politics

There are ways to justify this (decreasing marginal tax rates are consistent with optimal tax theory, as you get the incentive effect without the reduction in revenue on the hours that people would work anyway), but in general I'm kinda worried about tax policy being driven by memetics. Becomes a complexity nightmare.

Also, the "promise of the future" was that more technology = fewer working hours = greater quality of life.

A tax incentive to have fewer employees work more hours sounds like a genuine nightmare.