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Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

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Re: Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

#131

Post by gozur88 »

paganel wrote: post #34
a3n wrote: post #9

Most people don't get to choose how many hours they work. Employers, especially those that pay benefits, want you working as much as possible. Anything less is money on the table. (I'm not an employer.) It's good for an employer if you work overtime, all he has to pay is time, or time and a half, or nothing if you're salaried. He doesn't have to pay more benefits, as he would with an additional employee. Of course an…

> Employers, especially those that pay benefits, want you working as much as possible. Anything less is money on the table. That’s exactly Marx’s point when he discusses his theory of Surplus Value. I know that that theory has been “debunked” and “proven” to be false, but I’m just reading now about it in its “Grundrisse” (I had read its Capital I some years ago) and it’s frightening about how right he was about subje…

I don't see how Surplus Value applies here. From Marx's theoretical standpoint 100 people working 1 hour is the same as 1 person working 100 hours.

In the real world there's nothing mysterious about employers preferring to get as many hours out of employees as possible. There are fixed costs per FTE that don't scale with the number of hours worked - everything from training to health care to the size of the parking lot.

Re: Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

#134

Post by geezerjay »

cjalmeida wrote: post #125
walshemj wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

want to add the additional annual leave you get in Germany and average cost of the same health care in Dallas into that equation let alone the other benefits?

Sure, please. I'd love to see what are those extra benefits worth $40k yearly. (free healthcare doesn't count as the US amount usually includes insurance)

> I'd love to see what are those extra benefits worth $40k yearly.

How about 35hour work weeks and the fact that overtime is paid? If you factor that into account and add to the healthcare and extra vacation days I'm pretty sure those fictional $40k/yearly fade out rather quickly.

And by the way, average income means jack shit when the income distribution is so lopsided, particularly when discussing issuez linked to poverty and the lack of basic services.

Re: Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

#135

Post by wirelessest »

observation wrote: post #126
oceanghost wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Us Americans solved that problem by making health care unaffordable and systematically reducing and eliminating sick/vacation pay.

If Americans were as physically fit as they were 50 years ago, would healthcare still be expensive?

Probably not as expensive, but still much more expensive than it need be.

We've got a bunch of perverse incentives where it's cheaper for the patient to choose the option that's more expensive for the payer. Straightening those out would be a small first step, but complexities of the system and incumbent powers have made it pretty difficult.

Re: Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

#136

Post by geezerjay »

lazyjones wrote: post #47
surfmike wrote: post #5

People's perceived needs grow but that is not the whole story. Many people now are spending almost 50% of their pre-tax income on housing, and most of that is the price of land and goes to landlords. It seems that landlords inevitably capture a big chunk of people's salary increases. Additionally in the US your health insurance is generally tied to your job; even after Obamacare you probably have to work to pay for y…

> If housing costs went way down and health insurance were universal, I suspect many people would feel much less need to work so many hours. Housing costs are directly related to the area per person and the location. If people expect to live in much larger flats or houses compared to e.g. the 19th century and in expensive urban areas, they will have to pay the price.

> If people expect to live in much larger flats or houses compared to e.g. the 19th century and in expensive urban areas, they will have to pay the price.

Your comment could only make sense if you believed housing prices were dictated by construction costs. They aren't. Prices are set based on what is the highest price tag sellers are able to force upon the customers. Buyers also wanto to push the value down but sellers, due to the nature of real estate properties and taxes, profit more by simply sitting on their investment and waiting out for someone opening fheir wallet and offering the asking price.

Re: Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

#137

Post by on_and_off »

dgellow wrote: post #33
a3n wrote: post #9

Most people don't get to choose how many hours they work. Employers, especially those that pay benefits, want you working as much as possible. Anything less is money on the table. (I'm not an employer.) It's good for an employer if you work overtime, all he has to pay is time, or time and a half, or nothing if you're salaried. He doesn't have to pay more benefits, as he would with an additional employee. Of course an…

So, I currently work in Germany, maybe that’s why, but in my personal experience employers are very strict with overtime and only allow it when there is a justification (e.g: big project to get done at the end of the month). I guess because of strict regulations, but you also have the fact that having tired employees results in more sick days used, a higher error rate and mood swings. To be fair, even knowing this pe…

I have recently moved from France to the US.

Some of it is probably due to startup culture but people seem to work at insane hours.

Lots of commits during the night or the weekend, or even now during the Christmas break.

In general, the culture in the US seems way more pro employers and companies and anti-employees and consumers.

Re: Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

#138

Post by anigbrowl »

notahacker wrote: post #67
paganel wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Employers, especially those that pay benefits, want you working as much as possible. Anything less is money on the table. That’s exactly Marx’s point when he discusses his theory of Surplus Value. I know that that theory has been “debunked” and “proven” to be false, but I’m just reading now about it in its “Grundrisse” (I had read its Capital I some years ago) and it’s frightening about how right he was about subje…

Marx's writings around the working day are built on the assumption that wages will be set at the level necessary for the worker to survive long enough to turn up to work the following day rather than according to the perceived value of their labour time by the highest bidder, and that because of this near-universal day rate for undifferentiated "labour power", employers' main route to improving profitability would be…

The first volume of Kapital is heavily devoted to the economics of industrial production, and he basically skips over distribution and markets until volumes 2 & 3. Unfortunately a lot of Marxists got fixated on the production side of things and then try to apply that logic to everything else, to their detriment.

Re: Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

#139

Post by geezerjay »

sametmax wrote: post #46
fatwah wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

80 years ago women could afford to stay at home.

Population increased also. And consumerism. And debt. And a lot of laws have been added. But last year, 2 of my friends fire their 5 employees and started again, them alone. They made the calculation: there productivity ratio was better with only them 2, than with the 5 part time workers they had that they were paying full time + benefits. And their team was "good" in my book. Most teams I meet are not, and I travel…

> Population increased also. And consumerism. And debt. And a lot of laws have been added.

These factors are irrelevant when compared with the fact that the active population essentially doubled since WW2 with women entering the workforce.

Re: Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

#140

Post by anigbrowl »

cjalmeida wrote: post #107
pjmlp wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People that enjoy living in countries with strong union law usually get to choose, unless they rather keep quiet instead of reporting abuses to the respective work authorities. This includes IT related jobs. If people on US and other countries want these benefits, choose to get strong instead of demonizing unions.

Avg dev salary in Dallas: $93k. Avg dev salary in Berlin: $55k. There's a saying you should be careful with what you wish for, you might as well get it. (I deliberately didn't pick SV/NYC. Dallas and Berlin are very similar cost of living wise.)

Odd, because people I talk to from Berlin are horrified at the cost of living here. I'm not sure you're comparing apples with apples.
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