Abstract
This review-paper presents, inspired by Polanyi, the working time reduction (WTR) in its substantive sense, which allows putting forward WTR proposals as vectors of socioeconomic change to a more sustainable, fairer and emancipatory system. A first section is devoted to comparing the meanings of WTR in its formal and substantive senses. The second section is devoted to the pioneering views of Keynes, Russell, and Lafargue on WTR. Finally, the third section brings together three important contemporary authors, Gorz, Jackson and Méda, who, in the sustainability transitions debate, give special attention to WTR as one of the needed changes towards the reorganization of the socioeconomic system in order to make it compatible with the biogeophysical limits of our planet.
Keywords:
working time reduction; substantivism; transitions; ecological reconversion