This book will provide the first comprehensive and systematic overview of the attitudes of different schools of thought towards the issue of work time. Topics covered include assumptions on what determines the length of the work day and week, changes in production systems and their consequences...

John Maynard Keynes expected that around the year 2030 people would only work 15 hours a week. In the mid-1960s, Jean Fourastié still anticipated the introduction of the 30-hour week in the year 2000, when productivity would continue to grow at an established pace. Productivity growth slowed...

The financial and economic crisis was preceded by an energy, food and climate crisis. Until 2008, prices for oil, food and various minerals were increasing due to accelerating scarcity in peak capitalism. With the outbreak of the financial turbulences, the environmental problems shifted somewhat...