Early twentieth century portraits of the future often envisioned a society of leisure where, thanks to the wonders of economic growth and the miracles of technology, people would be liberated from the toil of work and free to engage in their own pursuits. In the coming post-scarcity utopia, it was imagined, humanity as a whole would ascend to breathtaking new heights — generating boundless innovations, creating unfathomable works of art, and perhaps even colonizing new planets and exploring the galaxy.

Optimistic as they were, these conceptions of the twenty-first century were based on some decidedly flawed premises. Perhaps most obvious was the fallacy of endless growth — something we now know would end in ecological catastrophe. A second problem was excessive faith in the power of automation which, at least as of yet, has failed to give us a vast army of robots capable of performing basic labor or replacing the human workforce.

These issues, however, are more semantic than they initially appear.