Very nice essay. FYI my Substack "The Permanent Problem" is inspired by Keynes' essay and addresses our messy and uncertain transition from mass prosperity to mass flourishing. https://brinklindsey.substack.com/
Indeed, it's a great, thought-provoking, essay. So much so that there's a whole book of essays reflecting on it which, being retired, I have no excuse not to read. It's Revisiting Keynes Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, edited by Lorenzo Pecchi and Gustavo Piga (MIT Press, 2008).
Some relatively lucky people have jobs they like and are or would be quite happy to continue doing them in some form into their '80's.
Does it really make sense to "save" leisure for late in life? Maybe sone of the vacationing that older people do would be more enjoyable at 30 than 80.
It is so blindingly obvious that much of the "utility" of greater consumption is dissipated in interpersonal comparisons, that it is amazing to me that we do not have a quite progressive personal consumption tax.
Followed by the replacement of the stakeholder capitalism it favored with the shareholder capitalism favored by the Neoliberal Order which replaced the New Deal Order over 1979-1981.
I am afraid that to quote approvingly somebody saying that for most people economic prospects are more or less the same as in the 1920s betrays such a neglect of the relevant information to make the author suspicious on everything else. It is sufficient to look at the graph in the same post to see that, even allowing for the divergence between productivity and real compensation per hour, the latter has increase 2 1/2 times between 1950 (not 1920) and 2010.
The observation that we have failed to profit from the greatly expanded economic possibilities to devote more time to the pursuit of the good life omits to note the increase in length of time - unimaginable for Keynes’ contemporaries - that people spend in retirement. Much of it, I am afraid, absorbed by pursuits (eg low-brow tv entertainment or inane, at best, discussions on social media) that one would find hard to qualify as good life.
Finally, there is the issue of Baumol’s cost disease eating away a considerable part of our increased economic possibilities. As any reader familiar with Keynes would know, he took for granted that his - and his readers’ - pursuit of the good life would not be distracted by chores best left to domestic servants.
Very nice essay. FYI my Substack "The Permanent Problem" is inspired by Keynes' essay and addresses our messy and uncertain transition from mass prosperity to mass flourishing. https://brinklindsey.substack.com/
Indeed, it's a great, thought-provoking, essay. So much so that there's a whole book of essays reflecting on it which, being retired, I have no excuse not to read. It's Revisiting Keynes Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, edited by Lorenzo Pecchi and Gustavo Piga (MIT Press, 2008).
I must search for that…
Good. Some random thoughts.
Some relatively lucky people have jobs they like and are or would be quite happy to continue doing them in some form into their '80's.
Does it really make sense to "save" leisure for late in life? Maybe sone of the vacationing that older people do would be more enjoyable at 30 than 80.
It is so blindingly obvious that much of the "utility" of greater consumption is dissipated in interpersonal comparisons, that it is amazing to me that we do not have a quite progressive personal consumption tax.
As for what happened, a good candidate is the collapse of the New Deal Order
https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/how-the-new-deal-order-fell
Followed by the replacement of the stakeholder capitalism it favored with the shareholder capitalism favored by the Neoliberal Order which replaced the New Deal Order over 1979-1981.
https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/how-economic-culture-evolves
Also, reasons to believe that the postwar economy was not something externally caused, but rather a choice.
https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/why-the-postwar-prosperity-was-not
I am afraid that to quote approvingly somebody saying that for most people economic prospects are more or less the same as in the 1920s betrays such a neglect of the relevant information to make the author suspicious on everything else. It is sufficient to look at the graph in the same post to see that, even allowing for the divergence between productivity and real compensation per hour, the latter has increase 2 1/2 times between 1950 (not 1920) and 2010.
The observation that we have failed to profit from the greatly expanded economic possibilities to devote more time to the pursuit of the good life omits to note the increase in length of time - unimaginable for Keynes’ contemporaries - that people spend in retirement. Much of it, I am afraid, absorbed by pursuits (eg low-brow tv entertainment or inane, at best, discussions on social media) that one would find hard to qualify as good life.
Finally, there is the issue of Baumol’s cost disease eating away a considerable part of our increased economic possibilities. As any reader familiar with Keynes would know, he took for granted that his - and his readers’ - pursuit of the good life would not be distracted by chores best left to domestic servants.
Yes!