"Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren"

by Keynes, John Maynard (2010)

Key Passage

Thus for the first time since his creation 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
for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well.
The strenuous purposeful money-makers may carry all of us along with them
into the lap of economic abundance. But it will be those peoples, who can keep
alive, and cultivate into a fuller perfection, the art of life itself and do not sell
themselves for the means of life, who will be able to enjoy the abundance when
it comes.
Yet there is no country and no people, I think, who can look forward to the age
of leisure and of abundance without a dread. For we have been trained too long
to strive and not to enjoy. It is a fearful problem for the ordinary person, with
no special talents, to occupy himself, especially if he no longer has roots in the
soil or in custom or in the beloved conventions of a traditional society. To
judge from the behaviour and the achievements of the wealthy classes to-day in
any quarter of the world, the outlook is very depressing! For these are, so to
speak, our advance guard-those who are spying out the promised land for the
rest of us and pitching their camp there. For they have most of them failed
disastrously, so it seems to me-those who have an independent income but no
associations or duties or ties-to solve the problem which has been set them.
I feel sure that with a little more experience we shall use the new-found bounty
of nature quite differently from the way in which the rich use it to-day, and will
map out for ourselves a plan of life quite otherwise than theirs.
For many ages to come the old Adam will be so strong in us that everybody
will need to do some work if he is to be contented. We shall do more things for
ourselves than is usual with the rich to-day, only too glad to have small duties
and tasks and routines. But beyond this, we shall endeavour to spread the bread
thin on the butter-to make what work there is still to be done to be as widely
shared as possible. Three-hour shifts or a fifteen-hour week may put off the
problem for a great while. For three hours a day is quite enough to satisfy the
old Adam in most of us!

Links to Reference

• https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-59072-8_25
• http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-59072-8_25
• https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-59072-8_25
• https://assets.aspeninstitute.org/content/uploads/files/content/upload/Intro_Session1.pdf

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