From Julia Child’s My Life In France: “When American experts began making “helpful” suggestions about how the French could “increase productivity and profits,” the average Frenchman would shrug, as if to say: “These notions of yours are all very fascinating, no doubt, but we have a nice little business here just as it is. Everybody makes a decent living. Nobody has ulcers. I have time to work on my monograph about Balzac, and my foreman enjoys his espaliered pear trees. I think, as a matter of fact, we do not wish to make these changes that you suggest.”
After reading Benjamin Hunnicutt (e.g., _Free Time: The Forgotten American Dream_), I concluded that the US might appreciate leisure as much as Europe does, if not for post-war macroeconomic choices.
“We catched fish, and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn’t ever feel like talking loud, and it warn’t often that we laughed, only a kind of low chuckle. We had mighty good weather, as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to us at all, that night, nor the next, nor the next.”
Thought-provoking! Thank you. However on 7. one could argue that military spending and gdp do not reflect how good people are living in their country and how far they would be willing to protect and defend their way of life ;)
From Julia Child’s My Life In France: “When American experts began making “helpful” suggestions about how the French could “increase productivity and profits,” the average Frenchman would shrug, as if to say: “These notions of yours are all very fascinating, no doubt, but we have a nice little business here just as it is. Everybody makes a decent living. Nobody has ulcers. I have time to work on my monograph about Balzac, and my foreman enjoys his espaliered pear trees. I think, as a matter of fact, we do not wish to make these changes that you suggest.”
Brilliant!
After reading Benjamin Hunnicutt (e.g., _Free Time: The Forgotten American Dream_), I concluded that the US might appreciate leisure as much as Europe does, if not for post-war macroeconomic choices.
“We catched fish, and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn’t ever feel like talking loud, and it warn’t often that we laughed, only a kind of low chuckle. We had mighty good weather, as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to us at all, that night, nor the next, nor the next.”
A very interesting perspective. If this is indeed the case, then automation and AI should also play a big part in the trend towards leisure.
Thought-provoking! Thank you. However on 7. one could argue that military spending and gdp do not reflect how good people are living in their country and how far they would be willing to protect and defend their way of life ;)