What would it take to reduce the work week?
What would it take to reduce the work week? There may be some evidence of current time being ripe for this kind of change:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/22/opinion/work-resignations-covid.html#commentsContainer
The origin of the current work week as it is defined in the US for example, came about through Ford's evidence that moving the work week from 6 days to 5 days actually made productivity increase..
This is certainly not a reason I would choose to reduce it, but Ford even for being the asshole he was, knew a good outcome when he saw it, so allowed the reduction.
President Roosevelt picked up on this and signed the legislation in 1938 making overtime pay mandatory after working over 44 hours a week. He made a further reduction of mandatory overtime pay to 40 hours in 1940. So it is basically since 1940 when the 40 hour work week came into the norm.
Origin of the 40 hour work week:
okta.com/identity-101/40-hour-work-week/
So when does a further reduction and reevaluation become the norm? What would cause things to change like it did in 1940 legislation?
Food for thought:
Marxist thinking praises "productive work" as an intrinsic good. I don't even think that. What happens if you don't want to do productive work either? Doesn't seem so intrinsic. If you want to play guitar all day rather than build something "productive", that would be hard if EVERYONE wanted to play guitar. There would have to be a way the boring tasks the modern economic system, if it is assumed this is the lifestyle that is preferred.
My personal theory of economics is it is a way to distribute boredom and create incentives to be less bored. I can elaborate on that if you want, but I prefer boredom distribution in production rather than supply as the basis :). It rings more true.
Marx also envisioned machines basically running the basic processes in the end phase of communism. People don't seem to realize that and as far as we've come, most jobs just can't do that right now (though I am sure more can if investment was concerted).
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/22/opinion/work-resignations-covid.html#commentsContainer
The origin of the current work week as it is defined in the US for example, came about through Ford's evidence that moving the work week from 6 days to 5 days actually made productivity increase..
This is certainly not a reason I would choose to reduce it, but Ford even for being the asshole he was, knew a good outcome when he saw it, so allowed the reduction.
President Roosevelt picked up on this and signed the legislation in 1938 making overtime pay mandatory after working over 44 hours a week. He made a further reduction of mandatory overtime pay to 40 hours in 1940. So it is basically since 1940 when the 40 hour work week came into the norm.
Origin of the 40 hour work week:
okta.com/identity-101/40-hour-work-week/
So when does a further reduction and reevaluation become the norm? What would cause things to change like it did in 1940 legislation?
Food for thought:
Marxist thinking praises "productive work" as an intrinsic good. I don't even think that. What happens if you don't want to do productive work either? Doesn't seem so intrinsic. If you want to play guitar all day rather than build something "productive", that would be hard if EVERYONE wanted to play guitar. There would have to be a way the boring tasks the modern economic system, if it is assumed this is the lifestyle that is preferred.
My personal theory of economics is it is a way to distribute boredom and create incentives to be less bored. I can elaborate on that if you want, but I prefer boredom distribution in production rather than supply as the basis :). It rings more true.
Marx also envisioned machines basically running the basic processes in the end phase of communism. People don't seem to realize that and as far as we've come, most jobs just can't do that right now (though I am sure more can if investment was concerted).
Comments (126)
The number of hours worked in a week is one issue in people's quality of life (QOL). Equally important is how much people are paid per hour. Over the last 40 years, real wages have steadily declined for most people in the workforce. [The 'real wage' is pay minus inflation.] Falling wages mean a declining standard of living and a lower QOL. Many workers resort to second and third jobs to maintain what they consider a minimum QOL for their families.
A reduction in hours worked has to be accompanied at the same time by a significant increase in wages and benefits, else the worker is just further impoverished.
This can be achieved, but not without some major shifts in spending and taxation. The richer 9% and the wealthiest 1% will have to pay more in taxes, corporations will have to live with lower profits, and less will have to be spent on the military and other unnecessary expenditures. A greener economy (one where most workers are not obligated to own a car) is required.
I do not know how much the Protestant Work Ethic figures into people's lives, these days. For Luther, work which contributed to the common good was as holy as the priesthood. For Calvin, salvation or damnation was predetermined by God. Prosperity could only be a sign, not a guarantee of salvation. Prosperity and poverty were not proof-positive of Grace, one way or the other.
Among the earlier generations of Lutherans, Calvinists, et al, these were vital issues. What percent of the population, do you think, actually know who John Calvin or Martin Luther were and what they taught?
Despite all that, most people do want to work -- they want the rewards of regular income; they want the belonging which having a steady job entails. They do not want to be an outsider without work.
Whether or not it has anything to do with protestantism, [don't Catholics work as hard as Lutherans?] most people seem to believe that working is a good thing. They do well to think positively about work, because not having an income means having a pretty bad life. There's nothing particularly Protestant about that.
I have worked at some pretty shitty jobs which I tolerated until better paying, more satisfying work was in hand. Work for work's sake is a dead end.
Weak workers. You can't work the weak to work hard.
Paying the workers weakly, not weekly.
Playing devil's advocate:
Let us say that a CEO really is someone who invented something people wanted. He gets rewarded by profiting off his company. He would say that since he came up with it, he would be the one entitled to the profits, no? He doesn't owe the workers anything and they can look for other CEOs if they didn't like his vision, no? Again, completely playing devil's advocate here.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Good points, but isn't the PWE nowadays simply the idea that you must like to "go to work" or "work for work's sake" or cherish some "inherent good" of work? It has become sheared of the theological original theories that drove them. Work remains, the meaning behind it did not.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Agreed.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Right, but now you are waffling from Marxist to capitalist thought it seems. I mean, is most work something people are positive about or is it sort of just an epiphenomenon of the system? In other words, if you take away the status surrounding it or whatnot, or the cultural things attached to it, it just becomes tasks to do to take up time to get compensated for later consumption. Most tasks done for "work" are not inherently interesting, just necessary to get the income.
Let's say painting, cooking, gardening, building furniture, and playing music represent typical activities many humans "enjoy" in their free time.. Eventually we will run into a problem because the type of work that is necessary to "run" a complex economy and the type of "hobby-like" work that Marx may be talking about that is "inherently" good, is not equal in the supply and demand. Thus how do you solve this?
What you are going to say is simply better wages and benefits, but that seems like a really lame way of saying there is no way out of this trap of boring work.. Hence why I think the economy is based on boredom distribution, not supply/demand in the traditional sense.
And so then they join another company or try to start their own, which works out all the time of course.
Very punny.
It would if they did, but they don't, because profits have allied against them, legislatively and practically (labor supply and demand). That's why workers of the world must unite; not just First World workers. So, simply saying "NO" is the answer the employers could and should receive, but won't. Now get back in your cubicle, STFU and work.
Death.
Winning the lottery.
A pandemic combined with global warming wiping out life as we know it and the remaining humans left with very little work to do, simply because there won't be much work to do left.
Becoming a monk.
Dramatically changing the values people live by, so that everyone works 20 hours at most, but everyone has a job, albeit a low paying one, and people live in modest cirumstances, three generations per home. And have fewer or no children, until the human population reduces to an economically viable level.
Good luck with that.
I asked what it would take. You said changing the values people live by. So it seems if given the maximum amount of consumer spending, people will take it and not leave it on the table any more than saving for more consumer spending down the line. You do get your ultra-wealthy who can afford to be "noble philanthropist" types and you have your occasional monk or serious Robinson Crusoe person. You have your voluntary homeless (as opposed to those who rather get out but can't), your occasional commune type that is usually a temporary arrangement when they get tired of it. Yeah, voluntary poverty doesn't seem popular, this is a truism.
QUESTION: For most of our history, hunter-gatherers managed this task and didn't spend anywhere close to 40 hours a week doing it. Can mechanization and automation deliver the basic requirements and allow us the leisure of hunter gatherers?
Around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago there was a critical shift: We started domesticating plants and animals, doing agriculture, and living in large groups in one place. Some anthropologists think that humans were one of the animals that got domesticated by a brand new power elite. From there it has been down hill ever since--for the average non-elite human. Exploiting other humans has proved to be a reliable way of getting ahead in the world--not since the industrial revolution, but since the agricultural revolution of 10,000 years ago.
ANSWER: No. Meeting the basic needs of 8 billion people (or 2 or 3 billion) requires a level of social complexity which a hunter-gatherer level of existence can simply not provide. Aside from food, clothing, and shelter (the basics) society itself has to be reproduced, and that isn't something we can automate or mechanize. It's human work.
I don't think we all have to spend 40 hours a week 'reproducing and maintaining society', but life in the global society has to be simplified, especially for 1st world people. We need to stop doing a lot of the stuff we are doing that is aimed at keeping the economy revved up--advertising, marketing, promotion, selling, financing, upward mobility, ceaseless acquisition of new gadgets (be it a fancier watch or a bigger Tesla) and so on.
Simplify, simplify, simplify--both an end and a means.
A truism which certain other philosophies bypass.. But I won't say it.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Service jobs and maintaining the machines themselves... probably not.
Quoting Bitter Crank
The CEO believes that a rising tide raises all ships.. Simplifying then makes no sense.
You said yourself that people need an income. Income isn't a neverending stream that is "in-coming". Rather, income is a finite resource to be distributed to those who work their Lord's fiefdoms..
People will say with exuberant optimism:
[i]If we are "peasants" then why are so many people able to afford health care, technology and entertainment?
Surely just because there are people who cannot afford it, doesn't wipe out the billions of people who can, and that is an achievement.[/i]
A minimum of effort was required of hunter-gatherers before they could spend their remaining time. Some anthropologists think they had about 18 hours a day to cook, eat, sleep, and engage in social activities. 5 or 6 hours might have been required to get food, do maintenance on clothing, tools, or weapons (for hunting). Their now ancient remains say that they were tall and healthy. Compare that to our rat race.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I disagree. A lot of our time is spent maintaining complex institutions which do not exist for our benefit. Examples: insurance companies; banks; the military; personnel departments; Wall Street; companies advertising and marketing crap.
Quoting schopenhauer1
A rising tide raises the boats of the richest 10%; 90% of us do not have a boat to float, raise or sink. To the 10% who own and manage the economy, simplicity is anathema. To your CEO simplicity means THE END! FINIS! ALLES IST KAPUT! CURTAIN DOWN!
For the rest of us, the essential tasks of raising food, making clothing, and making (or maintaining) shelter still requires a relatively small amount of time. We donate vast amounts of time to the CEO and his ilk -- parasites all.
Most people find this idea no more appealing than antinatalism. We are about equally out of step with the rest of the world.
Mind you, as David Graeber (Bullshit Jobs: A Theory) points out that there are many, many men and women in 40 hour a week jobs that do 7 hours of actual work.
:100:
Quoting Bitter Crank
:clap:
I was going to write something similar but you nailed it.
:up:
Quoting schopenhauer1
In a highly integrated technocapitalist civilization, that would take something like (I prefer) restructuring the global nation-state system to institutionalize macro-incentives for international economic democracies supplimented by community-based time banking. (Yeah, I know, this will never happen.) Otherwise, it can be done, I suppose, far less equitably by accelerating automation (which is already happening, just hasn't reached the permanent unemployment crisis threshold yet) or, less humanely, by crashing the global population to around 2 billion (i.e. state-sanctioned antinatal programs!) in order to severely reduce mass consumption demand from the current magnitude – or both in tandem.
But we like our plumbing, heat, cars, roads, electrical grid.. etc. etc. endless blather.. just think STEM fields. We like our movies, our popular music, etc. etc. We like our electronics.. we like our easy to obtain items from online or department stores.. The CEO would just say that their fiefdom provides for us the "free time" in our non-work time to enjoy all that stuff.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Are you talking about the idea of simplicity?
Yep, but the idea that one should not reduce work because it somehow confers a sort of virtue, is what I mean.. Work itself just has to be part of the culture. It takes pretty dull people to not think beyond the habit of "going to a job" for meaning in life. And apparently there are a lot of these people that don't know what society is like without it.
Quoting Tom Storm
A lot of jobs yes. But it is the habit of the job lifestyle of "focusing on this that the company wants me to focus on" that we mean by job here, not the output.
In a more mundane sense @Bitter Crank is right.. what can happen is employers pay workers the same or more but reduce hours.. In other words, reduction in hours does not equate to reduction in pay, they have to be inverse.
I would like to ask @Bitter Crank, what is the difference of a worker working for a state entity and worker working for a private entity in terms of exploitation? Can't both simply exploit their workers by depriving the resources to live if you don't work for them? I don't see how changing the pieces around changes the substance of the issue. Lot of wishful thinking backed by small changes in classical economic ideas it seems.
Yes. It's unwelcome because "we like our plumbing, heat, cars, roads, electrical grid.. etc. etc. endless blather. just think STEM fields. We like our movies, our popular music, etc. etc. We like our electronics.. we like our easy to obtain items from online or department stores".
I very much prefer plumbing, heat, hot water, electricity, and endless blather. Especially endless blather. We wouldn't be discussing this at a great distance without a big hunk of circuitry sitting in front of us. But...
It is still true that simplifying life, whenever, wherever, however possible would give us more time to live.
Can you give examples? A book is simpler than a TV? But sitting around a fire is simpler than a book. A garden and a fire is simpler than a stove? Silence is simpler than talk? Talk in person is simpler than on the phone? Not if the people are far away..
In other words, could simplicity really not be that simple to define or apply?
None whatsoever.
Please note: my socialist alternative does not exchange working for a capitalist pig with working for a state pig. The third possibility is the worker-owned, worker-managed economy. We don't have a lot of experience with this approach, but we have some--cooperatives, for instance.
Books, music, drama, discussions sociability -- those are the things that we want to have more time for, not to simplify out of existence. How about eliminating advertising? Credit cards? mortgages? private cars? Credit cards, home loans, auto loans, education loans--are all ways of of expanding the economy on the one hand, and chaining the consumer to his job -- for life. Quite a long time ago the Ruling Class realized that one way to tame restless workers was to chain them to a mortgage (and later, other forms of debt). The worker could be tamed and turn a profit at the same time.
Does it work? Sure. People like having a home, and before long they have some equity in it. Not a lot, but some. They keep paying because they don't want to lose their equity or their home and their stuff. Apartment rental deposits do the same thing. They are now successfully tied down, and they have to keep working--regardless of how unpleasant that might be.
If one has a home, get rid of the time-consuming lawn. If you don't have cows to graze on the grass, then you don't need it. Gardens yes, lawns no. No need to mow the lawn every week. No need to fix the lawn mower. No need to buy and apply herbicides and fertilizers to produce nothing but useless grass. Nature will provide ground cover, don't worry about that.
No doubt -- simplifying life is a radical step away from business as usual.
Here is Australia in some sectors there are people that have reduced their hours per week. Working 25 to 30 hours a week is common enough and is encouraged. But the big problem is the idea of an hourly rate. If you are paid by the hour the incentive to cut back diminishes. This is an option taken by people who own their own homes and have money in the bank.
I've met a few wealthy people (business owners) who brag about only working 20 hours a week - so there is no inherent taboo against this. But they are still making huge money despite the moderate effort.
Most people I know would like to work 20 hours a week but can't afford it.
That would likely happen quite naturally. The key to keeping wages low is to ensure that there are more people than jobs to give them. It becomes an employer's market. By reducing hours each person works, it becomes an employee's market. One only has to look at fields such as mine (data science) to see how scarcity drives up wages. This is why progressive nations need to put working hours caps into legislature: the preference for employers would be to have a smaller staff working longer hours: it keeps wages low, because there's a queue of people after your job.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I really don't get your logic here. Your question was:
Quoting schopenhauer1
which seems to acknowledge the need for change. But you also seem to reject any answer that would require change.
But what if a CEO actually did invent something useful, and got money for it, and employed people to work his fiefdom.. He would say that he made something useful in the market economy. His supply met demand and he was rewarded for it. Why shouldn't he get to own the resources that he made with his money and his idea? If the people don't like it, they can find another CEO fiefdom to serve.
Advertising is a way for the little guy to get ahead and be heard. Some people might ask what is wrong with this? Otherwise all you would know is X and Y big companies and not these other ones..
Loans are needed because they do not have the available capital at the time of purchase. What else would suffice in giving the owner the money to sell their property?
Here's the thing.. I agree with you in all this, but the change that would have to happen is related to how we think of income. Income has to be attached to some job-like entity in our current model.. If government took over all the things credit is doing with taxes, this would reduce the economic output and ultimately raise unemployment. But unemployment then shouldn't be attached with income to maintain this.. I am okay with that, but that is the piece of the puzzle you are missing. In your model it seems, employment is still tied to income..meanwhile you are advocating for policies which (at least in quantity output) reduces employment numbers.
I think there should be more radical change. Income and employment should be severed. They are at odds to human happiness but are quite good for economic models that a priori rely on its own normative models as descriptive models. Economics is useful to an extent that ethics is useful to an extent. The moment though that economics pretends to be able to be descriptive, it becomes duplicitous. The very system it is looking at is built on the norms that it promotes.. You can never get out of its own self-induced models.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
I am just trying to push people along, give them the opposing view, get to a place where everything is considered.
Example: When I was an apprentice, I made $16.50 an hour. Mike, at the same apprenticeship level as me, also made $16.50/hr. Over a 10 hour day I could wire 100 receptacles, and all would pass inspection. Mike could wire 75 receptacles and 15% would fail inspection and need to be redone. I was frequently sent to sites Mike had worked at to clean up his mess and make sure the work that had been done would actually function and pass inspection. Our pay cheques were identical, however our performance levels were far different. Mike met the requirements to not get fired, I exceeded them. We worked 40 hours a week, or more. Had we been paid for each receptacle that passed inspection, I would have made twice the amount that Mike made, which would have allowed me to work 50% less, with the same end result in pay, resulting in a shorter work week.
Even worse: when efficiency is punished, confirming to employees that working faster, and smarter will result in a net loss of income. Example: After completing my apprenticeship I worked for a small company and was sent out to do a security lighting wiring job. The quote for the job was $5000.00, with a time allotment of 40 hours labour (so I get paid $1000). My boss was terrible at estimates, and lazy to boot, so his quote was horribly wrong: the job took 2 hours total, not 40. The customer still had to pay the full quoted amount of the job (seriously), however, as there was no other work that week, I made $50.00 instead of $1000. Hard lesson learned. Had I been paid for the job, not the time on the job, the time off would have been much appreciated. As it was, I left the company shortly thereafter and began working for myself, and attempted to incorporate the lessons I had learned in running my own small business.
My model was simple enough: Employees are paid the industry standard rate (so minimum acceptable to attract an employee) when they met my minimum performance levels, however, if they exceeded performance levels they were increasingly rewarded in the form of a performance bonus. That was my theory, as that is what I felt had been missing from my previous positions: NO reward for achievement. After going through 18 employees (if you don't want to be at work, and so don't really work, you have no job with me) I had a few employees that were reliable enough to keep on, but none were interested in exceeding the minimum performance levels. Unfortunate, but ok, I know I work like a dog, and not everyone is going to want to do that. I hired one temporary employee for a single day job, out of town, long hours. I was clear with him before he signed on: We travel, we work until we are done, we come home. I anticipated the job to take 14 hours, plus travel, 18 hours each, all in. He agreed with the terms and we went to work. My estimate was wrong (it happens) the job took 24 hours, plus travel. And we did it, all of it, in one shot, as planned. At the 23 rd hour we were both in the trench, swinging shovels and picks, getting it done. I paid him in cash before I dropped him off, at the agreed upon hourly rate, which he was happy with. Then I doubled it, which stunned him. Then I offered him a full apprenticeship. NO bullshit 6 month trial period. If he wanted it we could do the paperwork the next day and he would start work at $18.00/hr, not the $10.00/hr minimum wage, and have $1.50/hr increases every 6 months until he capped out at $30.00/hr. Unfortunately for both of us, he was leaving the territory as he could not find decent work there and his fiancé had already left a few weeks earlier for the same reason. I have never made that offer to any other employee again, none seemed to be willing to work for it or really want it.
Now I am an employee, I make the same rate as everyone else in my area, with similar experience. We are paid for our time, not performance, or knowledge. Just time. A reduced work week now means a reduced income, so if you can afford it, a reduced work week is possible, otherwise, better be self employed and good at what you do.
Sorry, that was descriptive, not prescriptive. I was describing what progressive nations are doing now.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Fair point. I've been thinking a lot about how we might have got to where we are (from equatorial hunter gatherers to global exploitative capitalists) and what paths are open to improve things. The best I can muster is pluralism. Our systems are totalitarian and difficult to move, requiring often bloody revolutions or (maybe, if we're lucky) catastrophe to be alterable even slightly. I think pluralism offers a chance to be more nimble.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Ah okay, I thought that was just you being a pessimist.
That I am, but this is more from Socratic methodology.. Consider opposing points, so they can be overcome and see if there is a stronger argument once the opposition is considered. To pretend that there is not (at least) two sides is foolhardy in any philosophical, political, or value-based endeavor.
How does this synchronize with antinatalism?
Don't put people in the situation in the first place.. This is all post-facto stuff of course.
It's something most people deal with.. Why wouldn't it be discussed?
I answered here https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/625140. So stop trolling ad homing or contribute to thread.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZqBsLm7TuM
Heard of that?
Yes. I can see it working for some.
[quote=Abolition of Work, Bob Black]Better their incongruity, though than any extant version of leftism, whose devotees look to be the last champions of work, for if there were no work there would be no workers, and without workers, who would the left have to organize?[/quote]
If you ask me, there's something horribly wrong with the 5 day workweek and 2 day weekend format. It seems to have been copy-pasted from a divine, Godly, work scehdule. God, as we all know, is omnipotent and we, lowly mortals, are, as far as I can tell, not! Something's off, don't you think?
Is this sarcastic?
Quoting TheMadFool
It's off because people have no imagination and fear change. Your mortgage says, "Can't fight it!".
Probably the best method would be to lead by example rather than diktat. That way you don’t have to force people who want to work more, not less.
Reduce the work week for your employees. If people see that it works or is beneficial or gives you advantage, they might try to adopt it.
As I told you, because once already born, there's still a life to live. We are not promortalist, If you are going to ad hom/troll me, do it somewhere else. In other words, if you have nothing to say about the subject at hand, go fuck yourself and troll somewhere else (aka stop posting on this thread with the same question I have already answered.. aka stop ad homing with the same question about why I make questions at all on a philosophy forum other than antinatalism). You are not clever. You are not putting me in my place about being an antinatalist. You are not being cute. You are not doing anything. You are just annoying. If that was the goal, give yourself a pat on the back and move and annoy someone else.
Fair enough, Ford's model of 40 hours lead to the Fair Labor Act in 1938 and 1940. The problem is the problem with most of these type of experiments.. Who wants to be the model? I do know that there are some companies such as listed here: https://buildremote.co/four-day-week/4-day-work-week-companies/
Maybe that will start a trend.. The problem is the disparity of white collar and blue collar.. but the even deeper problem is the idea that we need to make more output. Either more efficient output methods need to take place, or people must demand less it seems. Certainly owners of companies would want neither as unlimited growth of the company is usually the preferred mode of any business. Too many workers eats into profits, so that isn't much of a solution either to reduce work hours.
Without a comprehensive big picture view, it's not possible to come up with meaningful and viable solutions to a problem.
I identify as an old-style American socialist--reference Eugene Debs, d. 1926. "The left", as it exists in academia, identity politics, Portland, OR, et al has become a farce. Not much left of that version of the left -- a few old guys.
As to work, the past of work, the future of work... I've been bitching about work for decades. Modifying a quote from Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Workers (whose work is houses of hospitality for the poor and homeless and peace) "I commend work, and I abhor it."
Work that is an expression of the individual person's (not 'worker's) creativity and energy is a good thing. Digging up the soil and planting a garden is good work. Stoop labor from dawn till dusk cultivating crops for ConAgra is grim and dehumanizing. Sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day screwing around with meaningless data is soul killing, even if it isn't as bad as stoop labor. Doing charitable work that is funded for the sake of appearances alienates the better angels of our nature. On and on.
What it will take to reduce the work week is a seizure of power from the plutocratic kleptocracy by The People, and following through on abandoning all of the falsity of consumer culture (which has been cultivated by the capitalists for well over a century) and engaging in what might be an agonizing appraisal of what is good and worth keeping, and what is not.
Seizing the wealth and power of the Plutonic-kleptocrats will be extraordinarily difficult, so in the meantime, I recommend people who can do so, reduce their needs and wants so that they can keep themselves afloat on less the 40 hours per week, maybe 30, maybe 25. This is no easy thing, especially after 40 years of inflation and stagnant wages. It's like unto impossible in high-cost areas, like San Francisco, NYC, LA, Washington D.C., Boston, etc.
Antinatalism comes in handy for young people trying to do this. Raising a family pretty much forces one to work however much one can, and that still might not be enough,
Absolutely. Having a child is an ascent to the current system. It is saying "I want to replicate/continue what is going on currently". The problem is nigh intractable. How does one make and distribute goods and services? We have created the carrot and stick of trying to achieve a middle class 40 hour work week. This is what we replicate over and over.
My point however, in providing the FDR article, is that the 40 hour work week was a concerted effort. Why can't it happen again? It happened in 1940. If businesses didn't lose their shit and cause him political problems, he might have gotten 30 hours, which was the original proposal.
"I need a dwelling, goods, and services. I must get this from income. Income is from working X, Y, Z jobs. Don't like it? Out of luck. But hey, if you don't mind it, keep reproducing it to another generation. Don't think too much.. keep replicating..."
No! It was meant in earnest. The issues that you raise bespeak a sincerity and dedication to a certain brand of philosophy and although I might disagree with you on that, I certainly am impressed by how deeply you've thought about the issues pertinent to it. Kudos to you.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Yup! People are blind to the suffering they endure. I believe/suspect they've become habituated to it. I had a colleague who suffers from chronic migraine - he got used to it, so much so that he's restructured his life to factor in his rather debilitating ailment.
For my money, antinatalism is a philosophy, a way of thinking, that has a critical role in the way the world will look in the future. Being highly sensitive to pain/suffering, antinatalists seem to be just what we need - a reliable and powerful detector of problems humanity faces - and this would prove extremely useful to us in many different ways.
You guys have a nose for sorrow. The big issues - poverty, disease, aging, etc. - everyone notices but it takes a hardcore, true-blue antinatalist to sniff out the smaller but no less painful...er...difficulties we face. Keep up the good work.
Good day!
How? Reducing the work week is a complex problem requiring a long-term perspective in order to be solved. Antinatalists, on principle, can't have such a long-term perspective.
For complex, large-scale problems, a convincing reply to the question "Why?" is needed.
Why do we want a shorter work week?
Why do we want to stop global warming?
Why do we want sustainable energy?
Fortunately or unfortunately, long-term projects like that require future thinking, several generations ahead. At the end of the day, people only really care about their children, if even that, while other considerations are too abstract to generate much momentum for long-term, complex, large-scale change.
I thought you’d appreciate this one
https://existentialcomics.com/comic/418
:up:
Slaveholders —> pro shareholders —> contra stakeholders <- -> contra (the slave/automata system) plutocratic kleptocracy?
or pro (divided & conquored) identity politics?
or pro (divisive & coopted) populist reaction?
Quite often what seems hard is easier than expected. Maybe this is truer for me than others due to mindset though? I generally expect something, leaning toward horrific, for any plan I have. Then things appear much easier than I thought.
A lot of people are simply not willing to take a risk and many more simply keep on keeping on hoping to stumble upon someone they love and pursue that instead of pursuing something that doesn't generally make them completely miserable and seeing where that takes them.
People find it incredibly difficult to have an honest conversation with themselves (myself included). If you REALLY want to reduce your working hours you have to ask yourself why and what benefits there are from this. Followed by 'would I be willing to take advantage of these benefits or squander them?'
@schopenhauer1
I've been out of work now for months (due to the pandemic) and I'm not that bothered about work as I have enough saved to keep myself going. When I was working prior to the pandemic I was working 25 hrs a week and taking a holiday (for 7-10 days) roughly every 3 months. People who live back in my country of birth find it hard to get their head around that I can do this. It can be done but the simple truth is many are not willing to move out of their comfort zones.
It seems too many get stuck wanting things that don't really serve any significant benefit (short or long term) because people are - as a I said - not very willing to have a conversation with themselves.
Can hours be reduced? Yes, if the public simply refuse to bend to the will of the employers and take control of their situation in some little way. Much easier for some than others, but imo it is usually easier than people think (not that it is EASY though). The true difficulty is understanding the use of failure and understanding because it has to be worked for doesn't mean it is not worth it.
Is doing a job for 3 hrs worth the same as doing a job for 5 hrs if paid hourly? Should jobs be paid equally or not - how/why?
I think this problem is related to the one about age. Is time a good measure of age?
I assume you mean 'maturity'?
About right.
The problem is generally that people get 'comfortable' and expect comfort to be the normal state of affairs for human life. Then they demand these 'rights' for free.
I don't know if I agree but suffice it to say we, as you claim, have some idea what work means and how it's to be measured although it seems rather nebulous. Give it time, we'll get there.
Because no one is a set of numbers. We have to constantly adjust and readjust, so yeah, 'nebulous' rather than 'rigid'.
To say we lack a measure for work is nonsense. We have multiple ways to measure work (and if we mean work in a 'nebulous' sense or not). Economics is about - roughly speaking - getting and distributing 'resources' (which can be literally anything that is of value to someone/something).
We measure everything by the immediate and long term cost/requirement (be this money, time, expertise and/or whatever else including physical energy).
As we're CLEARLY talking about paid work then if we reduce our hours we reduce our wage (assuming we're doing the same job) unless whoever you are working for is willing to restructure the payment system.
I see but consider physics.
[math]Work = Force \times Distance[/math]
[math]Force = mass \times acceleration[/math]
I'm sure that in between these two formulae, time will emerge as a poor metric for work. I don't know how exactly but just a guess. Would you mind giving it a shot?
As long as we consider antiwork, anti-life, we’re fucked. Or, less dramatically, the problem is intractable. I’m ok with that being that my solution is rebellion through antinatalism. Boycott throwing new workers into the mix.
Hey just saw this. Cool real world examples, thanks for sharing. What do you think the construction trades like electrical, plumbing, construction, bricklaying, represent in a philosophical sense? These are the necessary jobs to grow the physical infrastructure of the economic system. I find it funny how I find nothing satisfactory as a solution: hunting-gathering is laughable now. Small scale farming is too. Communes only work if at all because they’re nestled in the bosom of a much larger outside economy. No new people born = no new economic hamsters. Antinatalism right now is the only form of protest against the condition of “work”.
Do you see a differentiation with a plutocrat that that invented a new product and ones that just found themselves as heads of industry by luck? The ones that invented something, will say they are getting their just reward and providing jobs for the little people to [sell, train, support, install, account for the money of, transport, warehouse, market, website maintain, develop further product development], of the product they started.
Not exactly on topic. So nope.
It depends what people define as 'work' and 'anti-work'. Like I said, people often think 'this is hard, so why should I suffer?' It is a very juvenile way of viewing the world. Most seem to grow out of it though, and some cotton on quicker than others.
I believe it was Twain who said something about work and play being essentially the same thing. That is a healthier view I think.
Anytime someone says “juvenile” as if a law of some sort, I immediately get red flags of a straw man argument- that is an argument based on false and personal assumptions of the person claiming something juvenile. So juvenile that is. See how anyone can use it like a condescending tool of vapid, useless rhetoric? I can tar and feather you with no argument at all..just a word.
Quoting I like sushi
Perfect way to make something wrong seem right. Work is play. Work is growth. Doublespeak. It’s necessary and sooo not juvenile to embrace.
Really? I must be seeing things.
Juvenile as opposed to mature. If you have a problem with it you have a problem with it. If you are just looking for red flags you'll find them everywhere from everyone all the time.
No shit. Yes the implication is if you tar and feather as juvenile (by definition not mature) you don’t need an argument.
Rhetoric ^^
Now you’re getting it..using one word to define what is right and good without argument.
I don't think I will. It probably doesn't make sense.
Rhetoric only hurts if the audience takes the bait. Work is necessary to survive. But the assumption is that this is good in the first place. You immediately end the conversation to question this necessity of life or life itself by saying it’s juvenile. Bypass all thinking and just tar and feather.
The context was in terms of experience and maturity. When I was younger, like everyone else, I didn't understand the extent to which I was juvenile - but I was because I was young (juvenile means young and not fully developed). Teenagers are juveniles. Some people mature more slowly than others due to circumstances. Is that so hard to take in?
What is it that I said that you find so threatening here? I honestly don't know why you just snapped at one word and assumed I was stating some kind of "law"?
Quoting schopenhauer1
I really don't see how talking about the physics definition of 'work' fits into this specific topic?
Why?
If work is necessary to survive and you don't want to work then you want to die? Okay. I kind of enjoy work. Work isn't exactly always a 'chore' so to speak. Like here and now writing this - although I'm not exactly getting paid for it but it is at least honing a skill little by little.
[quote=Empedocles (Metempsychosis)]I was once in the past a boy, once a girl, once a tree
Once too a bird, and once a silent fish in the sea[/quote]
Empedocles, when he was a tree, just sat there, rooted to the spot, and did absolutely no work at all. Technology and its progenitor, science, to the rescue I presume.Artificial photosynthesis - just sit there under the yellow glow of our sun and breathe. Everything will be fine.
Physics offers a different perspective to the issue of work. It's likely that I'm not completely on the mark but whenever we fail to understand something well we immediately, instinctively, look at the time. It's 5:30 AM where I'm at, the year is 2021 (I think).
Call me slow but just realised this is framed as an extension from antinatalism. I am not saying antinatalism is 'juvenile' (as an intellectual position). I think it has numerous holes in that I argued with the same sake who posted in these forums about it. It was a good discussion and we both agreed to disagree. I have called it ridiculous and another things I'm sure to try and get to the bottom of what the other person meant.
My point was simply that in youth we are not made to hold many responsibilities. In youth we generally have it easy because we don't see the work involved to allow us to live in such a way. Clearly some people are burdened with more responsibility than others - parent shoulder the burden of providing necessities due to human's extended infantile and juvenile states compared to other species.
This thread looked like something else. This thread I thought was focused mainly on ways to reduce working hours.
You mentioned Marx so I thought it worth pointing out that if we're reducing hours then surely we're reducing pay if we're talking about the very same job - unless the person could do the same amount of work in 3 hrs that they could in 5 hrs?
If you are saying it is 'necessary' to earn a wage then this isn't exactly true. You don't have to it is just that you have to learn how not to earn a salary and live by other means - becoming completely self-sufficient. But you would still be 'working' just not earning a wage. It would be difficult to fit this into most societies so you'd have to give up the benefits of a 'wage living society' in favour of another (or convince everyone else your way is better).
Often enough people either don't realise what freedom they have by disbelief or fear. I know I fear the realisation of the degree of my freedom very often as I know with freedom comes responsibility. I can try and inform people but generally there are types of people at points in their life that simply won't listen (due to disbelief/fear). We all suffer from a lack of conviction, but there is something to gain in caution too ... there doesn't appear to be a one-size-fits-all solution but there can be improvements made to try and communicate and understand and this will, so it seems to me, at least lessen the number of phantoms that can stand in the way of us becoming whatever it is we're to become. Of course the fatalists will mock such an attitude but they only do so because they don't believe they can do otherwise :)
The short answer to a very good question is: No.
Take Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak deserve credit for bringing together several already-existing components (the mouse, the graphical interface, the electronic bits and pieces, the all-in-one-box) as a new product. My first computer was a Macintosh, which I loved and adored. Bill Gates is another example of a gigantic fortune from invention. I always preferred Microsoft Word and Excel to all others.
They deserve great credit, but they do not deserve unlimited financial reward. Why not?
First, creativity, invention, and innovation depend on the creative, intellectual, and physical labor of many predecessors without which there would be nothing new. The Macintosh Computer rested on a century's worth of technological development. Science and industry are inherently social activities which gradually accumulate potential for new technology.
Second, if there is to be a fortune made from new technology (like personal computers) the inventor depends on the socially accumulated wealth of bankers and investors who are willing to gamble on making a product a reality, and perhaps a success, in exchange for a payoff. Without financial investors, there would be no iPhones, no music streaming, no Teslas, no airplanes, no televisions, no LED lights, no railroads, no nothing.
Everything that is made today depends on social accumulation of knowledge and wealth. Specific individuals (like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk) capitalize on what others have built previously--and 99% of the accumulation was produced by working people.
Quoting schopenhauer1
They would say that. They might also say (but will not) that their fortune depends on all the jobs "the little people" did -- "sell, train, support, install, account for the money of, transport, warehouse, market, website maintain, develop further product development]". Without all the workers' efforts, there would be no fortune, no reward.
Look, this isn't personal. I am not bitter (despite my avatar). I don't dislike Steve Jobs or Elon Musk or any other multi-billionaire. I don't know them, don't have to deal with them. I willingly contributed to the fortunes of Steve Jobs and the stockholders of Apple™. We have all made contributions to the great fortunes of the very few. We live within a capitalist society. Accumulation of wealth is THE NAME OF THE GAME. I neither tried nor succeeded at that game. I don't admire the winners of this game.
But if you ask, "Is this a good system?" I am emotionally and rationally compelled to answer, "Absolutely not!" and argue for a system which distributes reward for both fizzy creativity and mud-slogging work fairly. A fair and equitable distribution of rewards for work is possible, and it doesn't look like our capitalist system.
Then they would just say that this accumulation would not occur without the incentive to make money from it. We can scowl at it, but it's true. There are basically two kind of inventor types. There is the removed scientist. Think of Einstein. Then there is the opportunist. Think of people like Ford or Edison. The Fords and Edisons need their workers.. And the Bezos and the Musks and the like.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Sure, but the bankers do have a leg up here on the inventor in that they will loan them the capital to build their empire and make them and the inventor filthy rich if it works. Bankers want this. I've never heard of an exploited banker.
Quoting Bitter Crank
The inventor entrepreneur will just say that if the "working people" can invent something, they would. But they didn't and can't, so they must get their income from the elect.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Of course they will thank the little people. They give them benefits and vacations (or not if they are working under a less charitable Lord of the Manor). They should be thankful, right?!
Quoting Bitter Crank
But the Lords will say that the incentive for creativity is lost. Most are the Edison types and not the Einstein, just do it cause they are curious.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Quoting schopenhauer1
Quoting schopenhauer1
The bourgeoisie have all sorts of justifications to cover their operations. They will keep repeating their self-justifications until the world is an unlivable hothouse and we are all dead. If we expect to leave a world fit to live in (say in 80 years or so) we had best reject their lies, deceits, misrepresentations, and self-serving fictions.
But air conditioning, medicine, heating, cars, radio, satellites, all the technology.. They will just say that you're gonna take it an like it and work at least 40 hours for it until you "retire" like the famous Bitter Crank. They will say, "See that wasn't that bad.. Your service to keeping our franchises going. You have the technology.. We invented it, paid off the engineers and programmers and scientists and doctors to make our initial ideas grow.. And you buy it, you use it, you pay for it, and you can't live without it."
Their great conceit is that they, and they alone, have actually "invented it, paid off the engineers and programmers and scientists and doctors to make our initial ideas grow". They think these myths justify their existence. But you know better! You know that the contributions of the rich (who as a group are not particularly inventive, creative, or innovative -- with a few excepted) are slight compared to the genius and work of all the technical workers (inventors, engineers, programmers, scientists, doctors, professors, administrators, ET AL) who actually bring ideas to fruition (regardless of where they come from).
The economy of a successful country requires the efforts of almost everyone. The queen of a beehive, ant hill, or termite mound is but one role of many essential workers. Does the hive die if the queen dies? No. The workers have the ability to create new queens.
In the same way, the rich "kings and queens" of a country can drop dead without the economy screeching to a halt, because the economy has so many essential operators. 128 million workers -- including everyone keep the train on the track and it's wheels turning.
It has ever been thus.
I do not dislike work per se, there are other things I would rather be doing however. Therefore, moving forward from that point, I have reduced my required income level to allow for a single income household, and am working to further reduce my required income so that I am able to move to a 32 hour work week. This allows me to do things that I want to do with my wife while maintaining the lifestyle we enjoy. I can always pick up a few extra shifts if I want to, but it is very nice to not need to.
Nice idea, but not actually possible, unless one operates as a parasite. It takes a little flexibility of the term "self-sufficient", but if one considers the ability to sponge off the work and assets of others as self sufficient, then it is possible to be so. Otherwise, nope. Minimally reliant is the best one can hope for.
It is actually possible to live off the land - our ancestors were this kind of 'parasite'. Of course I wasn't suggesting it would be easy or that everyone has the knowhow how to become more self-sufficient.
I have spotted that a great number of people won't take such a freedom as it requires a lot of hard work and a complete change in lifestyle. It can be done it is just that neither of us are sufficiently willing to do it.
What you say here makes sense yet it seems in opposition to your remark:
Quoting Book273
Becoming more self sufficient is totally doable. Completely self sufficient is next to impossible. By example: I have built an off grid cabin. Solar panel electricity production, battery storage. Wood stove for heat and cooking. I have come home, at -35 Celsius in howling snow storm when the power grid has been off for hours all over the territory, to find my wife and son watching a dvd, the cabin warm and cozy, with a hot stew on the stove and fresh bread nearly done. They were unaware that the storm had knocked out power to 35,000 people. That is one level of self-sufficient, but I am unable to make the solar panels, or storage batteries. While I could weld the stove together, I cannot make the plate steel needed. I can make bio-diesel to run my truck, but I cannot make the tires. That was the point I was trying to make.
Next year I am taking my house off grid. Total solar array, battery storage. I have installed the new electrical wiring and reduced the electrical demands already. My old electric stove is gone, a new propane one is now in the kitchen. I can remove the electric hot water tank and install a propane one next year, further reducing my electrical demands. I will also be replacing one of my internal combustion vehicles with a 100% electric vehicle (yes, the solar array can handle the charging of the Electric Vehicle as well). I can't make propane, and while I could make and manage methane, chances are I will stay with propane (unless everything really collapses and propane is no longer available). So I am doing what I can to become more self-sufficient and reduce my monetary needs. It takes careful consideration, skill, and money (less the more skill and thought go into the projects). I have a well, so don't need city water. We have a garden, and 16 chickens, and a wood stove. However, I will never be as self-sufficient as I would like. Could I not use a powered vehicle and take a pedal bike to work? Sure, but since it's 34 km one way, I won't. Also it's winter 4 months a year, so that won't work then either.
I absolutely support the idea of more self-sufficiency, and thoughtful, deliberate lives. Usually that involves more work, not less, and as one is working for themselves, the work is not paid in the traditional way.
Where would you get the guitar from. Who would repair it for you if the need would arise. Who would power your electricity (assuming it would be needed) and why would they do so. Where would you play it, on the street? In a house? Who would teach you how to build one and where would you get the materials from or otherwise why would they build one for you? Why would they not just take it later? How will you defend it? With your guitar? A weapon? Who would make it for you or provide you for one or the knowledge of how to create one and learn to use it properly? Why would they do so for you when they could do so for someone else who maybe has something to offer even if that something is but a simple thanks.
Who told you what a guitar is? How did you hear it? From another person? Or through a technological medium? Who created that medium and who maintains it? Why would they do so for free when they can instead hold your favorite forms of entertainment hostage until you pony up something of use for their time.
Maybe I want your guitar and I happen to be larger than you. Who's going to stop me from taking it? The police? Why would they risk their lives for random ass greedy you when they could just sit at home and play their own guitar that perhaps they built and learned how to play through actually giving a damn and at least attempting to improve the world around them.
It just goes on and on. Eventually you reach a piper that has to be paid, even after swindling, dodging, or doing worse to those before.
That was my whole point. People don’t inherently ALWAYS want to do “productive” jobs somehow “inherently”. More like “hobby-like” things. A lot of grunt work, retail work, admin work, back breaking work, dirty work, boring work, etc would be abandoned for leisurely work. So no, communist utopias of people just working without the rat race aspect also seems inaccurate. Work as it is in the current age is intractable. The workweek as it is remains.
My solution is not as radical or controversial as people make it. Boycott new workers who have to work, it’s more important not to force more workers than to gain some kind of utility from the shitty system. Or just keep throwing more grist for the mill and replicating the same way of life to yet another hapless person. One that also navigates the system. Don’t perpetuate the system, not gonna change in any grand way. We can’t even do a 32 hour work week across the board let alone develop a system where work isn’t necessary. All we can do is make work look like a virtue so some people can buy into it, while still making it cushy enough not to resist and create more workers.
Rebellion through boycott. Don’t give the system more workers. Don’t give yet another worker the system to deal with. All we can do is make hard work look like enough of a virtue and then sand off the edges so there is not too much complaint with it. If existence gives you lemons, stop thinking you should make a lemon aid stand and just don’t expose people the lemons to begin with. It’s a different take than we are supposed to buy into. If that is the reality we don’t have to make new people “just deal with it”. We can simply stop exposing more people to it. The Stoics, and military drill Sargent types, and self-helps, and social pressure virtues are supposed to persuade you that the system is good enough and you simply have to comply and the pay off is the leisure time built in or maybe some enjoyment from the work itself. Family, work, leisure, wealth.All the slogans pushed in middle class virtue.
Heres a workers unite utopia- everyone working to make sure the next generation is doesn’t have to deal with any of this. We are all smiling knowing that we are the last that has to experience the bullshit. We all come together to commiserate our being a part of this intractable problem but know it at least won’t be perpetuated so there’s some solace. But then someone has to procreate..and another and another..nope never mind. More work for more workers!
Again, not seeing the value of Antinatalism. Seems on par with murder for the betterment of humanity. Maybe a case can be made for it, but really, it's a tough sell eh.
Straw man. One is harming no actual person and quite the opposite, preventing a lifetime of accumulated harms. The other is definitely harming someone. ANs usually aren’t crass utilitarians. There’s usually a deontological basis of not using people.
So, did a magical pelican fly into your window one day and teach you how to read, speak, and use logic? I'll admit as an individual you make a good argument as far as your case but, many people enjoy what society has brought them to achieve. Literally every word or thought you express is a result of this "system" you speak of. Though for myself it's a fair case, wouldn't you agree to at least assign value or purpose to your own thoughts or actions? See. Painted into a corner. Yes or no the answer is yes. So chill out man.
Quoting schopenhauer1
How do you eat lol. Seriously. Who guards your crops and provides a sense of security so random passers by don't just pick what they can carry in the dead of night and leave you starving and empty during harvest time? These are important questions people ask themselves. And have answered. Like it or not the person who can at least plant a crop they have to eat to live, gets to stay compared to someone who just eats it and tries to convince they're of equal value to the other guy.
And yet creating more people and calling them shitty for not killing themselves or otherwise following the proper course is moral? Ya know my knee jerk reaction to that argument is a four letter word followed by off.
I’m not disagreening that this is perhaps the only way it can ever be. Rather, if that is the case, I don’t make the very political decision for someone else that they should too be experiencing and going through this process in the first place. Don’t use people as yet another worker. You boycott the system and you don’t use people who can’t avoid it. Win/win.
Not sure what sits poorly about it really. When I was self employed I worked hard. My customers were happy to pay the bill, even when it was for something that they were capable of doing but just didn't want to do. I made good money. I knew other self-employed guys that did not want to do what I did, they chose the easy work and they made less money. They did not gripe about it, as they did not want the jobs I took. There was also less competition as I wasn't bidding against them nor they against me. Customers were happy as well as the contractors. The employees that did not want to work at the level required for my company worked for the other guys'. Again, everyone wins.
Perhaps you could explain the problem to me.
This one's for you! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOI8RuhW7q0
Quoting Bitter Crank
Haha.. No, I am just giving you their arguments so you can knock em down. I agree largely with you. I just want to make sure the other side is presented at least.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Here's a question.. Would you think that if workers got more benefits and holidays, the more existential situation surrounding work is resolved? What to you looks like "resolved"? I ask this because my answer is simply to not HAVE more workers in the first place, as the problem is intractable. A "worker's paradise" seems like a contradiction in terms. It's like "prison paradise" or something.
From an anti-natalist position, the problem is utterly intractable. From the pro-natalist POV, 'The Problem' isn't exactly a piece of cake to solve, either. The (presumed) leisure of the ancient hunter-gatherer hasn't been available for roughly 12,000 years. Extracting from the earth the requirements of a reasonably satisfactory settled civilization involves a lot of laborious tasks.
We certainly can reduce our energy and material requirements, and we jolly well had better do so, if we expect to have a future--which is a key plank in the pro-natal platform. A rational use of resources (e.g., public transit instead of 1 billion automobiles, gas powered or electric; apartments instead of single-person houses, less clothing, furnishings, and so forth) would reduce the collective work load, and is entirely doable, even without eliminating capitalism.
No matter how optimistic one is, paradise on earth is not an option; we might be able to avoid hell.
American workers work more hours and receive far shorter holidays than European workers, along with fewer benefits. So, the "existential situation" variable as it is for individuals, would not be "resolved" but it would be a real improvement for most workers.
Maybe that's the secret behind America's colossal economy! Keep at it Americans, keep at it.
It might all come crashing down. Frank Zappa asks:
How does the US economy hold itself up? Lemme guess. It has a solid production base which drives up the value of the dollar. These dollars then make Americans über-consumers. The 30%, in a way, props up the 70%. An odd looking pyramid, upside down actually. Won't it topple? Is it a question of when and not if? Just exploring the topic. I hope it makes sense at some level.
It's a perfectly normal looking pyramid, just like the one Cheops built. The bottom 70% is consumer spending, the top 30% is government spending.
Besides that, I don't at all think of Americans as lazy, though we do tend to be over-weight on to obese, but that is increasingly a world-wide problem. In an economy, the people both produce and consume, their share and government's share too.
I think it is a very safe assumption that a significant share of work that we do is organized in an inefficient manner. Many Americans spend too much time at work. I'm retired now, but that was true for my work in social services -- too much time spent inefficiently. For instance, a requirement to account for one's time spent delivering services in 15 minute increments is a drag on delivery. So are pointless meetings.
Im thinking that with all the technology we only have higher consumption. How is it in 80 years, 40 hour norm isn’t commensurate with the efficiency in technology and reduced accordingly.
:up:
Two ways to obesity: Sloth OR Gluttony. For America, for even other countries, I suspect it's the latter. Either way we sin, so yeah, nothing to brag about!
Quoting schopenhauer1
Robot revolution pending...
Millions of jobs will slip out of the hands of humans and then...finally...we can rest.
Yeah mentioned that earlier. Not gonna happen any time soon.
This seems to be true. First, there is the purchase of the technology itself. One bought the desk computer and put the typewriter in the basement. One bought a desk-top printer, then refills of ink or toner. One bought the nice little cell phone, then a case to put it in; then there are the monthly service fees. (Of course there are monthly services for land lines too.). One wants some apps that provide special features, games, music and so on. Lots of stuff works this way.
Quoting schopenhauer1
That's a good question. Maybe...
IF one is paid by the hour, the longer one is on the clock, the more one gets paid. Maybe one could do one's job in 6 hours, but that means 2 fewer hours of pay. If one gets paid a salary, and one can't just get up and leave for the day when one has nothing more to do, there is no incentive to be more efficient. Large numbers of workers get a 40 hour a week block; they get paid the same whether they are efficient or not.
Parkinson's law: Work expands to fill the available time, just as paper expands to fill the available space. Have we not all had to experience of stretching a 1 hour task out to 3 hours, because the other things waiting to do were not very appealing?
If the workday was cut from 8 hours per shift to 6 hours (no change in day) my guess is people would get their jobs done in 6 hours. (Of course, if one's job requires being on duty for 8 hours, like a nurse, waiter, cop, etc., this wouldn't apply.). Employing workers for 4 six hour shift a day, rather than 3 eight hour shifts probably isn't going to happen, but it could.
Slaves (human) & draft animals: We have been trying to reduce our workload, just not in the right way. Robots are the solution: power with no ethical conundrums to solve unless (there's always an exception) you're the Pygmalion type.