Four Days

"Thus for the first time since his creation man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem – how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well." (Keynes, 1930)

Almost one hundred years since this quote, Maynard Keynes could have been right about the 15hr work week. But let's not think of the remainder as leisure time.

Last week, The Inequality Lab - a collaboration between the Paris School of Economics and the University of Berkeley - released 'The Global Justice Report' (report) which presents us a blueprint for a sustainable and equitable 21st century. It outlines a transition path from 2026 to 2100 to reconcile human development and equality within our planet's limits. Almost beyond the content, I felt overwhelmingly positive towards the idea of a vision of 2100: the act of thinking about the next 80 years is a vote for the future. I imagined my children in the late stages of their lives living in this possibility. It was a powerful thought and there is much to debate and analyse in the report.

One of the concepts in the report - sufficiency - connected to Keynes' idea of leisure time and it got me thinking about daily life in an equitable, sustainable future world. The concept of sufficiency is designed to help keep our natural systems in balance and move away from over-consumption. To do this according to the authors, the collective planet wouldn't need to work (in the traditional employment sense) for no more than about 2 or 3 days a week. That would represent an average drop from 2,100 hours per year to about 1,000...which is not far from the 15 hours mentioned above. The implication for traditional economic measures, like productivity and growth, is thought-provoking and I get the sense the debate is really starting to gather momentum in academic circles. What I want to explore here is what happens with the time we wouldn't be 'earning a living'.

The current state of work is well documented: global employee engagement has dropped to 20% (Gallup), more and more people are wanting to transition to more flexible working arrangements. For the sake of debate, let us think beyond days of the week and let go of the current contractual and artificial separation between work activities and non-work activities we currently have. In this new paradigm, what would you do with 4 days in an average week if you didn't need to 'make a living'? To help you picture this possibility, I'd encourage you to think about how you might frame the answer. You might consider using the time for personal improvement, or for leisure. What about community? Or nature?

I've started to think of this in 3 overlapping areas. Firstly, resurrecting the idea that each of us is responsible for the strength of our society. We have tried to pass the problem over to other people to solve using our taxes and this has led to much decay in our relationship with governing institutions, other people, and our immediate environment. Civic duties could encompass our collective responsibility for national defence against both natural and and international threats. It could also encompass the investments we need to make in education, across all age groups, to help raise the standards of critical thinking and debate as well as key skills for a changing and volatile future.

Secondly, building the bridges to the people that live nearest to us. Increasingly isolated in digitally-focused existences, we have been ignoring the needs we all have to be connected and rooted to our neighbours and our neighbourhoods. Community means investing the time to be individually responsible for how we interact with, support and invest in our immediate surroundings and ecosystems (in the broad sense of the word, being and not being).

Lastly, taking care of ourselves is critical to help build emotional, mental and physical strength. And from that strength we draw creativity for our problem solving, empathy and tolerance to work together, and the fortitude and clarity to work with purpose towards ambitious goals. This is not only the time to exercise, read, socialise, but to also cultivate and prepare nutritious wholefood diets at home that would entirely revise the damaged relationship we have with food.

An approach to daily life such as this could be transformative in every way. Not just in how we spend a typical 24 hours, but by helping each of us to understand our connections to everything and everyone else around us. Trust me when I say it's hard to ignore the consequences of your actions once you've woken up to the interconnectedness of everything around you.

For me, in my stage of life and with my interest in food and education, I would try and structure my '4 day' time around:

• growing fruit and vegetables in community farming schemes
• cooking and preparing meals
• supporting local rewilding projects
• civic and defence training to be useful in times of emergency, such as Britain had after WW2 (Civic Defence Corps)
• helping to support all levels of education in basic skills to support raising families and being a homeowner
• volunteering on neighbourhood improvement projects
• helping to organise regular community festivals to bring the neighbourhood together

It would be easy to dodge this idea on the grounds that I'm working at 'making a living' for most of the week. I wonder whether it is not a lack of time, but rather a lack of priority and a lack of knowing where to start. Which brings us to how to get us started on this path.

The momentum behind the 3-day weekend has faced stiff resistance from the corporate sector and the governments unwilling to play experiments with growth and tax revenue. Events might easily overcome this resistance in the not too distant future as most societies face increasing automation and unemployment from traditional 'earning a living' roles. Regardless of where you stand ideologically on the role of enterprise and commerce in society, I suggest we can no longer think of our daily lives as a simple 5 days 'earning a living' with a 2 day 'free weekend' for everything else. Our communities and governments can play a proactive role in making the transition to a civic activity framework that is entirely more productive, sustainable and desirable for everyone. Let's start the debate by not framing it as a 4-day leisurely weekend: we have work to do that's more important than 'earning a living'.