True Wealth: How and Why Millions of Americans Are Creating a Time-Rich, Ecologically Light, Small-Scale, High-Satisfaction Economy

by Juliet B. Schor

How might we shift to shorter hours? We need to build a political consensus on the virtues of using productivity growth to reduce work time rather than to produce more goods.

These ideas reverse the direction most households have taken in recent decades and contradict what modern economics preaches, which is that specialization, in one skill or one job, is efficient.

One casualty of an intense market orientation is that community has gotten thinner and human ties weaker.

These, then, are the individual principles of plenitude: work and spend less, create and connect more. In turn they yield ecological benefits—emit and degrade less—and human ones—enjoy and thrive more.

This point brings to mind Raymond Williams’s famous quip that our problem isn’t that we’re too materialistic; it’s that we’re not materialistic enough. We devalue the material world by excessive acquisition and discard of products.

moderate consumption of items that have traditionally been luxuries.