions satisfying the particular instincts of the individual. We will be more collectivistic in the operation of our essential productive life and more individualistic in the pursuit of personal happiness and contentment. Leisure will stimulate educational interests in every conceivable direction."

— Charles P. Steinmetz (interview, 1923)

“Every man must be left quite free to choose his own work. No form of compulsion must be exercised over him. If there is, his work will not be good for him, will not be good in itself, and will not be good for others. And by work I simply mean activity of any kind.”

— Oscar Wilde,
The Soul of Man Under Socialism

“The most industrious of all ages – ours – does not know how to make anything of all its industriousness and money, except always still more money and still more industriousness; for it requires more genius to spend than to acquire! — Well, we shall have our ‘grandchildren’!”

— Friedrich Nietzsche,
The Gay Science (21)

“Soldiers and leaders still have far better relationships with each other than workers and employers. So far at least, culture that rests on a military basis still towers above all so-called industrial culture: the latter in its present shape is altogether the most vulgar form of existence that has ever been. Here one is at the mercy of brute need: one wants to live and has to sell oneself, but one despises those who exploit this need and buy the worker. Oddly, submission to powerful, frightening, even terrible persons, like tyrants and generals, is not experienced as nearly so painful as is this submission to unknown and uninteresting persons, which is what all the luminaries of industry are. What the workers see in the employer is usually only a cunning, bloodsucking dog of a man who speculates on all misery; and the employer's name, shape, manner, and reputation are a matter of complete indifference to them. The manufacturers and entrepreneurs of business have probably been too deficient so far in all those forms and signs of a higher race that alone make a person interesting.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche,
The Gay Science (40)

“My ‘dream job’ is...not working. No work. I don't dream about labor.”

— trudy

“Work and boredom. — Seeking work for the sake of wages – in this, nearly all people in civilized countries are alike; to all of them, work is just a means and not itself the end, which is why they are unrefined in their choice of work, provided it yields an ample reward. Now there are rare individuals who would rather perish than work without taking pleasure in their work: they are fastidious, difficult to satisfy, and have no use for ample rewards if the work is not itself the reward of rewards. To this rare breed belong artists and contemplative people of all kinds, but also the idlers who spend their lives hunting, travelling, in love affairs, or on adventures. All of them want work and misery as long as it is joined with pleasure, and the heaviest, hardest work, if need be. Otherwise they are resolutely idle, even if it spells impoverishment, dishonour, and danger to life and limb. They do not fear boredom as much as work without pleasure; indeed, they need a lot of boredom if their work is to succeed. For the thinker and for all inventive spirits, boredom is that unpleasant ‘calm’ of the soul that precedes a happy voyage and cheerful breezes; he has to endure it, must await its effect on him – precisely that is what lesser natures are totally unable to achieve! To fend off boredom at any price is vulgar, just as work without pleasure is vulgar. Perhaps Asians are distinguished as above Europeans by their capacity for a longer, deeper calm; even their narcotics work slowly and require patience, in contrast to the revolting suddenness of the European poison, alcohol.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche,
The Gay Science (42)

“Leisure and Idleness. — There is a savagery in the manner in which the Americans strive after gold: and the breathless hurry of their work – the characteristic vice of the new world – already begins to infect old Europe, and makes it savage also, spreading over it a strange lack of intellectuality. One is now ashamed of repose: even long reflection almost causes remorse of conscience. Thinking is done with a stop-watch, as dining is done with the eyes fixed on the financial newspaper; we live like people who are continually ‘afraid of letting opportunities slip.’ ‘Better do anything whatever, than nothing’ – this principle also is a noose with which all culture and all higher taste may be strangled. And just as all form obviously disappears in this hurry of workers, so the sense for form itself, the ear and the eye for the melody of movement, also disappear. The proof of this is the clumsy perspicuity which is now everywhere demanded in all positions where a person would like to be sincere with his fellows, in intercourse with friends, women, relatives, children, teachers, pupils, leaders and princes, – one has no longer either time or energy for ceremonies, for roundabout courtesies, for any esprit in conversation, or for any otium whatever. For life in the hunt for profit continually forces a person to expend his spirit to the point of exhaustion in continual pretence or out-smarting or forestalling others: the true virtue nowadays is to do something in a shorter time than another person. And so there are only rare hours of sincere intercourse permitted: in them, however, people are tired, and would not only like ‘to let themselves go,’ but to stretch their legs out wide in awkward style. The way people write their letters nowadays is quite in keeping with the age; their style and spirit will always be the true ‘sign of the times.’ If there be still enjoyment in society and in art, it is enjoyment such as over-worked slaves provide for themselves. Oh, this moderation in ‘joy’ of our cultured and uncultured classes! Oh, this increasing suspiciousness of all enjoyment!”

— Friedrich Nietzsche,
The Gay Science (329)

“Work is winning over more and more the good conscience to its side: the desire for enjoyment is already called ‘the need for recreation,’ and even begins to be ashamed of itself. ‘One owes it to one's health,’ people say, when they are caught at a picnic. Indeed, it might soon go so far that one could not yield to the desire for the vita contemplativa (that is to say, excursions with thoughts and friends), without self-contempt and a bad conscience. — Well! Formerly it was the very reverse: it was ‘action’ that suffered from a bad conscience. A man of good family concealed his work when need compelled him to labor. The slave labored under the weight of the feeling that he did something contemptible: – the ‘doing’ itself was something contemptible. ‘Only in otium and bellum is there nobility and honor:’ so rang the voice of ancient prejudice!”

— Friedrich Nietzsche,
The Gay Science (329)

 “I do not need the po­lice of mean­ing­less la­bor to reg­u­late me.”

— Henry David Thoreau,
Life Without Principle

“If a man walk in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in dan­ger of be­ing re­gard­ed as a loaf­er; but if he spends his whole day as a spec­u­la­tor, shear­ing off those woods and mak­ing earth bald be­fore her time, he is es­teemed an in­dus­tri­ous and en­ter­pris­ing cit­i­zen. As if a town had no in­ter­est in its for­ests but to cut them down!”

— Henry David Thoreau,
Life Without Principle