Why Americans Work So Much Despite Keynes's Prediction
theatlantic.com
Why Americans Work So Much Despite Keynes's Prediction
1–10 of 73 posts
Re: Why Americans Work So Much Despite Keynes's Prediction
#2The thing about capitalism is that the capitalists tend to win. Gains have accrued to capitalists mostly. Lack of leverage on the part of labour means they are expected to be more productive not work less.
Re: Why Americans Work So Much Despite Keynes's Prediction
#3Fear, manufactured competition and a lack of a social safety net?
Re: Why Americans Work So Much Despite Keynes's Prediction
#4I think much of the choice of work hours must be down to human nature. We are awake about 112 hours a week and choose to work between a half (56 hours) and a quarter (28 hours) typically. People are seldom very happy unemployed. If money was the only reason people worked, the likes of Paul Graham would put their feet up when they cashed in for millions from Yahoo but they almost never do.
Re: Why Americans Work So Much Despite Keynes's Prediction
#5I think much of the choice of work hours must be down to human nature. We are awake about 112 hours a week and choose to work between a half (56 hours) and a quarter (28 hours) typically. People are seldom very happy unemployed. If money was the only reason people worked, the likes of Paul Graham would put their feet up when they cashed in for millions from Yahoo but they almost never do.
I really doubt that. Choose to work 40 hrs?
There are a few people who are lucky enough whose work is their hobby, and who feel happy doing it, but mostly, work is draining and stressful. And I don't mean physically draining.
I'm convinced the 'Fall from Eden' story was inspired by the invention of agriculture. Suddenly, people had to work a lot more (hunter-gatherers typically work 4-5 hours a day). Only the aristocracy inherited the privilege of having a lot of leisure time and being able to hunt(barring the US, hunting is extremely restricted).
Nutrition got worse, it took millenia of improvement till skeletons of farmers started to look as well-fed as those of hunter gatherers.
And of course proximity to farm animals and greater population introduced all those nice pathogens: tuberculosis, smallpox, flu...
Re: Why Americans Work So Much Despite Keynes's Prediction
#6I think much of the choice of work hours must be down to human nature. We are awake about 112 hours a week and choose to work between a half (56 hours) and a quarter (28 hours) typically. People are seldom very happy unemployed. If money was the only reason people worked, the likes of Paul Graham would put their feet up when they cashed in for millions from Yahoo but they almost never do.
I really doubt that. Choose to work 40 hrs? There are a few people who are lucky enough whose work is their hobby, and who feel happy doing it, but mostly, work is draining and stressful. And I don't mean physically draining. I'm convinced the 'Fall from Eden' story was inspired by the invention of agriculture. Suddenly, people had to work a lot more (hunter-gatherers typically work 4-5 hours a day). Only the aristoc…
That's a remarkable explanation for the myth.
Re: Why Americans Work So Much Despite Keynes's Prediction
#7I think much of the choice of work hours must be down to human nature. We are awake about 112 hours a week and choose to work between a half (56 hours) and a quarter (28 hours) typically. People are seldom very happy unemployed. If money was the only reason people worked, the likes of Paul Graham would put their feet up when they cashed in for millions from Yahoo but they almost never do.
In my current job I've been working six hours a day, between one and three days a week. My favourite has been two days - enough to feel like I'm contributing to a collectively-held goal and have some workplace socializing, but short enough that I feel like my "real" life is away from work.
Having said that, I spend nearly all the rest of my days industriously grinding away at my own projects. But that doesn't feel like work.
Re: Why Americans Work So Much Despite Keynes's Prediction
#8One answer is that the market forces tend to funnel all increases in income to landowners as rent.
I was not familiar with this theory until a few days ago, when someone here on HN linked to an online version (edited and abridged) of Henry George's Progress and Poverty [0]. I've been reading it since; its clarity is stunning: I feel as if a great veil has been lifted from my eyes. Whether I'll still feel that way in a few days, months, or years remains to be seen, but for the moment, Henry George has me eating out of the palm of his hand.
Whatever the general validity of his theory, it certainly seems to explain the SF Bay Area extremely well. Salaries here sound incredible to people outside the area, but then it costs so much more to live here as to deny the wage earner much of the benefit. Broadly, we can break the population into three groups. Renters, obviously, have to pay the market rents, which seem to rise inexorably. Those who bought houses here years ago, before the big increases in property values, and are still living in them, are the ones who can really enjoy the high salaries they can earn here. Those who bought property here more recently, on the other hand, have large mortgages, because someone who previously owned the property made a pile of money when they sold it. In effect, the mortgage is like rent being paid to whichever previous owner or owners saw the property appreciate.
George's theory starts with Ricardo's law of rent [1], which is a truism of classical economics (and another idea I was not aware of until just recently). One could say it takes that law to its logical conclusion.
EDITED to add: while George's theory has not been fully embraced by mainstream economics, it hasn't been completely rejected by any means. Joseph Stiglitz, Herbert Simon, and to some extent Milton Friedman are some of its adherents, and Hayek credits George with awakening his interest in economics. [2]
[0] http://www.henrygeorge.org/pcontents.htm
Re: Why Americans Work So Much Despite Keynes's Prediction
#9This article is deeply flawed... change in wages != change in standard of living.
But that aside, in addition to people wanting to take part in higher standards of living, I'd hypothesize that another driver is social status. In our culture, wealth seems to translate pretty directly to social status, and I think that's a pretty core human need/desire that most people aren't willing to opt out of competing for.
Re: Why Americans Work So Much Despite Keynes's Prediction
#10I think much of the choice of work hours must be down to human nature. We are awake about 112 hours a week and choose to work between a half (56 hours) and a quarter (28 hours) typically. People are seldom very happy unemployed. If money was the only reason people worked, the likes of Paul Graham would put their feet up when they cashed in for millions from Yahoo but they almost never do.
In my current job I've been working six hours a day, between one and three days a week. My favourite has been two days - enough to feel like I'm contributing to a collectively-held goal and have some workplace socializing, but short enough that I feel like my "real" life is away from work. Having said that, I spend nearly all the rest of my days industriously grinding away at my own projects. But that doesn't feel li…
That sort of fits with both my and RogtamBar's points that you spend most of your time working if you include your own stuff but not so much on formal employment. Maybe what we need is for employment to be more fun rather than less of it.