Yeah . . . all the talk these days is about getting people into work.

But I was reading Labour's 1983 General Election manifesto a while back, and it talks about coming up with solutions so that people could work less. Earlier retirement, longer holidays, allocated study time and so on.

The theory being that 1) Leisure activity is simply more enjoyable than most work activity, and so working less is a worthwhile goal in and of itself and 2) An informed working-class with time on its hands is more of a threat to ruling-class hegemony than a working-class that has to spend all of its time actually working is.

It was only 30 years ago, but it sounds like a totally different world.

And anyway, weren't robots supposed to be doing all the work by now, while humans enjoyed the fruits of their labour? Lying on sun loungers being fed grapes by them and what not?

Seems to me that these lazy robot bastards have had it too good for too long, and need to start getting their fingers out.