Economics of Leisure - Assignment Example

Economic for Leisure Why people do not enjoy the massive economic growth and technological progress? The economics of leisure gained attention since the advent of the industrial revolution. The period before the industrial revolution was dictated by subsistence production. People could hardly produce more than what they were consuming due to constrained production and the livelihood of the people during that time. Majority of the people were hunters and gatherers while a few exercised food production. The nature of the people practice shows that people spent most of their time looking for foods. There was no time for leisure because the search for food consumed most of the time in a person’s lifetime. However, the industrial revolution brought surplus production and people could now afford the time for leisure. Moreover, the 21st Century is characterized technology innovation and people are now living in modern cities. But no matter the progress in the economy people spend little on leisure. This essay embarks on explaining the reasons why people never engage in leisure even when they can afford time and resources to do so. Leisure is defined as the portion of time that workers engage in while, not on compensative exercise of production for goods and services (Madow 1965). It is the time when workers are on a sendoff job. Leisure involves spending time at home, resting, sleeping, spending weekends on sports or travelling to pass the time when one is not on an hourly wage. Technology has relieved time that people needed to be in the work place to generate profits for the companies and income for the share of labor. In recent times people have gained more freedom and development in careers such as sporting. Moreover, there has been a tradeoff between labor and leisure which is termed as the backward labor supply curve. Leisure has different meaning and perceptions to different people. The meaning is based on individual priorities, and pleasures derived from doing certain activities (Veal 2004). Some people find spend their leisure time watching television while others spend time on base jumping, mowing and visiting the parks. These things have defined the culture of people, but with the extent of economic growth only a few of the people engage in creation facilities. However, countries such as U.S and majority of European countries have advanced in sporting activities and more people spend free time watching sports or engaging in one. Leisure can also be understood as a spiritual and mental attitude and thus is not an external factor. Therefore, a percentage of the world population view leisure as a condition of the soul and is not related to ideals to which people refers to work as an activity, as a social role. Therefore, given the above reference leisure is construed as a time of inactivity, of silence and dedication (Patmore 1983). John Keynes envisioned a period of time that only a small fraction of the people would be needed to produce for the entire population. The 21st is the time that actually Keynes envisioned about and the problem that he said that would face the human race is how to manage the freedom out of pressing economic cares, how people would occupy leisure time as a result of advancement in science and how to cope wisely given less effort is needed in every sector of the economy (Dolan 2013). One of the explanations for continued working and disregarding leisure is that people enjoy working. Working in itself has become leisure for most of the organizations. Organization has structured their relation to its employees and given them the absolute right to engages in other things while on the jobs. For example, pregnant women and breast feeding mothers had facilities in the organization where they are cared for, and children looked after (Kraus 1978). Moreover, organization has established bonding retreat for workers and thus this discourages people engaging in others activities of leisure when they are off for leave. Therefore, the freedom that Keynes talked about is spent in organization activities (Dolan 2013). Moreover, the capitalist society has dictated the direction of every adventure in the current in this century. The economic sector is dictated by employees and who has to report to the owner of capital on the progress of productions or other activities in economics sectors (Dolan 2013). This explains why workers have to abide by a set rule to stay on duty until the specified time in the job contract is over. Therefore, supervision in work places has ensured people spend more time working to produce more and more in disregard of the precious time of leisure. The economic principles that wants are insatiable also explain the continued disregard of leisure for work. People continue to work even in their free time to ensure that they meet the need of their lives. The cost of living has become so expensive that it has forced employees to work for more to meet the demand of their lifestyles. This is not always the case, but the creating of the human being and the flaws of the economic system. Keynes did not postulate that capitalism would establish newly dynamic of insatiable for wealth and disregard traditional restraints of good sense and adherence to society norms and customs (Dolan 2013). According to Dolan, capitalism has matured in enabling the creation of wealth, but has failed to define how we can make good use of the wealth we create in a civilized way. Keynes also discussed on the increased demand of material goods by the people. Moreover, like Keynes Skidelskys (2012) argued that people has an increasing desire to productivity in agriculture, manufacture and mining. Skidelskys discussion of the insatiable of want also includes a focus on material goods. They say that that even leisure does comprise needs for goods that will accompany the enjoyment of the free time in places such as the beach. According to Skidelsky, a visit to the beach would encompass windbreaks, tennis rackets, barbecue, football and beach balls (Dolan 2013). Skidelskys says that we actually produce more golf clubs and wet suits than we actually need. Moreover, good production has been found not to occur during working hours, but on part time when people are supposed to be resting. This raises the puzzle of how much is enough for people to produce and have. The extra of hours worked in production in times when people are not on official duties is paid to the government for the provision of services. The government does take a large chunk of people income making them vulnerable to work for extra hours in a week to recover that which the government deducts from the income. The government jobs account to 16% in the U.S explaining why there is increased production of material goods. Therefore, government operation takes a percentage of time that people ought to enjoy leisure or spend with the family in a picnics or tendering flowers at home. Dolan argues that the hourly wage in a week can explain how many people spent on other activities out of the jobs hours. He says of the 35 hours available in a week 9 hours are used to produce products while 14 hours is used to pay the government for its services. The extra 12 hours are intended for leisure, but Dolan says people do not engage in it. According to Dolan, people spend the extra hours to suffice on the necessities that are not provided by the government, but which are reasonably important to individuals. In the U.s, this category of the essential commodity would include services of a dentist, medical services, and services of an optician as well as a family doctor (Dolan 2013). Other families also find higher education as an expensive adventure and would want to work for extra hours to cushion for their children’s future. Therefore, workers would spend 4 hours out of the extra four towards providing for these necessities and leaves 8 hours that can be spent for leisure. Skidelskys says that what people engage in as leisure is in not exactly what is defined in a conventional setting. The things that people are passionate about having become their leisure activity and pay very well even better than their daily wage. The new activities that people regards as leisure include poetry, writing books, and painting, playing orchestra and sculpting. Moreover, other people tend to make their own furniture and playing football in parks. These activities are rarely done in solitude and require friends and spectators to actualize them (Dolan 2013). However, the modern society has shown tremendous growth in the leisure industry. The growth of tourism has emerged, and people have shown passion and investors have done a great deal to provide beautiful resorts where people can spend time discussing businesses and other emerging issues away from the toils and moils of busy towns. Tourism as an industry has, however, does not record the supposed percentage compared to the population in the world. Only a few people practice tourism and mostly the aged after they retire from actively paid employment. Keynes argued that he looked forward to a time when human want would decrease, and the demand for material wealth substituted for the need to establish a harmonious society. However, that has been replaced by higher demand for goods and services in an increasing rate since Keynes was writing about the importance of leisure. In the 1930s, Keynes argued that people needed to work harder because there was no serious advancement in technology (Keynes 1930). However, because he has seen what technology can do in the military he had great hope that the future generation would live a life full happiness and social evil would have been decreased over time to the minimal? References Dolan, E 2013, How much Is enough? Why Do We Work So Much and Enjoy So Little Leisure? Retrieved 07 April 2014, < http://www.economonitor.com/dolanecon/2013/06/17/how-much-is-enough-why-do-we-work-so-much-and-enjoy-so-little-leisure/>. Keynes, J 1930, Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, retrieved 07 April 2014, < http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf>. Kraus, R 1978, Recreation and Leisure in Modern Society, Good Year, Santa Monica. Madow, P 1965, Recreation in America, H.W Wilson, New York. Patmore, A 1983, Recreation and Resources, Blackwell. Oxford. Skidelsky, R and Skidelsky, E 2012, How Much Is Enough? Money and the good life, Other Press, New York. Veal, A 2004, Definitions of Leisure and Recreation, retrieved 07 April 2014, < http://www.csun.edu/~vcrec004/ls251/resources/VealRecDefinitions.pdf>. Read More