Solving the Mystery of Keynes' "Mistaken" Prediction: Why Don't we Work Less and Take More Leisure

Robert Skidelsky is best known for his definitive three-volume biography of John Maynard Keynes. It hardly surprising, then, that he begins his latest book, How Much is Enough? (co-authored with his son, the philosopher Edward Skidelsky), with a puzzle posed by the master himself. Why is it that we work so many hours each week and enjoy so little leisure?

Keynes’ “mistaken” prediction

In 1928, Keynes gave a talk to a group of Cambridge undergraduates on the theme, “The Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren.” Eschewing models and data, his message was that if people were wise enough to avoid ruinous wars, those living a hundred years in the future would enjoy a standard of living four to eight times higher than those living in 1928. Here are some key passages that catch the flavor of his remarks:

We may be on the eve of improvements in the efficiency of food production as great as those which have already taken place in mining, manufacture, and transport. In quite a few years—in in our own lifetimes I mean—we may be able to perform all the operations of agriculture, mining, and manufacture with a quarter of the human effort to which we have been accustomed. . . .

Thus for the first time since his creation man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem—how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well. . . .

Three-hour shifts or a fifteen-hour week . . . is quite enough to satisfy the old Adam in most of us!

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