We are suffering just now from a bad attack of economic pessimism. It is common to hear people say that the epoch of enormous economic progress which characterized the twentieth century is over; that the rapid improvement in the standard of life is now going to slow down – at any rate in the United States; that a decline in prosperity is more likely than an improvement in the decade which lies ahead of us.
I believe that this is a wildly mistaken interpretation of what is happening to us. We are suffering, not from the rheumatics of old age, but from the growing pains of over-rapid changes, from the painfulness of readjustment between one economic period and another. The increase of technical efficiency has been taking place faster than we can deal with the problem of labor absorption: the improvement in the standard of life has been a little too quick; the banking and monetary system of the world has been preventing the rate of interest from falling as fast as equilibrium requires.
If you read the above, would you think twice about the time period being referenced? Anybody with a remote sense of today’s socioeconomic climate likely wouldn’t. What if I told you the words “twentieth” and “United States” are substitutes from the original’s excerpts “nineteenth” and “Great Britain”? Would it still make sense? For those of us history buffs, it likely would.
The above excerpt is from British Economist John Maynard Keynes’ 1930 essay Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren.
Keynes’ 15 Hour Work Week: Additional Context
Before continuing, let’s further contextualize the world in 1930. The Great Depression began a year prior. Gandhi began his famous Salt March. Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto. Amy Johnson became the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia in a used, single-engine biplane. The National Socialist Party won 107 seats in the German Parliament, making them the second-largest party. And, ten years before all of this, the Treaty of Versailles concluded the horrific events of World War I.
The vast majority of Keynes’ essay deals with the topics above and not with the benefits of a reduced work week. The excerpt referencing this punchy concept reads as follows:
Three-hour shifts or a fifteen-hour week may put off the problem for a great while. For three hours a day is quite enough to satisfy the old Adam in most of us!
Who is Old Adam?
“Old Adam” is the human race prior to the major scientific and technological advancements beginning in the Seventeenth Century, then accelerating through the Industrial Revolution in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Before these advancements, also known as the first 299,400 years of Homo Sapiens, the world was nothing more than disconnected tribes surviving.
As a result, there was little to no progress. As these advancements manifested, our survivalist ethos slowly degraded as our basic needs became increasingly satisfied. Following the time of Keynes, computers and the internet have met even more of these needs. “Old Adam”, therefore, represents our need to work. Although the 15 hour work week appears arbitrary, the principle that work is as significant to our vitality as food, water, shelter, and community is sound.
The Message of the 15-Hour Work Week
Most of my research surrounding this essay lead to articles and academic papers analyzing the economic impact of a shortened work week. It is an interesting thought experiment, especially when considering our standard 40-hour work week originated from a labor-intensive manufacturing economy. However, there is an important distinction between society’s economic and existential needs.
Luckily, Keynes is one of the greatest minds in history, and has already made this distinction, with slightly different verbiage. He articulates his belief society’s “economic problem”, reconciling significant living standard disparities, could be resolved within the next 100 years. At which point, all that’d be left is the “permanent problem”, satisfying our biological need to work for survival.
The Misleading Concepts of Meaningful Work and Retirement
“Meaningful work” is the new buzzword summarizing the career goal of the younger generations. “Retirement” preceded it as the goal of older generations. Like the 15-hour work week, both concepts are misleading. “Meaningful work” is relative to the person performing it, and is therefore a hollow aspiration. If it were redefined as work directly affecting our biological needs of food, water, shelter, and community, only those involved in agriculture, construction, and public service would fit the definition.
“Retirement” is also a relative term. Most often, it’s used to describe the end of our working, economically significant career. However, it could also be used to describe several important transitions such as that from academia to a career, from a single person to a married one, and from a child to a parent. When defined as such, the economic definition quickly dissolves into a meaningless marker used by entitlement offices.
Keynes’ essay is one of the most provocative pieces I’ve read since starting Becoming Polymathic. It’s highly technical, yet it concerns a deeply primal concept. Additionally, a topic I’ll be addressing soon, it’s timeline, 100 years, is not coincidental, which enables me to copy an excerpt in 2024 and solely change the date to make it relevant. It’s primary message is humans are complex, imperfect, incredible creators whose creations often mislead them. When they do, it’s incumbent upon them to quell the impact of these creations such they do not rid themselves of their uniqueness.
Be More.
Become Polymathic.
Quote of the Week: “The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.” – John Maynard Keynes