“Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.” – Epicurus

In 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that in the generations to come, the increasing prosperity of the world would mean people would work steadily less: where once it took 50 hours of week to feed the family, it would only take 15, leaving more time for fruitful leisure time. That’s not exactly how it has worked out.

Why not presents an interesting problem. Three broad theses suggest themselves: because people enjoy work, because they feel pressured to, or because they want the things money can buy. The first is almost certainly true for some of the wealthy, and may explain why we see investment bankers working so hard they don’t even have time to spend the money they earn. The second has some appeal, but can’t really explain why the poor work fewer hours than the rich. The Skidelskys find the third the most compelling, however; people today might well make enough to meet their basic needs on 15 hours a week, but to afford the status goods we crave – big houses, iphones, etc. – we must work much more.

That argument, though, hinges on a distinction between what we need and what we want. That’s a tricky line to draw: humans can survive without internet access, obviously, but are they full participants in society without it? And does that make it a need or a want? Where you draw the line is going to depend a lot on your values.

The Skidelskys raise this important question, but don’t really answer it. Indeed, judging by how the first 2/3 of the book is spent, the core component of their good life is criticizing economists. Only at the very end do they outline what they see as the ‘needs’ for a good life: Health, Security, Respect, Personality, Harmony with Nature, Friendship, and Leisure.

Robert Skidelsky is the author of one of the seminal biographies of Keynes, and though I haven’t read it I’ve heard nothing but good things. In How Much is Enough, though, I find him a bit too much of an armchair philosopher: it’s clear they’ve thought a lot about this issue, but it’s not clear they know much about it. They cite Easterlin’s findings on happiness, for example, without mentioning the fact his results have been profoundly questioned: they criticize GDP without discussing the many valuable criticisms other people have made. The book asks important and interesting questions, but as a reader looking for answers and not complaints about economics, I’m not sure it was what I was looking for.