>In the 1950s, there was the great promise of "the leisure society" - a future of such material abundance that most people would hardly need to work. That society became possible, but we systematically rejected it in favour of more consumption.

I'm not convinced this is true: there are also intense coordination costs and learning costs. Two programmers working 20 hours a week, for example, are way less productive than one programmer working 40 hours a week. And the one programmer will learn faster because she's putting in an extra 20 hours a week.

That's true in virtually all knowledge / creative / intellectual professions.

If people are simply executing a set of tasks, maybe working 20 hours a week can make sense, but those jobs are basically commodities, and commodity jobs are a) highly competitive, b) not that remunerative, and c) because of a and b, not that much fun.

EDIT: In response to the commenters below, take a look at Brooks' The Mythical Man Month if you'd like data, at least as far as programmers are concerned.