Great article.

In fall 2019, I listened to the Blinkist version of a book called "Utopia for Realists" and through it I learned about how the 20-hour work week was the historical precedent and how, 100 years ago, both economists like John Meynard Keynes and industrialists like Henry Ford predicted and promised to workers that their lifestyle was a temporary one, that the rise of mechanization would lead to increasing productivity, and this meant that their efforts were going to lead to a Leisure Culture for future generations.

Turns out that rise in productivity DID happen. However, the ownership class kept the profits, manipulated government policies to favor this behavior and used media propaganda to convince us this was all natural, that the spoils would "trickle down" to us and, if we weren't financially successful, it meant we weren't working hard enough.

Anyway, hearing that book played a key role in my decision to quit my full-time teaching job the following spring. Nowadays, I am working about 20 hours a week. It is SO much better. It's taken me about 18 months to de-compress from the stress of living on the hamster wheel. I feel re-charged and so much clearer now.

Having gone through this experience, I suspect a dark take on why this world MAY not happen is that those in power recognize that a healthier population is less easy to manipulate and control.

All that said, I'm reasonably sure the next few years are going to be radically changing, that events on the ground are well out of the control of the elites, and that this 20-hour work week MAY evolve as a result of these events.