Why Do We Work So Damn Much?
Historically speaking, we live in an age of extraordinary abundance. We have long since passed the income thresholds when past economists believed our needs would be more than met and we\u2019d be working 15-hour weeks, puzzling over how to spend our free time. And yet, few of us feel able to exult in leisure, and even many of today\u2019s rich toil as if the truest reward for work is more work. Our culture of work would be profoundly puzzling to those who came before us.\n\nJames Suzman is an anthropologist who has spent the last 30 years living with and studying the Ju/\u2019hoansi people of southern Africa, one of the world\u2019s enduring hunter-gatherer societies. And that project has given him a unique lens on our modern obsession with work.\n\nAs Suzman documents in his new book, \u201cWork: A Deep History From the Stone Age to the Age of Robots,\u201d hunter-gatherer societies like the Ju/\u2019hoansi spent only about 15 hours a week meeting their material needs despite being deeply impoverished by modern standards. But as we\u2019ve gotten richer and invented more technology, we\u2019ve developed a machine for generating new needs, new desires, new forms of status competition.\n\nSo this is a conversation about the past, present and future of humanity\u2019s relationship to work and to want. We discuss what economists get wrong about scarcity, the lessons hunter-gatherer societies can teach us about desire, how the advent of farming radically altered people\u2019s conceptions of work and time, whether there\u2019s such a thing as human nature, the dangers of social and economic inequality, the role of advertising in shaping human desires, whether we should have a wealth tax and universal basic income, and much more.\n\nMentioned: \n\n\u201cEconomic Possibilities for our Grandchildren\u201d by John Maynard Keynes\n\n\u201c\u2018Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren\u2019 75 Years after: A Global Perspective\u201d by Fabrizio Zilibotti\n\n\u201cExtreme Jobs: The Dangerous Allure of the 70-Hour Workweek\u201d by Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce\n\nBook recommendations: \n\nKing Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild\n\nEntangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake\n\nOther Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith \n\n\nYou can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of "The Ezra Klein Show" at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein.\n\nThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.\n\n\u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\u201d is produced by Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rog\xe9 Karma; fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Kate Sinclair; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld, audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin.