Nearly 90 years ago, John Maynard Keynes made a much-quoted prediction. In his 1930 essay, Economic Prospects for our Grandchildren , he set out the view that, by 2030, technological progress would have raised productivity so much that people would be able to meet their essential needs in a 15-hour working week.
He was perhaps the first economist to explore the implications of a future of “technological unemployment”. For Keynes, this was a positive development: Freed from the necessity of toil, mankind could devote itself to nobler causes than “detestable” money-making, such as science and the arts.
Well, it hasn’t quite […]
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