There is no country and no people 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.
This passage, which Mark Taylor cites, was written by John Maynard Keynes and appears in his celebrated essay ‘Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren’, published in 1930. Characteristically subtle and paradoxical, Keynes at once welcomed and feared the age of leisure and abundance that he believed was coming. His fear that ordinary people might be unprepared for an age of leisure proved to be unnecessary, since such an age never arrived. When something like abundance was achieved in affluent industrial societies, it wasn’t translated into free time and most people ended up busier than before.
A professor in the Department of Religion at Columbia University, Taylor aims to show how this pervasive busyness came about. He identifies a number of causes, including the Protestant valorisation of hard work and worldly success, which he tells us ‘encouraged privatization, decentralization, and deregulation’; the rise of neoliberal economics,
Hakuna nchi wala watu wanaoweza kutazamia enzi ya starehe na wingi bila hofu. Kwa maana tumezoezwa kwa muda mrefu sana kujitahidi na si kufurahia. Ni tatizo kubwa kwa mtu wa kawaida, asiye na vipawa vya pekee, kujipatia kazi, hasa kama hana mizizi katika udongo au desturi au katika mikataba inayopendwa ya jamii ya jadi. "Mwanzoni mwa mwaka wa 1930, John Maynard Keynes aliandika makala ya ""Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren"" (Uwezekano wa Kiuchumi kwa Wazazi Wetu)." Kwa kuwa alikuwa na tabia ya kuwa mwenye busara na mwenye kutatanisha, Keynes alikaribisha na kuhofu wakati wa starehe na wingi ambao aliamini ulikuwa unakuja. Hofu yake kwamba watu wa kawaida huenda wasiwe tayari kwa enzi ya starehe ilithibitika kuwa isiyo ya lazima, kwa kuwa enzi hiyo haikufika kamwe. Wakati kitu kama wingi ilipata katika jamii tajiri viwanda, haikuwa kutafsiriwa katika muda wa bure na watu wengi alimaliza busy zaidi kuliko hapo awali. Taylor, profesa katika Idara ya Dini katika Chuo Kikuu cha Columbia, anajitahidi kuonyesha jinsi shughuli hii iliyoenea ilivyotokea. "Mwanahistoria huyo alitaja sababu kadhaa, ikiwa ni pamoja na ""kuchukuliwa kwa thamani kwa kazi ngumu na mafanikio ya kidunia"" na ""kuchochea ubinafsishaji, kutokuwa na mamlaka, na kuondoa udhibiti"" na ""kuongezeka kwa uchumi wa neoliberal."""