In your book, „End of Work,“ you also suggest that the work week will become shorter and deep play time will increase, as a result of the spread of smart technologies.
Exactly. The work week is going to go down to 30 hours because the substituted technologies will allow us to work shorter hours and produce more output. That‚Äôs the whole success of the Industrial Revolution: shorten the work week and provide more time. I think a 30-hour work week is about right, because what we know is the optimum peak performance of mammals, especially primates, is about three to four hours reproduction time a day; the rest is play and rest, whether it‚Äôs the family dog or cat or a lion in the Savannah, or yourself or myself. Studies I‚Äôve done on peak temperature show that you get three to four hours of optimum performance; the rest is down time.So the 40-plus work week …
Is just a waste of time. It’s a completely oldfashioned idea: work, work and more work. I don’t think more than six hours are required. Better technology is going to mean shorter hours and better benefits so more people can share in the work. This also means more time for play, for family, which is more of a European approach to work. I think the Europeans have it right, the Americans have it wrong. We live to work, the Europeans work to live. The Japanese and Koreans go with the American model and most of the rest of the world goes with the European model, balancing work and play.
Jeremy Rifkin im Interview mit dem emagazine.credit-suisse.
