A very nice essay by Keynes

[lavendersparkle]

Increasingly lately I've been thinking that what we really need to do is work less. What I mean by this is that, given that developed countries have reached a level of wealth where we can afford to fill our bellies many times over, and that climate change seems to be one of the greatest threats facing us, wouldn't it be better if we all worked a bit less on average. We can fit renewable light bulbs and turn our televisions of standby but the best way to reduce our carbon foot print is to reduce our consumption and if we're going to buy less stuff, surely it makes sense to earn less money and make less stuff. I know the protestant work ethics retort to this argument. It goes "How could you advocate a life of leisure when there are starving babies in Africa?" but we don't spend very much of our money of feeding the starving in Africa, we spend it on iPods and shoes and other shinies. Maybe if we got out of the cycle of earning more money to buy more shinies we'd take more seriously the idea of actually having a serious crack at alleviating poverty.

I've always felt a bit out of sink with the rest of the world for thinking this way. It always struck me as really odd that per capita GDP was so much higher than it had been in the past but people kept on claiming that we couldn't afford things. I always found it odd that during the 20th century hours of employment have increased even though hourly wages have increased. Last week I mentioned it to a fellow Cambridge economist and he mentioned a paper written by Keynes nearly 80 years ago about what the world would be like in 100 years time. Luckily some nice person put it on the internet.

Maybe it'll inspire you to take part in a very quiet revolution. Think about whether the shinies are really worth the hours of your life it takes to buy them. If they aren't, work less and enjoy life more.

Comments

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Yes! This is what I think too, though my reasoning also goes along the lines of "I do not want to work myself to an early grave making somebody else richer and being bored for a third of my healthy adult life when the world is full of beautiful things I may only ever see once, because I am not owned". I have to do some more thinking.