Let’s Be Less Productive
nytimes.com
Let’s Be Less Productive
1–10 of 84 posts
Re: Let’s Be Less Productive
#2The thought of eschewing productivity makes me cringe instantly. But that said, I worry he's not wrong about some things. Our economies don't seem to be growing fast enough to negate the downsides of things like automation.
Rather than slow down productivity, which surely few other nations would do, wouldn't it serve us better in the long run to do a better job of splitting up the work between capable hands? In that vein, I'd be more for dropping the full time work week significantly, as he mentions offhand. The story mentions 21 hours as a good work week number. I'd like to see that as three 7 hour days. I'm fine with that. Lots more family/me/we time. Of course, the issue becomes "compensation".
How are you going to survive off of roughly half of what you made before? The ideals of a crazy person like me would be "hike up the minimum wage insanely high, pry money from the pockets of the wealthy" but I doubt much of this crowd would be with me there. (Based on my casual browsing I think it's fair to call HN of a, to use American terms, slightly economically Libertarian bent.) But the US already sees a large disparity between productivity and compensation ^1, and it seems to be growing.
I'd love to see this discussed here though, if anyone has any insight. We all agree there are many smart people here. So what happens? We find a magical new job creating field like the Internet? (Because 3d printers only seem like they'll increase productivity further.) We let a generation or two pass and become an even more entrenched class based society?
I'm not asking anyone for answers. I'm just asking for other possible outcomes. From my (hopefully wrong) view, it seems like we either reduce the relatively abundant resource of laborers, increase the amount of labor to be done, or even the two out in some fashion. The author here chooses one avenue of balancing, I mentioned another. What else would other options entail?
^1 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/18/wages-productivity-...
Re: Let’s Be Less Productive
#3I consider myself highly productive, efficient (when I'm not on HN) and reasonably smart and informed, and yet I'm not living any better than other people who don't even know how to turn on a computer and never read books.
In terms of material wealth, I'm way behind many others my age (I don't own furniture or a vehicle).
Still trying to figure that one out.
Re: Let’s Be Less Productive
#4Ultimately, it should be: Let's be as productive as long as it doesn't compromise ethics.
The latter (ethics) is usually too flexible.
Re: Let’s Be Less Productive
#5I could be mistaken, but part of the assumption here seems to be that everyone is equally good at their job. It seems far better to have the incredible teachers leveraged as far as possible (to teach the most number of students while still remaining effective) rather than having everyone chip in their 21 hours and go home. Since this applies in every industry, it seems to explain why businesses prefer to have fewer (but more highly paid) employees.
In short, this would have happened if it was in anyone's interest. The employee wants to work more to earn more. The employer gets value out of consolidating production to the most productive.
Re: Let’s Be Less Productive
#6I could be mistaken, but part of the assumption here seems to be that everyone is equally good at their job. It seems far better to have the incredible teachers leveraged as far as possible (to teach the most number of students while still remaining effective) rather than having everyone chip in their 21 hours and go home. Since this applies in every industry, it seems to explain why businesses prefer to have fewer (…
> It seems far better to have the incredible teachers leveraged as far as possible
And your assumption is that the potential leverage is quite big. I doubt it: I've seen many students profit a lot from 1 on 1 private lessons - from students 2 or 3 years ahead of them (or even from the same class). They are arguably nowhere near as good as a teacher who has studied teaching and has years of experience. Yet they can help the student a lot more because they can focus 100% of their time on the single student and his individual needs.
Re: Let’s Be Less Productive
#7OK, we could all settle at a lower per capita productivity level, but then companies that have resources would be able to increase their workforce, effectively obtaining an even more significant advantage over less wealthy competitors (who can't afford increasing their staff). This probably means that many small companies would go out of business.
Re: Let’s Be Less Productive
#8I consider myself highly productive, efficient (when I'm not on HN) and reasonably smart and informed, and yet I'm not living any better than other people who don't even know how to turn on a computer and never read books. In terms of material wealth, I'm way behind many others my age (I don't own furniture or a vehicle). Still trying to figure that one out.
What is it you're producing so much of so efficiently that somehow nobody is willing to pay you for?
Re: Let’s Be Less Productive
#9The thought of eschewing productivity makes me cringe instantly. But that said, I worry he's not wrong about some things. Our economies don't seem to be growing fast enough to negate the downsides of things like automation. Rather than slow down productivity, which surely few other nations would do, wouldn't it serve us better in the long run to do a better job of splitting up the work between capable hands? In that…
> The ideals of a crazy person like me would be "hike up the minimum wage insanely high, pry money from the pockets of the wealthy" but I doubt much of this crowd would be with me there.
Don't let the status quo put you off of a good thing.
Re: Let’s Be Less Productive
#10I often have a discussion about that with a friend whom is a bit less capitalistic than me, and we always argue about if growth is absolutely needed or not;
I think the first thing is that this article might mix productivity and growth, and I don't think lowering and staying at the same level of productivity means less growth;
The need of growth mentioned by the article comes from the fact population growth, inflation, etc., brings the need to have en economical growth at least equivalent of the prior to let us keep the same level of wealth. But in that case, it means no evolution; no research; no development; stagnation. It means we will never cure cancer. Never go further in space anymore. And I mean, if people are ok with that, it's a way of thinking. But I personally think that the human being is motivated by evolution/revolution and that's what makes us search for better. We always want better for us, for our kids and next generations. This is what differentiate human to animals. We have ambition, a need to create and to reach better, all the time. Maybe sometimes we do too much, and we could decide for a max growth, a max productivity increase, etc. But stopping growth or productivity wouldn't be good I think. At least not in our economy, lifestyle and culture.