121–130 of 523 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Countries where it's normal for both parents to work rely on a serf class, usually of immigrant women, to care for their children at terrible wages so both parents can work. I wonder how long this can be sustainable.
Plenty countries where both parents normally work and there are no servants.
Access to opportunities for more income also didn't exist either. The article specifically references serfs(!!!), possibly the most difficult economic class to escape, as the example. Cars, computers, phones, and health insurance also didn't exist back then, and neither did social mobility. Give people visible improvements to quality of living and also the opportunities to attain them and it seems logical to me that…
this is not how it happened and quality of life is not an objective measure. factory owners needed workers so they lobbied to have common land used for grazing and growing crops to be grabbed by land owners and forced people into cities to fill factories with cheap labour.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let's first get everyone on an even playing field. 40 hours is a laughable suggestion to many workers right now. If you could promise every worker that they have to work 40 hours a week for the rest of their life but that OT was forever banned after, I don't think you'd hear many complaints ever again.
Some people want to work OT hours for the extra money, to get stuff done, or because they like working more than 40 hours.
I think there is absolutely no need every adult person needs to work 8 hours a day for 5 days a week. We might just as well work 4 hours a day or 3 days a week. It seems to me, this is just a matter of how the market pressures people to spend as much time as possible at work vs how much work most people can tolerate. How do I know? There are countries where it is normal that both parents work to provide for their hou…
Access to opportunities for more income also didn't exist either. The article specifically references serfs(!!!), possibly the most difficult economic class to escape, as the example. Cars, computers, phones, and health insurance also didn't exist back then, and neither did social mobility. Give people visible improvements to quality of living and also the opportunities to attain them and it seems logical to me that…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article argues that even when they had a chance to work more they didn't. Maybe they were all being shortsighted, or maybe that happened in a brief climactic golden age.
It was a common mindset, historian friends tell me that also shopkeepers in villages would work on a need-money-soon basis. I think that historically the first job with the work ethic of more is better was the merchant.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The commute may influence this. The average American commute is about 30 minutes each way. That's 1 hour round trip. Commute as a portion of work time.... 4 hrs work: 25% 5 hrs work: 20% 6 hrs work: 16.7% 7 hrs work: 14.3% 8 hrs work: 12.5% Considering you don't get paid for your commute, there is a natural incentive to work more hours.
10h 4 days a week to keep the 40h work week. But it also depends on the type of work. I think desk jobs would benefit more than manual labour form longer days(asuming same total). As the mind and body recovers differently.
Why keep an arbitrary "40h" standard? Productivity has increased 100x from when it was established, what keeps it is busywork...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Plenty countries where both parents normally work and there are no servants.
Who is taking care of the children? Who works in the daycares?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Plenty countries where both parents normally work and there are no servants.
Who is taking care of the children? Who works in the daycares?
They don't earn great wages but they are not indentured servants either.