Selfishness, Greed and Capitalism

Selfishness, Greed and Capitalismtable, but quite another to worry about a relative handfulof well-remunerated professionals choosing to workfifty-hour weeks in offices and boardrooms. On average,however, the facts are clear. Britons are working shorterhours than they ever have before.ConclusionIncreased productivity has allowed average workinghours to fall dramatically in every industrialised countryfor many decades. Where increases in productivity haveslowed, the decline in working hours has also slowed. Forsome sections of the workforce in some countries, workinghours have got longer since the 1970s, but this largelyreflects these workers’ preference for income over leisure.There are two other reasons why modern society ismore leisurely than is often assumed. Firstly, people areliving about twenty years longer than they did in 1930,meaning that many more people are able to enjoy years ofretirement; leisure therefore takes up a larger proportionof one’s lifetime. Secondly, the growing availability andaffordability of time-saving consumer products such asmicrowaves, washing machines, dishwashers and vacuumcleaners mean that fewer hours at home are consumedwith domestic chores (a form of ‘unpaid labour’) and cantherefore be devoted to leisure (Zilibotti 2007).But the fact remains that Keynes’s predicted fifteen-​hour week did not come about. The reason we have notreduced our working hours to the point at which life issustained and leisure is maximised is that once ‘absolute84