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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]

#151

Post by wolco »

stephen_g wrote: post #146
digi_owl wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany has maintained a strict no wage growth policy for decades now however to push exports, potentially contributing to the stagnation of the euro zone.

The Euro is also a big part of this. It’s undervalued compared to Germany’s economy and inflation rate (meaning cheaper and more competitive exports), but overpriced compared to the countries with trade deficits (PIGS, France, etc). This actually leads to internal devaluation of their economies (and unemployment) to achieve what would normally just be a bit weaker exchange rate. This isn’t a problem for the US states…

It is still an issue. In places like Canada they have equalization payments that boost the poor regions from the richer regions.

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

#152

Post by pdfernhout »

jernfrost wrote: post #150

Anthropologists David Graeber, has addressed this and offered the explanation with the observation that we as a society produce what he calls bullshit jobs. Almost 40% of Brits in a surveyed acknowledged that their job wasn't needed. People believing in effective markets would of course protest and claim such enormous inefficiency can't possibly exist. Somebody will simply start a company without bullshit jobs. Howev…

You might find this essay by Bob Black of interest on "The Aboltiion of Work": https://web.archive.org/web/20161031034600/http://whywork.or... "... It is now possible to abolish work and replace it, insofar as it serves useful purposes, with a multitude of new kinds of free activities. To abolish work requires going at it from two directions, quantitative and qualitative. On the one hand, on the quantitative side, we have to cut down massively on the amount of work being done. At present most work is useless or worse and we should simply get rid of it. On the other hand -- and I think this is the crux of the matter and the revolutionary new departure -- we have to take what useful work remains and transform it into a pleasing variety of game-like and craft-like pastimes, indistinguishable from other pleasurable pastimes except that they happen to yield useful end-products. Surely that wouldn't make them less enticing to do. Then all the artificial barriers of power and property could come down. Creation could become recreation. And we could all stop being afraid of each other. I don't suggest that most work is salvageable in this way. But then most work isn't worth trying to save. Only a small and diminishing fraction of work serves any useful purpose independent of the defense and reproduction of the work-system and its political and legal appendages. Twenty years ago, Paul and Percival Goodman estimated that just five percent of the work then being done -- presumably the figure, if accurate, is lower now -- would satisfy our minimal needs for food, clothing and shelter. Theirs was only an educated guess but the main point is quite clear: directly or indirectly, most work serves the unproductive purposes of commerce or social control. Right off the bat we can liberate tens of millions of salesmen, soldiers, managers, cops, stockbrokers, clergymen, bankers, lawyers, teachers, landlords, security guards, ad-men and everyone who works for them. There is a snowball effect since every time you idle some bigshot you liberate his flunkies and underlings also. Thus the economy implodes. ..."

We might ask ourselves what "leading economic indicators" might look like when this was happening...

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

#153

Post by gerbilly »

For some reason most of us are too afraid of just going home at 5:00 much less asking for reduced hours.

My whole working life, I've never used an alarm clock, and I never stayed late unless I was late on a commitment that I made. (This is not the same as some artificial deadline dreamed up by someone else.)

I come in late, go home early, sometimes I don't even show up—whatever.

If you do this consistently, and deliver in your role of course, people will get used to it and they'll stop bothering you about it.

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

#154

Post by wolco »

geezerjay wrote: post #134
cjalmeida wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

free university, public transit, health care, old age payments, pensions. But the tax rates are higher so 55k is really 32k. You are better off working part time in the US.

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

#155

Post by jernfrost »

pjmlp wrote: post #84
maxxxxx wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's mainly because the unions have some power in Germany. Without them German employers would also happily have people work overtime.

It is the people getting together that gives the unions that power in first place. Law is meaningless if workers don't make it happen.

My native Norway is much like Germany with respect to unions and speaking with my American side of the family, and following American news I get the strong impression that laws protecting people's right to unionize are VERY WEAK in the US.

They are also designed in ways which makes people end up resenting unions. I register a lot of union hatred in the US which simply doesn't exist in Norway. Part of the reason seems to be from how unions function in the US.

You are either a union shop or you are not. People are forced to join the union or they are forced to not join it. People don't like being made to do things. In Norway it has always been free choice to join a union. There is no such thing as a "union shop".

Unions in the US also don't seem to hold much power except in its ability to sabotage the company, and so that seems to be what they do. In Germany and Norway unions are more like partners with management. They are on the company boards. They can't be ignored as easily as in the US. To be heard in the US, it seems like unions have to cause trouble. I think this creates a very unhealthy union environment and creates a bad reputation for unions.

Unions in Norway form hierarchies so that you huge national unions which together with representatives for employers negotiate work life in Norway on regular basis.

The other part I think is that Norway and Germany has quite extensive welfare systems, so unions are not as actively protecting particular jobs as they are trying to protect people. Losing your job in Norway or Germany is not the same catastrophe as in the US. So people are more accepting towards it. Instead what people want to see is things like job training and aid to help you get a new job.

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

#156

Post by jernfrost »

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.)

You have to consider the wealth of respective countries and cities. E.g. my native Norway which is more similar to the US in GDP per capita has developer salaries closer to the US.

Not only is Germany poorer than the US, but Berlin is among the poorer cities in Germany. Hence I don't think it says much about the results of unions.

Norway has equally strong unions as Germany and close to 80% of Norwegian workers are unionized.

I am pretty sure that if you compared to developer salaries in a richer country such as Switzerland you would also find much higher software developer salaries.

And then there are national peculiarities. E.g. more developers in Germany than in many other European countries might be associated with manufacturing industry which doesn't necessarily value software developers as high as a more startup like scene.

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

#157

Post by jernfrost »

pdfernhout wrote: post #152
jernfrost wrote: post #150

Anthropologists David Graeber, has addressed this and offered the explanation with the observation that we as a society produce what he calls bullshit jobs. Almost 40% of Brits in a surveyed acknowledged that their job wasn't needed. People believing in effective markets would of course protest and claim such enormous inefficiency can't possibly exist. Somebody will simply start a company without bullshit jobs. Howev…

You might find this essay by Bob Black of interest on "The Aboltiion of Work": https://web.archive.org/web/20161031034600/http://whywork.or... "... It is now possible to abolish work and replace it, insofar as it serves useful purposes, with a multitude of new kinds of free activities. To abolish work requires going at it from two directions, quantitative and qualitative. On the one hand, on the quantitative side, we…

Thans for the suggestions. I have contemplated this as well. It always puzzled me at work as a software developer how we had more sales people than developers. It just seems wrong that we have more people hired to sell the software than make it. Then you got all the guys doing marketing in addition and the ones managing all these people. You end up with a lot of stuff surrounding the core value creation.

A lot of this is really just need because we live in a free market economy where we need to sell stuff to people. We can't just give it to them if they need it. OTOH how would be allocated resources effectively if we did not have the market.

The soviet approach seems to have been a big failure. Although I suppose wit the internet, computer, crypto currencies etc, there might be other ways of organizing labour and allocating resources.

At least I wish people would acknowledge something is fundamentally wrong with how we organize society today. Unless we do it is hard to pour resources into finding alternative ways of doing things.

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

#158

Post by dredmorbius »

The negotiating leverage of capital vs. labour.

You'll find this in Adam Smith:

[I]n every part of Europe, twenty workmen serve under a master for one that is independent; and the wages of labour are everywhere understood to be, what they usually are, when the labourer is one person, and the owner of the stock which employs him another.

What are the common wages of labour, depends everywhere upon the contract usually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower the wages of labour.

It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorizes, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen....

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_I/...

Ricardo, rent vs. wages, as well.

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

#159

Post by ukulele »

gerbilly wrote: post #153

For some reason most of us are too afraid of just going home at 5:00 much less asking for reduced hours. My whole working life, I've never used an alarm clock, and I never stayed late unless I was late on a commitment that I made. (This is not the same as some artificial deadline dreamed up by someone else.) I come in late, go home early, sometimes I don't even show up—whatever. If you do this consistently, and deliv…

You can't really generalize this to everyone. It's dependent on your managers, and there are definitely people in the world who will fire an otherwise good employee for showing bad "optics" to other employees. You may not want to work in such an environment, but that is of course a luxury to be able to choose.

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

#160

Post by toomuchtodo »

purple-again wrote: post #18
samsonradu wrote: post #6

Among other good reasons mentioned here lets not forget inequality went up and a lot of the progress is materialized at the top.

In the US. Inequality has dropped significantly. A large portion of the gains to America were captured by its elite. The large portion of the gains in other parts of the world have lifted billions out of poverty. Turns out globalization is good or bad depending on who you are and where you are.

The US has greater income inequality than many third world countries.
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