Speaking in a city on the precipice of disaster, the British economist hazarded a counterintuitive prediction. By 2030, Keynes said, mankind would be confronted with the greatest challenge it had ever faced: what to do with a sea of spare time. Unless politicians make “disastrous mistakes” (austerity during an economic crisis, for instance), he anticipated that within a century the Western standard of living would have multiplied to at least four times that of 1930. The conclusion? In 2030, we’ll be working just fifteen hours a week.
