I often listen to the business show "Marketplace" on NPR and always appreciate how they distill complex business and economic issues. Last night I was moved by a brief interview with Charles Handy, founder of the London Business School. After discussing banks and the societal pitfalls of making money from money, he summed up by saying:
We may get back to a saner kind of world...where we don't all sort of spend our life trying to make money, to buy things we don't really need to impress the neighbors, and so on. Where we actually do work — not 60 hours a week, but 40 hours a week. Where we actually do take holidays. Where we actually get to know our kids again. Where it actually becomes smart to have a tiny car, to walk and bicycle and these sorts of things. And we may find we enjoy it actually just as much as the hectic pace that we've seen in recent years. I've often said that capitalism, particularly in America, is a very exhausting business. It tires people out.