The Great Keynesian Error

In 1930, famous economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that we would eventually have a 15-hour work week. Technology would become so efficient at generating GDP and wealth, he believed, that we simply would no longer need to do much. Our machines would do most tasks for us.

What a horrible miscalculation that proved to be!

Fast forward to 2023. One recent study found that 41% of Americans in “white collar” professions reported feeling extreme stress and burnout.

It’s estimated that more than half of American workers do not have the time to take a proper lunch.

Another estimated 31% of American workers are working on weekends.

Americans are leaving millions of unused vacation hours behind every year.

Indeed, Americans self-report being overworked, overstressed, and underslept. And these are all contributors to obesity, anxiety, depression, and cardiovascular disease. A lack of sleep is believed to play an especially significant factor in cognitive diseases such as Alzheimer’s and dementia.

There’s a recent award-winning film titled Everything Everwhere All At Once. I can’t help but think that this aptly describes the mindset of our modern hustle culture. “I have to do everything and be everywhere, all at once, in order to be successful.”

That is a chase that ends with a decrepit body, a cabinet of meds, and a retirement package to pay for your nurses during your final years spent in inertia.

True bravery means going against the grain. I don’t applaud those who “work overtime” for the sake of a good performance review. That’s just running with the herd. I respect the person willing to slow things down and prioritize himself or herself in spite of the nagging botherers of the world who call this “slacking.”

It seems too often, in my opinion, that the quest for self-optimization is a quest to be what is essentially a soulless machine. It is why we surround ourselves with increasingly more machines: we yearn to be them. The chase for the best nutritional supplements and skincare products, the constant seeking of better pay and better fitness via gyms and watches… one would think we’d have evolved into an entirely new species from all of this chasing. And yet we’re arguably less healthy than ever, thanks to this modern religion that is “hustle culture.”

Keynes was wrong primarily because he didn’t account for the human tendency to always want more. Coupled with the Protestant work ethic espoused by corporate white collar management, this means that self-improvement can only mean finding the capability of doing more in what little time you have. What place does self-satisfaction have in hustle culture? The answer is none.

The ultimate irony is that the more you try to do, the more life you lose. Time ironically slows dramatically, and therefore becomes more favorable, when every hour isn’t spent cranking out standard operating procedures while frantically checking emails. One of the worst sins of all is ubiquitous: coffee is slurped but not tasted.

In this quest for more, there is a nightmarish eternal ladder climb in which every attempt at the top rung finds one lower than he or she was at the start.

Get some good sleep and enjoy the taste of your coffee, I say.