with echoes of an essay John Maynard Keynes wrote in 1930, predicting that within a 100 years, increased prosperity would allow people to work 15-hour weeks.
Keynes’s vision has yet to materialise,
Running a household has gone from 50-60 hours a week to perhaps 10 to 15 these days. There, we’re done.
It’s just it’s the birds’ work that went away.
We can even do a little test here. Because, damnit, he mentions the charwoman in the essay. So, find a GP. “How many cases of Housemaid’s Knee do you see these days? And how many not caused by sporting injuries?”
Seriously, we already did this shit.
That said, once the change does occur it is likely to be highly disruptive, because whole swaths of middle-class, white-collar jobs are at risk.
This hits home at the Guardian, because most of their journalistic output is already indistinguishable from a chatbot.
“predicting that within a 100 years, increased prosperity would allow people to work 15-hour weeks.Keynes’s vision has yet to materialise,”
Well it probably has, if you are happy to live the life of the workers Keynes was thinking of. Rather than the 2 cars, 4 holidays, eating out every night, electronic gadgets up the wazoo lifestyle that the same workers desire today.
Jim – I think most people would be happier pulling a plough and raising children.
The sum total value of modernity and all of its electronic distractions and vulgar entertainment is nothing. We are human beings, our lives should not be digitised and abstracted and sold As A Service. People need love, they do not need Love Island.
Reject Modernity, Return to Kibbutz.
@Steve
The Khmer Rouge actively encouraged people to leave their “modern” lifestyle and go back to tending the land. I don’t think many of those people were happy, especially as they starved when the crops failed and died of what were previously treatable illness.
AndyF – but think of how good their Gini coefficient was.
Keynes’s vision has yet to materialise,
Because Keynes was a lousy economist. Because, like virtually all of them, he couldn’t predict shit.
“AndyF – but think of how good their Gini coefficient was.”
But would it have been? Gini is just relative. If the masses live in the fields and eat turnips, and the nomenklatura live in houses with basic heating, running water and toilets, have plenty of food and access to travel (even if its a bicycle) then would the Gini not be off the scale?
Whereas in our society the billionaire has a phone that is functionally the same as the one owned by a person on benefits. Ditto their car, their TV, the heat their house runs at, there’s increasingly no way for the rich to differentiate themselves from the poor other than by conspicuous pointless consumption. Really the only difference is the housing – wealth buys you functionally better housing. Everything else is broadly functionally similar regardless of wealth.
21 years of doing no work growing up, then 42 years working 37hrs/week with close to a month of bank holidays, annual leave and sickies, followed by 19 years of retirement doing no work.
Probably does net off to about 15hrs/week over a lifetime (ok 17+).
Probably not exactly what JMK meant but extra compensation in the economy since his day when life expectancy was under 65 has gone mainly to extended pensioner life spans and some to education years expansion.
there’s increasingly no way for the rich to differentiate themselves from the poor other than by conspicuous pointless consumption
Such as leaving the central heating on, or buying a 50g packet of loose tobacco (£33.70)
Here’s how a non-economist would have written in 1930
In 100 years some people may choose to work 15 hours for a modest standard of living.
And some may choose to work longer hours for a higher standard of living.
But most will work 15 hours which they will stretch over 37½ hours whilst demanding wages equivalent to the second above.
Because people are lazy, dishonest & greedy.
@BiS: most will work 15 hours which they will stretch over 37½ hours whilst demanding wages equivalent to the second
Reminds me of the old joke:
How many people work in your company?
About half.
Steve,
“Such as leaving the central heating on, or buying a 50g packet of loose tobacco (£33.70)”
Most people are poor because they made themselves so. Whether it’s getting knocked up behind a pub and the father disappearing, or because they do an MA in English then live in London as a freelance screenwriter (1 short film credit on IMDB), or because they change their shiny wankpanzer every 3 years. And for nearly all of these people there are Apple devices in the mix.
“ Such as leaving the central heating on, or buying a 50g packet of loose tobacco (£33.70)”
Bloody bell, I saw something from Chris Snowdon saying it was going to be heavily taxed but that’s ridiculous. It’s going to be more profitable smuggling in loose baccy than Albanians soon.
BoM4 – sure. They don’t need Jeremy Hunt’s help to be poor.
BiND – it’s one of the reasons I got bored of the Orwellian comparisons. Yes, woke vocab does have a lot in common with Newspeak, and watching simpering metropolitan morons on the BBC is like being strapped down in Room 101. But at least Winston was still allowed to afford Victory fags and gin.
“Such as leaving the central heating on, or buying a 50g packet of loose tobacco (£33.70)”
The poor don’t buy tobacco at £33/pouch. They buy it from some bloke in a flat top pub for £10.
And there’s very little correlation between house temperature and wealth. The hottest houses you’ll ever visit are on council estates. Whereas the coldest are those of the aristocracy.
According to my records, since I left university 35 years ago I’ve averaged paid employment six months per year, so that more-or-less equates to a little over Keynes’ 15 hours per week. While occasionally I have worried about getting too close to bumping along the bottom, I feel comfortable. I have my computers, my radio, a microwave, a fridge, a vacuum cleaner, a car. Spent two weeks in Japan five years ago. Add in “admin neccessary to stay alive” probably adds on a couple of hours a week – running the vacuum around the flat, washing the dishes, loading and unloading the washing machine. I’d say I’m probably on less than 20 hours per week doing stuff I don’t want to do, but have to do in order to be able to do the stuff I want to do.
And if you are content with a standard of living that would be quite acceptable in Keynes’ time a life on benefits and no more than 16 hours per week?
And of course if you eliminated the vast level of bureaucratic compliance imposed on the private sector by the ever-growing public sector since Keynes’ day, 15 hours per week would have been achieved easily.
@Steve – “Reject Modernity, Return to Kibbutz.”
You first.