Check out these historical predictions offered up in a new book, "In Praise of Slowness" by Carl Honore:
*Benjamin Franklin predicted that the technological advances of the late 1700s
would lead to four-hour work weeks.
*In the late 1800s, George Bernard Shaw predicted that we would work two hours a day by the year 2000.
*In 1956, Richard Nixon foresaw a four-day work week in the "not too distant
future."
*In the mid-1960s, a U.S. Senate subcommittee heard a prediction that by 2000, Americans would be working about 14 hours a week.
So much for forecasting the future. And so much for technology-as-liberator.So what happened to the long-foreseen Age of Leisure? Are we too money-grubbing to work fewer hours -- or is a day or so a week on the golf course plenty of leisure time after all?
This was a double-edged prediction but the predictors only saw one side of it. Automation reduced the amount work done by people. But we didn't distribute the reduced amount of work equally so that everyone would only work a few hours. Instead, we simply cut people who weren't needed and let others pick up the slack when the cuts were too deep.
ReplyDeleteYeah... double edged indeed! Kinda takes me back to Eli G's book 'The Goal'... are the machines really taking us closer to our goal to live as a society of living beings... or are they taking us further away from leading a life as mama nature would like us to????
ReplyDeleteoops... forgot to add in the #2 comment
ReplyDeletecheers,
Aditya Athalye :)