Discretionary Time

Reviews / Votes

'Only a group of scholars led by Bob Goodin could be sufficiently intellectually daring to replace money with leisure time as the metric of welfare achievement. In an era in which 'time to stand and stare' becomes ever scarcer, this is a book on the impacts of public policy which really matters.' Francis G. Castles, University of Edinburgh 'Confronting Marx's capitalist 'realm of necessity' head on, Goodin and his co-authors replace money with time as the measure of freedom and ask: 'how much control do citizens of OECD countries have over their allotments of time?' Don't be intimidated by the numbers and tables - the result is a fresh view of cross-national inequities, replete with new recipes for reform.' Stephan Leibfried, University of Bremen and Head of the Research Center for Transformations of the State 'The conclusion of Discretionary Time, an academic text based on a wealth of data from OECD countries, is that most of us have no one but ourselves to blame for our time-scarce predicament. Time pressure, they argue, suggests compulsion.' Financial Times 'The book articulates its argument over roughly 450 pages ... Its substantial length and technicalities go unnoticed, partly for the easily accessible language, partly for the neat and rational organization of the argument's frame ... case studies ... provide a wide and attractive empirical articulation for [the authors'] theoretical framework.' Journal of Economics and Philosophy 'Discretionary Time: A New Measure of Freedom is an interesting work of theory and policy ... a notable work.' Political Studies Review 'This is a carefully thought-out and crafted book ... with strong conceptual and methodological contributions indeed.' Feminist Economics 'This book makes fascinating reading and invites further questions.' Managing Leisure