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Leisure is the new productivity

edition.cnn.com

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Re: Leisure is the new productivity

#11

Post by Matumio »

tarikjn wrote: post #4

If (and I believe this), workers can be more productive with more leisure time, these companies will eventually prevail. Why try to regulate the market into doing it as she implies by comparing European countries, where by the way, unemployment is very high for the young? It is the surest way of doing it wrong. Nothing prevents companies from offering more vacation time, but forcing it with regulation will prevent a…

For some companies it may be more profitable to burn out employees and replace them with fresh meat. Do you even have a limitation on the weekly working hours in the US? Nothing against free markets, but the point of them is to improve our life.

Re: Leisure is the new productivity

#12

Post by MadManE »

harmonicon wrote: post #9
MadManE wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does this have to be solved at the legislative level? Can't we rally around the idea that we are worth more than we're being compensated, and change our behavior accordingly, or is that relegated only to legalizing pot?

What would you suggest the workers do? Striking collectively until all business owners agree to pay more wage? How much more? What is fair? I would think a federal law is the best way to solve the problem while avoiding repeating the messy negotiations. Many workers depend on their paycheck to survive day to day precisely because of the meager amount. In today's USA there is very few union who can back workers up whi…

It doesn't have to be a mass collective that starts the movement. In fact, all that is required is just turning down a job that doesn't pay enough. Individuals can make a difference, not just organized bullying. You're setting up false arguments when you introduce "fairness". We're talking about what's mutually beneficial for BOTH the business and the employee, and how to optimize productivity by (counter-intuitively) working the employees less.

Setting a precedence that individuals are respected as valuable contributors to business and not simply Human Resources is the first step if you're on the business side. Doing what's best for yourself and the business, regardless of how hard you're perceived to be working is the first step on the employee side. There's no need to appeal to some imaginary benevolent authority to make the "bad people" be nicer.

Re: Leisure is the new productivity

#13

Post by akgerber »

wavefunction wrote: post #10
rifung wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, the link doesn't contradict what the post said. The article is US centric, and the link you gave supports their claim that Ford was the company which popularized the 40 hour work week. "By 1905, the eight-hour day was widely installed in the printing trades – see International Typographical Union (section) – but the vast majority of Americans worked 12-14 hour days. On January 5, 1914, the Ford…

The eight-hour workday is one of the fruits of the struggles of labor unions before Ford Motors even got started. To then turn around and assign its introduction to a capitalist is ridiculous on its face but the sort of pro-corporate propaganda that is all too common in US culture.

Capitalists love the 8-hour day, and would never murder children over it! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_View_Massacre

Re: Leisure is the new productivity

#14

Post by aianus »

harmonicon wrote: post #9
MadManE wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does this have to be solved at the legislative level? Can't we rally around the idea that we are worth more than we're being compensated, and change our behavior accordingly, or is that relegated only to legalizing pot?

What would you suggest the workers do? Striking collectively until all business owners agree to pay more wage? How much more? What is fair? I would think a federal law is the best way to solve the problem while avoiding repeating the messy negotiations. Many workers depend on their paycheck to survive day to day precisely because of the meager amount. In today's USA there is very few union who can back workers up whi…

1. Don't take jobs that don't pay well enough and don't have enough leisure time.

2. Improve skills and network until you can do 1)

3. Don't have children until/unless you achieve 1)

Problem solved in one generation.

Re: Leisure is the new productivity

#15

Post by ashark »

MadManE wrote: post #12
harmonicon wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you suggest the workers do? Striking collectively until all business owners agree to pay more wage? How much more? What is fair? I would think a federal law is the best way to solve the problem while avoiding repeating the messy negotiations. Many workers depend on their paycheck to survive day to day precisely because of the meager amount. In today's USA there is very few union who can back workers up whi…

It doesn't have to be a mass collective that starts the movement. In fact, all that is required is just turning down a job that doesn't pay enough. Individuals can make a difference, not just organized bullying. You're setting up false arguments when you introduce "fairness". We're talking about what's mutually beneficial for BOTH the business and the employee, and how to optimize productivity by (counter-intuitively…

The implicit demand here is that some individuals take on greater-than-usual risk to benefit everyone else, and if not enough people do that then We Can't Have Nice Things. It's a miracle of irrationality that this ever happens. Governments exist largely so we can accomplish things without relying on that.

See also: the Free Rider Problem[1], Prisoners' Dilemma[2]

As for organized bullying... well, surely you can see how well that argument applies in the other direction.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma

[edit] fix spacing on links

Re: Leisure is the new productivity

#16

Post by ashark »

wavefunction wrote: post #10
rifung wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, the link doesn't contradict what the post said. The article is US centric, and the link you gave supports their claim that Ford was the company which popularized the 40 hour work week. "By 1905, the eight-hour day was widely installed in the printing trades – see International Typographical Union (section) – but the vast majority of Americans worked 12-14 hour days. On January 5, 1914, the Ford…

The eight-hour workday is one of the fruits of the struggles of labor unions before Ford Motors even got started. To then turn around and assign its introduction to a capitalist is ridiculous on its face but the sort of pro-corporate propaganda that is all too common in US culture.

Judging from the rest of the article, which argues for more time off because it'll make workers more productive, it seems to be aimed precisely at capitalists. In that context some ego-stroking historical revisionism shouldn't be surprising.

If it's in service of bringing about better worker rights in the US it's... I dunno, justified, I guess? Ends, means, and all that. Still gross.

Re: Leisure is the new productivity

#17

Post by bjelkeman-again »

Delmania wrote: post #5
cryoshon wrote: post #3

According to this (probably sugarcoated) article, the average person in the US works more than 40 hours per week. Attendant to this claim is the assumption that salaried employees are paid the same amount regardless of how much they work. We work more, and earn the same. We get zero guaranteed vacation days. We have labor policies that are worse than many impoverished countries. Our politicians are absolutely not wor…

In the United States, they will never do this. Our society is too heavily influenced by the "Protestant work ethic", and we have a folk lore about hard work and success. Plus many politicians are "pro-business" and take the stance many business owners do: that we should be grateful for having a job and be willing to sacrifice for our company without any expectation of reward.

The Dutch have a strong Protestant work ethic too, and are pro-business, good traders and still consider five weeks holiday normal. What is needed is people to realise that those five weeks is not lost business, but happy productive employees for the rest of the year.

Re: Leisure is the new productivity

#18

Post by squozzer »

It's quite possible that those who control the means of production already know everything mentioned in the CNN and like things the way they are.

Salaried workers tend to be college-educated. Putting them on the treadmill reduces their ability to innovate and thereby threaten the established order.

Hourly workers tend to have less education, which lowers their status and reduces their ability to threaten the established order. So leisure for them does not pose the same risks to the established order.

Quick, what were the professions of the following people - Jefferson, Lenin, Castro, Ghandhi, Nehru, and Jinnah? Hint: they probably would have a hard time dabbling in revolution today without failing to meet their quota of billable hours.

Re: Leisure is the new productivity

#19

Post by rifung »

zenogais wrote: post #8
rifung wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, the link doesn't contradict what the post said. The article is US centric, and the link you gave supports their claim that Ford was the company which popularized the 40 hour work week. "By 1905, the eight-hour day was widely installed in the printing trades – see International Typographical Union (section) – but the vast majority of Americans worked 12-14 hour days. On January 5, 1914, the Ford…

Quote from the article: "Ironically, it was only when Henry Ford took the wildly controversial step of shuttering his automobile manufacturing factories on Saturday and cutting daily work hours from the then-standard 12 to 8 that workers began not only enjoying leisure time at home, but became more efficient and productive at work." Now if we re-read the Wikipedia article we see that, in fact, Ford was not the decisi…

My take from the article was that Ford popularized the idea. I definitely don't know enough about history to make a case either way, but at the very least the wikipedia article did not contradict it.

It doesn't seem too far fetched to me that Ford's cutting daily work hours would have made a huge impact if only because it brought the idea to the public's eyes. At the very least it wouldn't surprise me if only because it wouldn't be the first time I read about Ford's influence on setting trends for working.

Re: Leisure is the new productivity

#20

Post by bsder »

cryoshon wrote: post #3

According to this (probably sugarcoated) article, the average person in the US works more than 40 hours per week. Attendant to this claim is the assumption that salaried employees are paid the same amount regardless of how much they work. We work more, and earn the same. We get zero guaranteed vacation days. We have labor policies that are worse than many impoverished countries. Our politicians are absolutely not wor…

> What is needed are large scale strikes with a few simple demands, but it won't happen because people are too afraid of being cut loose and losing what little security they have.

Exactly. Productivity has more than doubled since 1970. That means we have 50% fewer jobs.

We have a labor glut; striking in that environment isn't going to happen.

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