GBS—“The Cognate Question of the Redistribution of Leisure”

Millions of our people, some living on the dole—and some on property!—do not work at all, whilst other people are working fourteen hours a day… Can anything be more ridiculous? one man unemployed and the other working fourteen hours a day! Surely the sensible thing is to take the unemployed man and let him do seven hours of the work of the fourteen hours man, and then see whether you cannot split it up a little bit further. About four hours work a day all round, accompanied by a sensible redistribution of income would make us all healthier and happier than we are at present.

G B Shaw, In Praise of Guy Fawkes, (1932)