In 1930, British economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that in 100 years the main economic problem would be too much leisure time, because people would need to work only 15 hours per week. Bregman notes that many other economists and philosophers have likewise predicted that technological development would reduce the overall need for human labor, and while many employers dreaded this prospect as an inducement to laziness and vice, others—such as Henry Ford—welcomed happier and better-rested workers as more loyal and productive. After World War II, the US emerged as a manufacturing colossus, and opinion makers held that work would soon become the provenance of a tiny elite, leaving the rest to boredom. The 1960s cartoon sitcom The Jetsons imagined a future in which technology would make life so easy for humans that they had little left to do on their own. However, by the 1980s, the work week stopped shortening and in some cases even grew beyond 40 hours. A major development was women entering the workforce in record numbers, without a corresponding drop in men working. Technological developments such as smartphones are erasing the boundaries between work and leisure. People work themselves to the brink of exhaustion.

Medieval peasants had anywhere between four and six months off work, and while they certainly were not prosperous, such leisure time is enviable.