Many years ago, in 1931, John Maynard Keynes wrote an essay titled “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren”.
Stock markets had crashed two years earlier in 1929; millions throughout the world were out of work; it was the beginning of the Great Depression — “a slump which will take its place in history amongst the most acute ever experienced,” Keynes himself wrote.
Nevertheless, the great economist said over the long term this slump would be no more than a blip. Economies were destined to grow ever more richer and people ever more wealthier. The global economy, Keynes said, would grow sevenfold over the next century.
And as we grew wealthier and ever more productive, we would all be working no more than 15 hours a week, he predicted. The great problem of the 21st century — just about now — would not be maintaining full employment, but rather what we would do with the huge expanse of free (and possibly empty) time that we would have on our hands. If one had to work no more than 15 hours a week, we need work no more than 3 days a week. Whatever would we do with the rest of our time?
“For the first time since his creation,” Keynes wrote, “man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem — how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won.”
What happened? Where’s our four-day weekend, every week? The global economy has certainly grown by far more than sevenfold; in fact, by a factor of more than sixteen. Never before in human history have so many been so well off. But are we working 15-hour weeks as a result? Actually, in some countries, like the US and Japan and probably Singapore, people are working longer hours now than they were 50 or so years ago. The situation is better in many European countries — including Germany — where people take their vacation times seriously.
Some economists argue that we have not seen 15-hour weeks so far because as incomes rose, so did people’s desire for more and more things. As the saying goes, appetite grows upon what it feeds. We don’t work just enough hours to put food on the table and keep a roof over our heads. We want more than that — a car, a laptop, smart phones, nice clothes and nice dinners and travel. You have to earn more — in other words, work longer hours — in order not to work and be able to afford leisure.
Other economists point to the widening income gap as a possible explanation. True, the advanced economies are far wealthier now than they have ever been. But because income distribution has become so skewed, only the truly rich can afford leisure; while the mass of society has to continue working more and more hours just to provide the basics for themselves.
Indeed, most of us don’t sit around wondering how we are going to occupy ourselves in the hours and days we don’t work. We are more concerned about whether our incomes would rise steadily over the years, or whether we would be laid off because some new-fangled technology makes our jobs obsolete. As the Minister for Education reminded us on the first day of this conference, we will have to continue ensuring our children are trained for the jobs of the future, and we adults are updated with new skills and knowledges so we can continue to be employable.
The truth is we have not solved permanently, for all time, the problem of how we are to make a living. This is especially the case for a small country like Singapore. Nobody owes us a living. Yes, we now have resources, including sizeable financial resources, that we never dreamt we would have when we became independent in 1965. But those advantages won’t last forever by themselves; they need to be sustained — with hard work, among other things.
I might draw your attention here to the seminal work of Daniel Bell, the American sociologist. He described in his book The Cultural Contradiction of Capitalism how the development of 20th century capitalism has led to the contradiction between what he called the cultural sphere of consumerist instant self-gratification and the economic sphere of hard-working, productive individuals who generate the wherewithal to be able to afford those consumer goods.
On the one hand, you have the values of thrift, hard-work, the delay of gratification, without which it is not possible to generate wealth; on the other, you have the values of consumerism, distraction, instant gratification, which capitalism encourages to keep its wheels turning. The values which market economies encourage to sustain themselves contradict the values required to produce wealth. This contradiction cannot last forever: It is not possible to consume year after year with no thought to production. So long as human beings exist, we are condemned to grapple with the business of making a living.
Still, I don’t think Maynard Keynes was completely wrong. We are not working 15-hour weeks, certainly; but there has been an undoubted shift worldwide in favour of leisure over work. Not all in society or worldwide can afford this shift — even in a prosperous country like Singapore — but an increasing number of people, not just the super-rich with family trusts, want to work less.
Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s Singapore, I never heard the expression “work-life balance”. It never occurred to my generation to think of work apart from life. One lived to work; work was life. Sure, one had to rest, recharge, have recreations. But it was understood we did all this — exercise, sleep, relax — so we could work better. That was our assumption.
It was only in the 1990s when I first heard this expression. It was spoken on occasion. Now it has become a clamour. We have meeting-free Fridays these days. We go through lists of meetings to decide what can be dropped for good. Sometimes, we consciously tell people to leave work early while there is still daylight. There are meeting-free days and family days when everyone is encouraged to spend time with their families. I’ve often experienced a generational clash in the workplace, with my younger colleagues protesting when I schedule meetings past 6pm or when I send them e-mails or messages past 9pm let alone past midnight or in the wee hours of the morning.
As a result of our experience of COVID, most people have found value in hybrid work practices. I don’t think we will ever go back to the pre-COVID days of everyone in the workforce going to work in offices every day or throughout the entire workday. When even the civil service adopts such practices, you know the world has changed. Many other developments in the workplace — from quiet quitting or soft quitting to the so-called Great Resignation — attest to this worldwide Keynesian shift from work to leisure.
Still I hasten to add we have not solved for all time the problem of how to make a living. While some can afford quiet quitting, many more have to worry how to put food on the table. While some work in enterprises or in professions where it is possible to adopt flexible work hours, many more find themselves doing jobs with no benefits or little protection. You have heard the Secretary-General of the NTUC describe how unions now have to expand their ambit to cover what hitherto we would have considered non-bargainable workers. Our proletariat are no longer the masses working in the Satanic Mills of the early industrial revolution; they are the gig workers working for various service platforms, they are the freelancers working with no defined benefits and little legal protection. If we are to afford every working citizen dignity and self-respect, we must extend protections to all.
But just as we have to adjust to an ageing society — including providing work opportunities for as long as possible to the silver generation — we will probably have to adjust to an increasing portion of our workforce choosing more leisure and less work. We will have to work just as hard to provide for leisure as we work on work. For what Keynes called the “art of life” — or the art of productive, beneficial, life-enhancing leisure — is not obvious. What should one truly want when you have fulfilled all your material wants?
That is a philosophical question, and in all probability, the answer would probably be religious in nature. That is beyond the ken of this conference on “Work”, and certainly beyond my ken. Perhaps one of these days IPS — or some other body in Singapore — will organize a conference entitled simply “Why”. Today we will focus on “Work”.
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