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In 1930, a year into the Great Depression, John Maynard Keynes sat down to write about the economic possibilities of his grandchildren. Despite widespread gloom as the global economic order fell to its knees, the British economist remained upbeat, saying that the ‘prevailing world depression … blind[s] us to what is going on under the surface’. In his essay, he predicted that in 100 years’ time, ie 2030, society would have advanced so far that we would barely need to work. The main problem confronting countries such as Britain and the United States would be boredom, and people might need to ration out work in ‘three-hour shifts or a 15-hour week [to] put off the problem’. At first glance, Keynes seems to have done a woeful job of predicting the future. In 1930, the average worker in the US, the UK, Australia and Japan spent 45 to 48 hours at work. Today, that is still up around 38 hours.
Keynes has a legendary stature as one of the fathers of modern economics – responsible for much of how we think about monetary and fiscal policy. He is also famous for his quip at economists who deal only in long-term predictions: ‘In the long run, we are all dead.’ And his 15-hour working week prediction might have been more on the mark than it first appears.
If we wanted to produce as much as Keynes’s countrymen did in the 1930s, we wouldn’t need everyone to work even 15 hours per week. If you adjust for increases in labour productivity, it could be done in seven or eight hours, 10 in Japan (see graph below). These increases in productivity come from a century of automation and technological advances: allowing us to produce more stuff with less labour. In this sense, modern developed countries have way overshot Keynes prediction – we need to work only half the hours he predicted to match his lifestyle.
The progress over the past 90 years is not only apparent when considering workplace efficiency, but also when taking into account how much leisure time we enjoy. First consider retirement: a deal with yourself to work hard while you’re young and enjoy leisure time when you’re older. In 1930, most people never reached retirement age, simply labouring until they died. Today, people live well past retirement, living a third of their life work-free. If you take the work we do while we’re young and spread it across a total adult lifetime, it works out to less than 25 hours per week. There’s a second factor that boosts the amount of leisure time we enjoy: a reduction in housework. The ubiquity of washing machines, vacuum cleaners and microwave ovens means that the average US household does almost 30 hours less housework per week than in the 1930s. This 30 hours isn’t all converted into pure leisure. Indeed, some of it has been converted into regular work, as more women – who shoulder the major share of unpaid domestic labour – have moved into the paid labour force. The important thing is that, thanks to progress in productivity and efficiency, we all have more control over how we spend our time.
So if today’s advanced economies have reached (or even exceeded) the point of productivity that Keynes predicted, why are 30- to 40-hour weeks still standard in the workplace? And why doesn’t it feel like much has changed? This is a question about both human nature – our ever-increasing expectations of a good life – as well as how work is structured across societies.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 29 2019, @06:52PM (21 children)
I told you Keynes was an idiot. Sure, we could absolutely cut the number of hours folks have to work to make a living in half. And we'd be worse off than Venezuela in a year or two. Work in excess of what is absolutely necessary is where all human advancement comes from and the rest of the world is not going to stop advancing just because we do, so we'd inexorably fall farther and farther behind each year.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Touché) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday October 29 2019, @09:15PM
Only if the United States started sanctions.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 29 2019, @09:38PM (4 children)
Naked assertion, much? Doubling minimum wage doesn't seem to have had that effect.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 30 2019, @01:03AM (3 children)
I'm not going into that. What does minimum wage have to do with the price of tea in China?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday October 30 2019, @01:47AM (2 children)
Well, of course it follows: you double someone's hourly income, they only have to work half as many hours, right? (Nevermind that almost never happens...)
I'm at a point in my career where, instead of annual 5-10% raises, I'd rather have annual 5-10% reduction in total hours worked, whether that's weekly hours, or an increase in PTO. Unfortunately, that option just isn't available.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 30 2019, @02:23AM
That almost never happening is why it's irrelevant to this conversation.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 30 2019, @07:43PM
> I'd rather have annual 5-10% reduction in total hours worked,
While not specifically planned, this is about what has happened to me. I'm mid-60s and the tiny business that I own has got to the point where my customers seem to be pretty stable, and experienced people get the work done. I have to keep an eye on things, but generally I can get this done in the morning.
Unfortunately, that hasn't turned into more "leisure"--instead I've spent un-counted (but generally rewarding) hours helping to care for my aging parents, first one and now the other--for the last 10+ years. One of my guys has a lot of family problems, we work together to figure out how much work he can actually get done (when not being interrupted) and then set reasonable goals.
Growth isn't on the table and I'm past hoping for a company jet--at this stage of life I don't want to have more people to organize and "manage".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 29 2019, @10:28PM (13 children)
"Work in excess of what is absolutely necessary is where all human advancement comes from"
Agreed, but how much of that extra work done over the past say 30 years has truly gone toward ACTUAL human advancement? I'd wager it's a pretty small percentage. *IF* (as this study suggests) we are able to produce as much as a Keynes-era 40-hour work week in as little as 7 or 8 hours today, and *IF* (as you imply) the extra work is good for human advancement, why then isn't the world today a much, MUCH better place? Why are people being poisoned by the air they breathe and the water coming from their taps? Why are we still contracting and dying from diseases that were around in Keynes' time? Why are our bridges (even the new ones) falling apart? For that matter, why are there people still living under bridges? Why do the products I buy today (e.g. power tools, appliances, automobiles, etc.) last maybe one-third as long as products made in the 50's, 60's, even 70's?
While I am aware that there are also things that ARE vastly superior today (medical imaging capability springs to mind, as well as automotive safety), I am not willing to concede that humanity has "advanced" as much as all that "excess work" would suggest. Smartphones, Facebook, reality TV, non-replaceable batteries, education requiring multiple mortgages...that is not advancement. No, almost all of the excess work we collectively do is done in service of two things: human greed and human stupidity. So no, Keynes was not an idiot; he got it right about not needing as much time to do all we need to do (including true advancement-related activities). He just didn't realize how much time/work we would waste doing things we absolutely do NOT need to do.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 30 2019, @01:00AM (4 children)
It is. By any standard a sane person could possibly come up with, we are a hell of a lot better off. Well, except the quality of the music on the country charts.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 30 2019, @03:09AM (3 children)
Right. Since anyone who disagrees with you is clearly insane, that proves you are correct. Excellent argument.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 30 2019, @10:35AM (2 children)
Pick one then and show me how I'm wrong.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 30 2019, @02:05PM (1 child)
I know the cost of a pineapple has definitely dropped.
https://mentalfloss.com/article/65506/super-luxe-history-pineapples-and-why-they-used-cost-8000 [mentalfloss.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 31 2019, @12:52AM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 30 2019, @02:17AM (7 children)
What does "ACTUAL human advancement" mean, and is it actually relevant to us and our lives? My take is that several billion people have made their own lives better via work, and not even extra work.
Because their air and water has toxins in it, duh. Notice the complete absence of any relevance to our discussion here. People have been poisoned by such things for ages. That doesn't say anything about the parts of the world, consisting of at least a billion people that have made great strides in cleaning up their environments - a process that can be applied to the rest of the world too.
Your perception problem is not a human productivity problem. It's continually tiresome to get these repeated assertions that just because something looks one way to you (or rather that some narrative is attractive to you and you thus commit a serious amount of confirmation bias in its defense), doesn't mean it actually does. Look at some actual statistics sometime.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 30 2019, @02:27AM (3 children)
The air and water used to be a fuuuuuuckload worse. Ask London how theirs were back a couple hundred years ago. Or ask Los Angeles how theirs was back in the 70s.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Webweasel on Wednesday October 30 2019, @10:54AM (2 children)
Try as recently as the 60's.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pea_soup_fog [wikipedia.org]
Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 30 2019, @11:07AM (1 child)
I was thinking back when everyone's house was heated by a local combustion source and breathing was something you wished you didn't have to do but yeah, absolutely.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Webweasel on Wednesday October 30 2019, @03:13PM
That's the point, no central heating in the 60's everyone used coal burners, which was the cause of the Pea Soupers.
Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 30 2019, @04:12AM (2 children)
"Because their air and water has toxins in it, duh."
You didn't score too well on the reading comprehension portion of the exam, did you? TMB's comment was that we're spending all this extra work (beyond what is simply necessary for survival) on "human advancement". The counterpoint is that we're not advancing all that much when simply taking a breath or a drink of water causes people to become ill, even in one of the most "advanced" countries. The counterpoint is doubly made if you read between the lines to realize that WE (you know, the advanced humans) are the ones dumping those SYNTHETIC toxins into the air & water in the first place.
"Notice the complete absence of any relevance to our discussion here."
Nope, seems completely relevant to me. Here, I'll summarize for you, using smaller words: TMB said we're using the time to advance civilization. Counterpoint: poisoning our own air & water is not advancement.
"Look at some actual statistics sometime."
Show me some sometime. Otherwise it's just your OWN perception/bias/narrative against mine. I've studied enough math (and lived long enough) to know that statistics can be used to (sometimes falsely) demonstrate any point (and counterpoint) someone wishes to make. You complain about tiresome "repeated assertions" with nothing concrete to back them up, yet all you did was spew your own unsubstantiated personal assertions in response. Oh, you try to sound intelligent/informed, but all you're really doing is standing in the schoolyard shouting, "Nuh-uh!"
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 30 2019, @10:44AM
Progress doesn't require wisdom, only motion in the direction humanity has chosen. Much like progressives are attempting to take us in a directions that're bat-shit crazy but still get to keep the label.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 31 2019, @01:05AM
I quoted the AC who wrote that. Reading comprehension will never be better than what information was provided in the writing. Nor do I see any evidence in your bluster indicating that my reading comprehension was somehow in error.
The AC simply doesn't see it. That's all.
There are many things being missed here. For example, complaining about pollution (the part where you emptily accuse me of reading comprehension deficits) while ignoring that it's gotten much better. If it doesn't matter to you whether pollution gets better or not, then does it really matter to you whether there is pollution in the first place? Yet all we have is the usual, vague pearl clutching about nebulous people getting hurt by nebulous pollution. No matter what you claim you think or know, that lack of detail about the harm of pollution shows you're way too ignorant about pollution to have an opinion worth listening too. The problem here is that humans will no matter how perfectly they are environmentally, pollute. At that point, it boils down to harm caused, not whether there is pollution or not. A community of a few hundred environmentally perfect souls pollute. So does 1.4 billion Indians. Make a wild guess who pollutes more.
We're "poisoning" our own air and water less. That is advancement no matter what you think of it.
I wrote about that here [soylentnews.org]. You'll see somewhere in excess of a dozen links to statistics you should consider.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 29 2019, @10:30PM
Bwahahahaha
*looks at username*
Oh, that wasn't a joke.