Work: A Deep History, from the Stone Age to the Age of Robots

by James Suzman

As unevenly distributed as wealth and income are, most people in industrialized economies probably now meet something resembling the basic living standards that Keynes had in mind when he imagined that “absolute needs” would be adequately met. In the United States, for instance, median net wealth of households in 2017 was $97,000.8 That is three times higher than it was in 1946 but a good deal less than it was in 2006, just before the subprime crisis sent the global economy into a tailspin. Median household wealth then was in the region of six times higher than in 1946.9 Tellingly, it is also only roughly one-seventh of the average household net worth in the United States, a number skewed upward by high levels of inequality. But working hours have not declined as Keynes predicted. Indeed, despite labor productivity in industrialized nations having risen roughly four- or five-fold since the end of the Second World War, average weekly working hours everywhere have continued to gravitate toward an average of just under forty hours per week, and then remain stubbornly stuck there. Economists have long debated why working hours have remained so stubbornly high, but most agree that one part of the answer is reflected in the story of what remains the world’s bestselling cereal brand.