The harried leisure class

by Staffan Burenstam Linder

Professor Linder points out the many ramifications of the relationship between increasing goods and decreasing time in our economy. As time becomes increasingly scarce, there is a need to continually reallocate time among competing goals and needs. Inevitably, values begin to change in the reallocation process and the whole quality of life is altered.

Genres: Economics

190 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1971

Reviews

[lyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

How we spend our time is who we are. The author's main premise is that rising productivity has increased "yield on time", how economically valuable our time is, which has in turn created time scarcity, time poverty, and even an entire culture of time famine. These effects are documented with examples and their implications are explored. At one point Linder concedes that the only way out of the problem is to leave the economic realm and move to a lifestyle or a culture in which consumption is centered on noneconomic goods. These can include cultural pleasures, conversation, friendship, nature, etc., provided we take care that these are noneconomic or only incidentally economic. What is interesting here is that many of the observations of Thoreau and others who have sought to depart from economically defined reward systems assume quantitative form in this book.

[Tara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not an economist. I liked a lot of his thoughts, but I didn't need eight pages of details to illustrate every point, especially when his points seemed obvious already. Nonetheless, pretty good stuff here.

[A.R. Yngve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Economics is often ridiculed as ”the dismal science,” but we need to understand the functioning of the global economy – especially in these troubled times – hard as it is. So give economists a chance.

In the late 60s, there was still an optimism about ever-increasing affluence... and then the Swedish economist Staffan Burenstam Linder asked: Will the amount of time we have to enjoy our affluence also increase? If not, what then?

His book THE HARRIED LEISURE CLASS is very accessible to layman readers. It lays out all the problems that arise when we get more and more stuff and services... but still have the same fixed amount of time available.

Which means more choices and decisions to make... but relatively less and less time for those decisions, for relaxing, for actually doing things, for maintenance and upkeep.

Some of the consequences he predicted can be observed now. Also, he predicts that technological advances may not ”solve” these issues as easily as we might think.

Here’s an everyday example: I spend almost as much time flipping through the growing content table on Netflix, trying to decide what to watch, as I do actually WATCHING any content.

In the future I will almost certainly spend MORE time trying to CHOOSE what to watch, than I’ll spend WATCHING anything. (Or I could pay someone for making the choices for me... but then I’ll have to choose between a growing selection of people to make those choices AND SO ON...)

Recommended ”food for thought” reading. Also, this book might cause you to rethink how much consumer goods you really have time for...