One can dream

So I was listen to Marketplace on NPR with Kai Ryssdal (my favorite radio host) on the ride home today, as per my usual routine and they had an interesting segment which I am going to paraphrase. They had on a soft-toned British gentleman, Charles Handy, talking about the current state of banking and where the future might lie. He had an interesting prediction/hope for the future.

I mean we may get back to a saner kind of world -- what Adam Smith called "cultivation" or "civilization" -- where we don't all sort of spend our life trying to make money, to buy things we don't really need to impress the neighbors, and so on. Where we actually do work -- not 60 hours a week, but 40 hours a week. Where we actually do take holidays. Where we actually get to know our kids again. Where it actually becomes smart to have a tiny car, to walk and bicycle and these sorts of things. And we may find we enjoy it actually just as much as the hectic pace that we've seen in recent years. I've often said that capitalism, particularly in America, is a very exhausting business. It tires people out.

Now, it may just be me, but that is definitely a future I could support.