"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground". With these words, in the Book of GenesisThe first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. , God condemns humanity to a lifetime of toil. Hard work is his curse on his creation for breaking the rules he had set them.

Yet two thousand years later we seem to take a different view. People seem to take pride in working for a hundred hours a week. On social media, some boast about their "grindset".

So how did things change? For most of history we believed that work was not only a curse, but a source of shame. MediaevalRelating to the Middle Ages. nobles took pride in the fact that they did not work. Their peasants, meanwhile, had to work extra: usually three days tilling the fields of the nobles for free, and the remaining time for their own living.¹

During the ReformationA major movement in 16th Century Europe in which the Western Church split into Protestantism and the Roman Catholic Church. some ProtestantA Christian religious movement that began in Europe in the early 16th Century. groups, especially CalvinistsBelievers of a major branch of Protestant Christianity, following the ideas of John Calvin. They believe in predestination - the idea that God has already chosen who will go to heaven. , began to argue hard work was not a curse, but a virtue. They thought working hard was a duty that we owe to God, and that only the industrious would go to heaven.²

However, most people did not get the memo. In the 18th Century, most workers preferred to take time off whenever they could.

Because they were paid according to the amount of products that they made at the end of the week, many simply bunked off on Monday, then rushed for the last few days of the week to get their order done by Saturday. They called their extra weekend "Saint Monday".

Factory-owners were not big fans of this. So they came up with an ingenious new idea. Rather than paying their workers for what they made, they would pay them for the time they spent making it.

This meant workers had to be in the factory for strict hours. And to maximise their profits, the owners increased these hours as much as they could. In 19th-Century Britain a factory worker would work for 12 to 14 hours a day.³

In response, workers mobilised in unionsA trade union is an association of workers which can fight for the rights of workers and defend them against unfair working conditions. and demanded shorter hours. That is how we ended up with today's maximum 40-hour week.

But most people today work less than that. Average weekly hours have fallen consistently. Today, the average worker spends just 31.8 hours a week on the clock.⁴

The problem today, many think, is that while retail and service workers are labouring as hard as ever, most office workers find they have less and less to do.

That is because technology has reduced the time it takes to do any given task. It stands to reason most people would end up underemployed. Economist John Maynard KeynesOne of the most influential economists of the 20th Century, best known for his Keynesian economic theories on the causes of unemployment. predicted in 1930 that by the year 2030, developed countries would have a 15-hour work week.⁵

Some think it is time to make that come true. They say most of us have little to show for centuries of technological progress. Instead of increasing profits for the rich, it should allow us to spend less of our time chained to a desk.

They think if people are liberated from the drudgery of paid work they will devote themselves to more creative pursuits. People like to work, they say; just not to work for someone else.

But others think this is naive. They say a job gives people a sense of identity and satisfaction.

And they argue at a time when society is already atomised, a common workplace gives us a space for connection and friendship. Cutting working hours will only make people more isolated.

Is hard work a vice?

Yes: The point of progress was to give us more freedom and more free time. Instead we spend our lives doing pointless work for no-one's benefit. It is time to take what was promised to us.

No: Work gives us routine, structure and a sense of meaning. If some jobs feel pointless then we should get rid of those, not cut everyone's working hours.

Or... A huge gap is growing between low-paid workers, who work harder than ever, and middle-class workers who have nothing to do. Something must be done to solve that, whether or not it is a 15-hour week.