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Why Not a Three-Day Week?

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Re: Why Not a Three-Day Week?

#31

Post by mjburgess »

wyager wrote: post #27
psychometry wrote: post #4

Why not? Because capitalism. New technology will continue to automate away more and more jobs, from manufacturing to the service industry. This could be one of the greatest achievements in human history, leading to that so-called "leisure society" futurists talked about, but that would require a massive overhaul of most countries' economic systems. All those gains in productivity mostly enrich the owner class while t…

If automation continues and demand stays the same, things like 3-day work weeks will come about naturally. A capitalist system would not prevent that from happening. Would you care to share why you think capitalism would prevent an increase in leisure time (even though it has been increasing since the industrial revolution)?

"Reduced labour" isnt produced by automation, increased profit is. To "give back" labour you have to reduce profits.

"Leisure time" was won by unions, collective bargaining and legislation. "The Weekend" only exists at all because of the collective actions of the workforce, not of capital owners.

Re: Why Not a Three-Day Week?

#32

Post by theophrastus »

George Jetson: "These three day work weeks are killing me." (wikipedia: "George's job primarily requires him to repeatedly push a single button")

That is, isn't this a product of a far more optimistic (cartoon) past view of the future? and/or "where's my flying car?"

Re: Why Not a Three-Day Week?

#33

Post by mr_luc »

grimtrigger wrote: post #14

I would love some kind of job board for "lifestyle jobs". Thats jobs with 2 or 3 day work weeks and a 9-5 schedule. I might go as low as $60k (+ benefits) if it was offered. The closest thing to achieve that now is freelancing.

Yeah -- and it's way easier to pack out 4 or 6 solid months of work than it is to find work that trickles in regularly at anything like "2 days a week," at least for me.

Re: Why Not a Three-Day Week?

#34

Post by rmrfrmrf »

grimtrigger wrote: post #29
psychometry wrote: post #4

Why not? Because capitalism. New technology will continue to automate away more and more jobs, from manufacturing to the service industry. This could be one of the greatest achievements in human history, leading to that so-called "leisure society" futurists talked about, but that would require a massive overhaul of most countries' economic systems. All those gains in productivity mostly enrich the owner class while t…

Whats the difference between a leisure state and a welfare state?

racism.

Re: Why Not a Three-Day Week?

#35

Post by tptacek »

psychometry wrote: post #4

Why not? Because capitalism. New technology will continue to automate away more and more jobs, from manufacturing to the service industry. This could be one of the greatest achievements in human history, leading to that so-called "leisure society" futurists talked about, but that would require a massive overhaul of most countries' economic systems. All those gains in productivity mostly enrich the owner class while t…

I perceive this as one of a species of comments that is well-intentioned and valuable in isolation, but that when introduced to the thread has the effect of making it harder to discuss the article on its own terms.

It's easy to see the subtext of the article that indicts unrestrained economic competition. So it's hard to ding a comment for surfacing that subtext and engaging with it.

But at the same time, having been on HN for a long time, it's also easy to see how the result thread will simply litigate capitalism, and how unlikely it is that anyone will learn anything from the ensuing debate.

Re: Why Not a Three-Day Week?

#36

Post by fab13n »

PaulWillis wrote: post #16

Yes, let's work 3 days a week in the West. China will continue to work 6 or 7 days. Fast forward 10 years and the reserve currency will be the yuan.

> China will continue to work 6 or 7 days [...] and the reserve currency will be the yuan.

You suppose that wealth production is proportional to the number of hours worked. This used to be an oversimplification, and now becomes simply false. Countries lead by people who keep counting on this falsehood will fail.

Re: Why Not a Three-Day Week?

#37

Post by joedrew »

PaulWillis wrote: post #30
georgemcbay wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if you really believe it is as simple as being a pure numbers game then based on population counts we're going to have to find a way to work 24 to 28 days a week to keep up with the Chinese. So either your premise is horribly flawed or we're fucked no matter what we do.

I agree it will eventually happen, but of course it will happen faster if we're less productive.

The whole point of advocating for fewer work days is that we are just as productive in fewer hours. That's why overtime doesn't work long-term; you wear out and do less per unit time.

Re: Why Not a Three-Day Week?

#39

Post by WalterSear »

grimtrigger wrote: post #29
psychometry wrote: post #4

Why not? Because capitalism. New technology will continue to automate away more and more jobs, from manufacturing to the service industry. This could be one of the greatest achievements in human history, leading to that so-called "leisure society" futurists talked about, but that would require a massive overhaul of most countries' economic systems. All those gains in productivity mostly enrich the owner class while t…

Whats the difference between a leisure state and a welfare state?

Ayn Rand's crack pipe.

Re: Why Not a Three-Day Week?

#40

Post by yummyfajitas »

psychometry wrote: post #4

Why not? Because capitalism. New technology will continue to automate away more and more jobs, from manufacturing to the service industry. This could be one of the greatest achievements in human history, leading to that so-called "leisure society" futurists talked about, but that would require a massive overhaul of most countries' economic systems. All those gains in productivity mostly enrich the owner class while t…

We already have the leisure society - the bottom rung of the income distribution (in the US) lives in that society. People below the poverty line in the US work very little and have consumption and disposable income (after taxes/transfers) of about $20k/year.

http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/taxes-and-cliffs...

http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2012.pdf

I don't know why people refuse to acknowledge that we are already there.

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