Working fewer working hours won't decimate society

Dick Smith.

Confirmation that fewer hours at work will not decimate society is illustrated in Dick Smith’s book, “Population Crisis – the dangers of unsustainable growthfor Australia”.

Smith became wealthy when he built his business, Dick Smith Electronics, on the back of a growing Australia and benefited hugely from a society addicted to consumption.

While readily acknowledging that, Smith now argues that growth, be it in human numbers or in economic terms is not in the long term interest of Australia, or the world itself.

His argument, arrived at after talking with some of Australia’s sharpest thinkers, along with reading about and listening to many of the world’s best demographers, economists, environmentalist, climatologists and an impressive array of scientists left him absolutely convinced that Australia, and the world, needed to immediately attend to all intricacies of growth.

Smith said: “I believe it’s time to abandon the growth-obsessed economy in its entirety. This will be epochal as the Industrial Revolution, but our long-term survival as a civilisation depends on it”.

He added: “The endless growth economy is obsolete and risky to future generations. We must plan now and begin to implement a ‘steady-state economy’ based on quality of life rather that the quantity of consumption”.

The human experiment has reached a nexus: continue with “business as usual” and we are unquestionably doomed; reshape and rebuild the world’s economic system and in doing so address all facets of exponential growth and we have a chance, a slim chance, of furthering the experiment.

Dick Smith's
"Population Crisis".

The growth Smith discusses at length has arisen through the conflation of a of event, alone each has certain impact, but together they have created a situation that sees humanity charging blindly toward the abyss.

Among the ingredients that have become a catastrophic recipe, is the fact that exponential economic growth brings many difficulties, among the fact that we are all too rich (many are also too poor) and that taken our consumption of “stuff” – stuff that we don’t need, that we buy to impress people we don’t know of don’t like – to a level that now actual endangers humanity.

The Four-Hour Work Day, yes, it will be as life-changing at the Industrial Revolution, will unquestionably end the wonderful discretionary spending that today troubles the planet so much, but that life-changing event could also be life-saving.