Fascinating collection of essays. In "In praise of idleness", Russell in 1930 predicts that automation will reduce the working day drastically. If your quota of 1000 buttons can be fulfilled in 1/10th the time, you should have a lot more time for pursuing your hobbies. Unfortunately, this never happened.

In one of the essays, he declares himself as a socialist while simultaneously distancing from Marx, and Russian communism. Essentially, he lays groundwork for social democracy. His views on socialism are very reasonable and still relevant today.