Working life | If the famous economist’s prediction had come true, the working day would last three hours

Sdp’s vice chairman Matias Mäkynen proposed this week that an experiment with a four-day work week would be organized in Finland next election period. Despite the shorter working hours, the employees’ salary would remain the same.

Mäkynen got the inspiration for his proposal from an experiment with a shorter work week organized in Britain, the results of which were very positive.

According to a report on the experiment, employee absenteeism decreased and productivity improved. The employees’ physical and mental health improved. More than 90 percent of the workplaces that participated in the experiment intended to continue using a shorter work week.

“The results of the extensive experiment that ended in Britain are at such a level that Finland too should finally stop joking about the Sdp and see the four-day working week as a realistic and desirable direction of development in the near future,” Mäkynen stated in his press release.

However, the joking did not stop.

“The proposal is absurd. There is a labor shortage in the companies”, a member of parliament from the coalition Arto Satonen wrote in its announcement. “Where does Sdp really live?” the convention Pia Kauma tweeted.

Mäkynen’s proposal is not new. Sdp chairman Sanna Marin proposed a 30-hour work week in 2019 and again in 2020. And many others have proposed shortening working hours – such as, for example, the legendary economist John Maynard Keynes.

Keynes published an essay in 1930 called Economic Possibilities For Our Grandchildren (The financial opportunities of our grandchildren).

In the article, Keynes predicted that in a hundred years the standard of living in industrialized countries will have risen 4–8 times higher than in 1930. This seems to be happening. For example, in the United States, the gross national product per capita has increased more than sixfold, even though it hasn’t even been a full hundred years yet.

Due to rising living standards and improved productivity, Keynes predicted that work would decrease dramatically. He bet his grandchildren would work three-hour days or 15-hour weeks.

This prediction went completely wrong. For example, in Finland, the average weekly working time is around 35 hours. The prediction went wrong also because Keynes had no children and, therefore, of course no grandchildren either.

American In 2015, the public service radio station NPR published a funny the thing, in which Keynes’ prediction was reviewed. Two of Keynes’ sister’s grandchildren were interviewed in the program – when there were no children of their own, this was the closest we could get.

Another of Keynes’ sister’s grandchildren is Nicholas Keynes Humphrey, who is a retired English neuropsychologist. The program asked if he worked 15 hours a week.

“I worked 15 hours a day,” Humphrey replied.

Another grandchild Susannah Burn on the other hand, said that he works about 50 hours a week as a psychotherapist.

Keynes said his only regret in life was not drinking more champagne. The regret is justified, because Keynes did a tremendous amount of work. He couldn’t even sleep at night when there was so much work to do.

Susannah Burn told the program that Keynes’s wife was constantly angry about her husband’s overwork.

“Maynard died of overwork,” Humphrey said on the show.