Could a four-day week be the future of work?
Japan, the country that gave us the word karoshi for death from overwork, is thinking about introducing an optional four-day work week. The idea has also come up in Iceland, New Zealand, Spain and other places. Its in fact so obvious, some wise people in the past would be gobsmacked to learn that were only just starting to talk about it now. One such sage was the economist John Maynard Keynes. In 1930, just as the Great Depression was threatening his and the worlds prosperity, he penned a classic essay on the Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren. The longer-term economic and technological trends, he argued counter-intuitively, in fact suggested that within a century  that is, right about now  we could meet all our needs so efficiently, wed only work out of habit or for fun, and even then probably no more than 15 hours a week. A cursory glance around will convince you how right he was in some ways, and how perplexingly wrong in others. Yes, Homo sapiens has, despite persistent pockets of poverty, largely overcome the traditional problem of economics, which was scarcity. Most people in rich countries today can easily feed, clothe and house themselves and their families.