More Work Or More Free Time The Crucial Political Issue That No One Is Talking About

Americans believe we need rapid economic growth to create jobs and avoid unemployment-but that is because we do not have the choice of working shorter hours. The Dutch have a better model. They can choose their own work hours, which means they need to create the amount of work people actually want rather than to create full-time jobs for everyone.We have reached the point where growth no longer brings significant benefits. International comparisons show that higher income no longer inproves a nation's happiness, health, or educational achievement after it reaches about two-thirds of the current American level.And postwar America's push to promote automobile use in order to stimulate the economy and create jobs actually made our cities less livable.The average American employee works 25% more than the average Dutch employee, but American does worse on ratings of happiness, health, and educational achievement. All that extra work doesn't do us any good. In the course of this century, most nations of the world could emerge from poverty and have a comfortable middle-class standard of living, if we can avoid ecological collapse. But it is unlikely that we can avoid collapse if the world follows the American model. The choice between the American model of long work hours, rapid growth and high inequality and the Dutch model of shorter work hours, slower growth, and less inequality is essential to improving people's lives and to creating a sustainable world economy, but no mainstream politician is talking about the crucial issue of work time.