Why the 15-hour work week prediction fell short

A mid-century economist, watching machines multiply and factories hum with new efficiency, made a prediction that felt like destiny: humanity would soon work only fifteen hours a week. The forecast was not wrong about technology — it was wrong about us. What it failed to anticipate was that rising expectations, the architecture of capitalism, and the human appetite for more would conspire to keep us at our desks long after the machines had done their part. The distance between what is possible and what is chosen remains one of the defining questions of modern economic life.