Saying that people just like working is ridiculous. It's either author's social bubble or it's straight propaganda. I cannot imagine people in factories or construction saying they like to go to work. The reasons behind the 40-hour week are way more brutal:
- Contemporary economy has surprising amount of internal inefficiency causing most of the value to be wasted.
- Value that is not squandered is distributed unevenly, so most people aren't that much better off.
- Status spending doesn't deliver more value with higher economic output. Status is always scarce. The same goes for several other "resources".
- Mate competition, gender roles, and divorces create separate earners and spenders. Earners have little control over spending and they are thus unable to cut back on work. They are often legally required to work under threat of imprisonment.
- Widespread debt means most people cannot stop working without risking default. Credit availability further encourages irrational spending.
- Most people don't get to choose their working hours. Businesses have the leverage and they choose to max out hours to the legal limit. Governments have little incentive to shorten the work week, because small change won't matter and big change would kill the economy.
- People can retire early or they can take breaks between jobs, but this doesn't work for two reasons: people dislike large swings in their lifestyle and people grow dependent on their income through irrational spending.
Author is right about one thing: the elderly are the winners here. That's where governments can focus their effort. Earlier retirement can be introduced incrementally and it has the smallest impact on economy, because on average older people are less productive anyway.