A nation of slaves

This, however, is looking only at big numbers on a macro level. It ignores all the things which have prevented this outcome from actually happening. These include (1) incentives (2) ideology.

1. If employer A allows less than 40 hour work weeks, or more vacation, he can be beaten out in the market by employer B which mandates longer hours and produces more per time period. Employees might prefer A over B, but they have so little bargaining power that this will not stop B. If the same requirements are imposed on all employers, then the country will be out-competed by others.

2. Conservatives criticize any such proposal with an argument like this: "You should be free to use your property as you wish, including by having people work as long as you can get them to agree to. And everything is already owned, so the only way to provide more for one person is to take away from another, and it's wrong to take money or other values from people who have earned them, to give to others who have not earned them."

Regardless of the merits of the argument, it is effective with the public, and politicians use it effectively to protect the owners. This can never change unless someone can present a contrary view that can be stated in equally pithy sound-bites and which is equally convincing for large numbers of voters (in democratic countries, basically W. Europe and parts of S. America) or unless a large enough segment commit to a revolution (in the rest of the countries which are not democratic).

Bullshit jobs are largely jobs that managers create and defend in order to expand their managerial fiefdoms. A manager's influence in an organization comes partially from how many people report to him or her. That's the incentive structure that creates many of the bullshit jobs.

There are also interpersonal issues in play. For instance, you or I might walk into a particular company and observe a dozen different processes that could be easily automated with off-the-shelf software but are currently being done by humans. We might say to the manager "Why don't you automate, you're wasting money?!". In some cases, the manager would reply that the people doing those jobs are valued employees, possibly even friends, and automating those processes would put them out of work and thus, the processes are not automated.

It is a fallacy to believe that businesses operate efficiently simply because there is a profit motive. Businesses are complex organizations made up of people, with all their failings and weaknesses (if you want to call them that). It is not necessary for a business to be perfectly efficient to survive, it is only necessary that its competitors be equally inefficient.

Regardless of age, I guess most people feel this way (not just the previous generations - even the people in their 20's and 30's today). What is the alternative to this? If not work - what is important? what makes one person a success and another a failure, and what gives purpose and dignity to life, in your opinion?