IN 1930, John Maynard Keynes wrote a prediction for the future. By 2030, he prophesied in his essay “Economic possibilities for our grandchildren”, technological advance will have largely displaced human labour, leaving the standard of living so high as to free us to discover, for the first time, ways to live well. Then, “the love of money as a possession” will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity”. It would be seen as a “semicriminal, semi-pathological” propensity.
It is only, Keynes said, when the accumulation of wealth is no longer the central impulse of humanity that we …