The answer clearly isn’t economic: it’s moral and political. The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on their han

The answer clearly isn’t economic: it’s moral and political. The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on their hands is a mortal danger (think of what started to happen when this even began to be approximated in the ‘60s). And, on the other hand, the feeling that work is a moral value in itself, and that anyone not willing to submit themselves to some kind of intense work discipline for most of their waking hours deserves nothing, is extraordinarily convenient for them. This has always bothered me, even before I was old enough to join the "work force." I had a hunch back in the day and have subsequently confirmed it early in my career: working less promotes better, clearer thinking, and ultimately a higher volume of results (i.e. when I work less, I end up getting more done). This is incredibly telling of our times: Hell is a collection of individuals who are spending the bulk of their time working on a task they don’t like and are not especially good at. Say they were hired because they were excellent cabinet-makers, and then discover they are expected to spend a great deal of their time frying fish. Neither does the task really need to be done – at least, there’s only a very limited number of fish that need to be fried. Yet somehow, they all become so obsessed with resentment at the thought that some of their co-workers might be spending more time making cabinets, and not doing their fair share of the fish-frying responsibilities, that before long there’s endless piles of useless badly cooked fish piling up all over the workshop and it’s all that anyone really does. I encounter this more often than I'd like to admit. Brilliant, talented, positive people finding their core competencies squashed under meaningless political bullshit. I constantly shudder at the idea of what these people might accomplish if they were given the resources and freedom to do what they were actually good at. I've been reading Freedom From the Known by Jiddu Krishnamurti and this one excerpt really speaks to this problem: For centuries we have been spoon-fed by our teachers, by our authorities, by our books, our saints. We say, `Tell me all about it - what lies beyond the hills and the mountains and the earth?' and we are satisfied with their descriptions, which means that we live on words and our life is shallow and empty. We are second-hand people. We have lived on what we have been told, either guided by our inclinations, our tendencies, or compelled to accept by circumstances and environment. We are the result of all kinds of influences and there is nothing new in us, nothing that we have discovered for ourselves; nothing original, pristine, clear.