Madeleine Pennington takes part in a panel on productivity at HowTheLightGetsIn 23/09/2023

”Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run, it is almost everything” claimed Paul Krugman. Throughout the twentieth century productivity, the average level of output for each hour worked, improved dramatically across the developed world. A greater increase than in the previous 2000 years. Driven by life changing technologies, such as electricity, combustion engines, and phones, living standards increased sevenfold. But since the 2008 financial crisis, despite computerisation and the internet, productivity growth in many countries has been low, static or even, in the case of Japan, falling.

Might the 20th century’s extraordinary growth prove to be a unique event? Is tech itself the problem, seemingly creating solutions but in fact encouraging pointless activity? Or is the mistake to focus on productivity in the first place, and should we instead change how we value our activities and our time?

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