ABSTRACT
This chapter examines various proposals which have been introduced by a number of writers to cope with the future of work and leisure. In Britain the best known books on the subject are C. Jenkins and B. Sherman’s The Collapse of Work and The Leisure Shock. The crop of literature is characterized by the attention given to the topic of work–leisure relationships and by the degree of consensus among the authors about the nature and seriousness of the problem facing advanced industrial nations. Contemporary commentators on the future of work and leisure are generally prescriptive: they cast themselves in the role of prophets with dire warnings for society and numerous penances which must be paid if purgatory is to be avoided. The extent to which increased leisure time has been used for leisure activities rather than other, less instrumental, leisure activities is an indicator of the extent to which the move to a self-service economy is already spontaneously under way.
