The 8-hour work day, weekends, time off—hard-fought and won by the labor movement!—seem to have been triumphs for human health and well-being. Why should we assume that stopping here is right? Why should we assume that less work was better in the past, but less work now would be worse?

It is estimated that US workers are now more than four times as productive as our predecessors 70 years ago, but the hours we're expected to be on the clock have not gone down.