If John Maynard Keynes is looking down upon me now — he might make a good guardian angel for economists — then he is wondering why I am writing this column instead of lounging by the pool.
“Three hours a day is quite enough,” he pronounced in his 1930 essay Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren. The essay offers two famous speculations: that people in 2030 will be eight times better off than people in 1930; and that as a result we will all be working 15-hour weeks and wondering how to fill our time.
Keynes was half right. Barring some catastrophe in the next 15 years, his rosy-seeming forecasts of global growth will be an underestimate. The three-hour workday, however, remains elusive. (Keynes was childless, but NPR’s Planet Money show recently tracked down his sister’s grandchildren and asked them if they were working just 15 hours a week. They were not.)