Leisure

Leisure is activity that provides immediate gratification. Its opposite is labor, activity that, while it commonly produces the joy of labor, still has enough disutility (often due to the tedium of labor) that people would not engage in it unless they could receive mediate gratification from it. Leisure time, like any other resource that people enjoy, is subject to the law of diminishing marginal utility. As Ludwig von Mises points out, "the first unit of leisure satisfies a desire more urgently felt than the second one, the second one a more urgent desire than the third one, and so on." Suppose, for example, a person's favorite leisure activity is reading newspapers; it takes him one hour to read each newspaper; and he has three newspapers available to read in his leisure time. If he only has one hour of leisure time, he will read only his favorite newspaper. If he has two hours of leisure time available, he will read both his first- and second-favorite newspapers. And if he has three hours of leisure time, he will read all three newspapers. Further additions of leisure time will result in him engaging in activities that he enjoys less and less.

This in all likelihood accounts for some of the misery of many trust fund children, students, and other persons who have large amounts of leisure time but few stimulating activities available. Studies show that only 42 percent of engineering students spend 20 hours per week or more on study. That percentage is even lower for students of other majors, such as physical sciences, biological sciences, arts and humanities, education and social sciences, and business. The National Institute of Mental Health reported that in 2009 a nationwide survey of college students at two- and four-year institutions found that nearly 30 percent of college students reported feeling “so depressed that it was difficult to function” at some time in the previous year. As Valerie Strauss points out, "that doesn’t include the kids who can function but are miserable."

Idleness itself can have disutility; as Ludwig von Mises points out, "all men need to be active. Inactivity entails intolerable boredom. . . To be stirring is a physical and mental need." In Chapter 8 of Socialism, Mises notes that there is a point after the adapation of body and mind to work, but before the labor has become tiresome, at which direct satisfaction prevails over the disagreeableness of labor. Those who engage in only a very small amount of work may never reach this point. Further, they may lack the psychological advantages described in Human Action chapter 21, section 2 of proud aesthetic appreciation of one's own skill and work product and of successfully overcoming the toil and trouble needed to complete a task.

Having large amounts of leisure time at one's disposal can lead to an increased tendency to indulge in large amounts of mind-altering chemicals. As a person's wage-earning potential rises, opportunity costs of using drugs increase, and there is a tendency to cut back on drug use. Vedran Vuk explains:

If accountants worked for only two hours every few days at the same pay, one could guarantee a drastic jump in their drug and alcohol abuse. Most of us have 9-to-5 jobs and can't afford to do drugs because of our responsibilities. How many readers have the time to smoke crystal meth this weekend and stay awake for 36 hours? Close to none (except for college students). It is not an accident that college students, with plenty of time on their hands, have a reputation for heavy drinking and drug use. Students don't mysteriously mature from age 22 to 23 and stop drinking. They get jobs, which increases their time cost of drugs and alcohol and leads to lower usage.

In Mises' view, the activity of the creative genius is a separate concept from labor or leisure, in that it produces neither mediate nor immediate gratification.