The five-day workweek is an anachronistic relic of a time when conditions were far different than today.

Back in 1930, renowned economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that technological advances, slowed population growth, increasing capital (or "material things") and changing economic priorities would make three-hour shifts or a 15-hour workweek possible and desirable within 100 years.

Then, he wrote, "The love of money as a possession - as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life - will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semicriminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease."

Keynes cautioned, however, that the "age of leisure and abundance" could be met with dread: "For we have been trained too long to strive and not to enjoy. It is a fearful problem for the ordinary person, with no special talents, to occupy himself, especially if he no longer has roots in the soil or in custom or in the beloved conventions of a traditional society."

Still, he remained optimistic: "I feel sure that with a little more experience we shall use the new-found bounty of nature quite differently from the way in which the rich use it to-day, and will map out for ourselves a plan of life quite otherwise than theirs."

We're eight years from Keynes's 100-year prediction. Technology has advanced, more than he could have imagined. Population growth has slowed, although not stabilized. Capital has increased, albeit much wealth has been hoarded and monopolized by a few. And environmental and social crises have led many to question economic priorities. So, why are we still working hours similar to 90 years ago?

Part of the answer lies in the postwar adoption of "consumerism" as an economic model. It may also relate to the concern Keynes raised: the "dread" that people won't know how to occupy their leisure time.

But with so many people feeling overwhelmed by an out-of-whack work-life balance, the latter isn't an insurmountable problem. Women, especially, are feeling the crunch. Unlike in the 1950s, most have joined the workforce, but as in those days, they still do most of the housekeeping and child care.

Keynes distinguished between "absolute" and "relative" needs. The latter, he argued, "satisfy the desire for superiority," and "may indeed be insatiable." But Columbia University economist Joseph Stiglitz notes that society moulds our choices. We "learn how to consume by consuming," he writes, and how to "enjoy leisure by enjoying leisure."

Because we've failed to reduce work hours gradually, as Keynes envisioned, we're unlikely to achieve 15-hour workweeks by 2030. But environmental and social conditions have sparked a move toward a four-day workweek. (David Suzuki Foundation staff have enjoyed a four-day workweek since its founding in 1990.)

The biggest trial is in the U.K., where 3,300 workers at 70 wide-ranging companies, from small to large, recently started working four days a week with no loss in pay. The experiment - led by 4 Day Week Global in partnership with the think-tank Autonomy, the 4 Day Week Campaign, and researchers at Cambridge and Oxford universities and Boston College - will "measure the impact on productivity in the business and the wellbeing of its workers, as well as the impact on the environment and gender equality," a Guardian article says.

Governments are also backing trials in Scotland and Spain, and countries like Iceland and Sweden have run successful trials. Along with other benefits like increased vacation time and flexibility, and working from home, shorter workweeks not only give people better lives, they're also good for the environment. Fewer people commuting means reduced pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and traffic congestion.

The pandemic taught us it's possible to rapidly shift our ways of thinking and acting, especially as they relate to work. It's past time to recognize that life isn't given meaning through excessive consumption and toil, but by having time to spend with friends and families and by pursuing interests outside of work. That will even benefit employers by helping staff be happier, healthier and more productive.

We may not achieve Keynes's predicted 15-hour workweeks by the end of this decade, but we can surely aim for a better balance.

Happy Juneteenth, everyone! I know that this has been accepted as a truly American holiday because people are already complaining that it's been commercialized. They are absolutely right, by the way. From the Washington Post:

The Children's Museum of Indianapolis advertised a "Juneteenth watermelon salad" in its food court, then dropped it and issued an apology after intense blowback.

As we all should know by now, Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when federal troops arrived in Texas to tell the enslaved people there that they were free. (In fact, they had been for a while, but word of the Emancipation Proclamation was pretty much stifled in the state.) So it was interesting that, over the weekend, the Texas Republican Party held its convention and decided to celebrate Juneteenth's first go-round as an official federal holiday by dragging itself back to approximately 1857. Over the weekend, the historian Heather Cox Richardson, in her invaluable Letters from an American newsletter, summarized well the Buchanan-administration cosplay that resulted.

. ...delegates to a convention of the Texas Republican Party today approved platform planks rejecting "the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election, and [holding] that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States"; requiring students "to learn about the dignity of the preborn human," including that life begins at fertilization; treating homosexuality as "an abnormal lifestyle choice"; locking the number of Supreme Court justices at 9; getting rid of the constitutional power to levy income taxes; abolishing the Federal Reserve; rejecting the Equal Rights Amendment; returning Christianity to schools and government; ending all gun safety measures; abolishing the Department of Education; arming teachers; requiring colleges to teach "free-market liberty principles"; defending capital punishment; dictating the ways in which the events at the Alamo are remembered; protecting Confederate monuments; ending gay marriage; withdrawing from the United Nations and the World Health Organization; and calling for a vote "for the people of Texas to determine whether or not the State of Texas should reassert its status as an independent nation."

Senator John Cornyn got booed for even thinking about cutting a weak-ass gun-reform deal with his Democratic colleagues, a compromise that the Republican leadership in the Senate is already intimating that it might leave to die of thirst in the political wilderness anyway. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, who makes Cornyn look like Henry Wallace, was physically attacked on his way into the convention-too many chickens, not enough roosts-and the mood inside the hall was apparently grim with, as the late Howard Cosell once put it, "overtones of ugliness." Eric Neugeboren of the Texas Tribune went out among the lost and angry sheep.

Above all, attendees said they were fed up. Fed up with elections they believe are rife with fraud. Fed up with their own politicians - including U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, whom they rebuked for taking part in bipartisan talks on gun legislation - for being open to compromise with Democrats. Fed up with the persecution of Christians with traditional values. Fed up with a credulous mainstream media that spouts liberal talking points and disdains anyone who disagrees as racists or bigots. Fed up with undocumented immigrants, even those fleeing war and poverty, for taking advantage of public benefits. Fed up with the education of their children, especially on matters of history and race. Fed up with experts, starting with Dr. Alfred Kinsey, who they said are "sexualizing" students before they've hit puberty.

"The enemy is coming in and trying to change our society, change the very fabric of what made America great and they're doing it by going to the children," said Conny Moore, a 75-year-old retired pharmacist and pastor.

This was a crowd familiar with The Great Replacement, the theory that immigrants are being used to replace white, native-born Americans, and The Great Reset, supposedly a plan by global capitalists meeting in Davos, Switzerland, to impose their environmental and social goals on the world economy and restrict what people can eat and own. Fox News did not come up much; One America Network and NewsMax seemed far more influential. Conspiracy theories abounded. Anne Meng, a middle-aged nurse-practitioner in The Woodlands, said she believed the May 24 massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde was "a ploy by the government," and that "cops were told to stand down." Tammy Lake, 52, who lives in another Houston suburb, Magnolia, and is a senior sales engineer for a software company, said she believed that Donald Trump would be rightfully restored to the presidency "by the end of the year." She did not specify how.

Meanwhile, a few degrees north, the Indiana GOP met in their convention. They nominated an election denier for secretary of state instead of the incumbent Republican, and they struck the word "democracy" from their platform. ("We're not a democracy, we're a republic" has been a go-to riposte for conservative whackadoos since before I was born.) A lot of people need to go off somewhere and come to grips with how they let the prion disease run so wild in their party that it's now a threat to the health of the nation. Tugging your forelock on cable television is hardly enough.

(c) 2022 Charles P. Pierce has been a working journalist since 1976. He is the author of four books, most recently 'Idiot America.' He lives near Boston with his wife but no longer his three children.

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) - Iran International reports that a temperature of 126 degrees F. (52.2C) has been recorded in Abadan. It is the highest temperature officially recorded in that city in the 70 years official records have been kept. Globally, it is one of the the higher temperatures observed before the summer solstice since records began being kept in the 19th century.

Government offices were closed in the province of Khuzestan on Tuesday as a result of the heat.

When we talk about the climate crisis, we sometimes only attend to dramatic natural disasters. But it just getting too hot for government to work is also a threat to well-being.

Nearly 5 million residents live in this southwestern province, out of roughly 84 million Iranians.

Scientists believe that where the temperature exceeds 122F, and where humidity is 50% or more, human beings cannot survive outside in it. Luckily for the people of Abadan, the humidity nowadays seems to be about 18%.

There is a possibility of high winds and dust storms early next week.

Kuwait and Iraq also suffered from unusually high temperatures this week, and from extreme dryness. In Southwestern Iran, in Kuwait and Iraq, rainfall has been 50% less than usual this spring. Iraq has suffered from repeated and long-lasting dust storms of a sort not seen before.

Iran International notes that Iran is in the grip of a decade-long drought, and that the local Dez river, a tributary of the Karun River, has fallen to alarming levels. Farmers are turning to underwater aquifers, but draining them is risky, since they may not be filled again, and taking this water out is causing widespread subsidence, i.e. Iran is sinking. Hydroelectric dams are producing much less energy.

Abadan has been the scene this spring of substantial political arrest, with protests over a building collapse blamed by locals on corruption. The Iranian government replied to the protests with a severe crackdown.

Last November, the drying up of the Zayandeh Rud river that flows through Isfahan provoked large protests by locals.

The climate emergency is causing Iran to be drier over time. Scientists project that precipitation in Iran will decrease by 35% over the next few decades and the average temperature will increase by an alarming 4.68 degrees F. (2.6 degrees C.) Some areas of Iran may become uninhabitable because of the heat. Khuzestan, the province of which Abadan is the capital, also saw widespread water shortages and consequent street protests last summer.

Ironically, Abadan is a major oil-producing region, so its major product is implicated in making it increasingly unlivable.