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Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

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Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#171

Post by DomreiRoam »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #121
varjag wrote: post #118

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 are professional trained, it takes 4 years to get a "puériculteur/puéricultrice" diploma in a university or equivalent. You have also nursery assistant that works under the supervision but even that need formal training + hand-on experience.

It varies a lot from country to country, but to assume that nobody would like to work with small children or that, as a parent, you would let your children under the care of untrained people is strange for me.

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#172

Post by WalterBright »

ido wrote: post #143
jaynetics wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty bosses like this in Germany, which doesn't have as much of a history of slavery. I'd wager that when looking at countries with roughly the same level of industrialization, whether humans view fellow humans as something more than mere resources is linked to a certain set of attitudes. I'd guess that reduced working hours are positively correlated to pluralism and pacifism, and perhaps negatively corre…

Oh man, either you have a completely different experience than me or you don't know what it's like working elsewhere. I'm Israeli & spent the last 6 years living in Germany. I lived in Austria for 8 years before that. Israel is quite a dog-eat-dog hyper-capitalism kind of economy, maybe not to the wild extent of the US but definitely closer to it than to Germany & Austria (the two countries have very similar culture/…

> Libertarian anti-working-class vitriol

Libertarians are not anti-working-class.

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#173

Post by TheDreamBotcher »

Well work is done more or less to pay for the interest, that is created on top of the money, that is also created out of thin air. That is why politicians keep talking about more jobs, because people need to pay the interests on government loans. More work, more taxes.

How production has been automated for 100 years we should be working 1 day a week. No such luck. We work for 5 days and some pedo looks after our kids in the mean time.

So soon we work for 6 days a week and still get the mandatory "unforeseen" market crash every 10 years, so that what ever we can save up can be transferred to the banks&corps.

Just waiting for the big crash to come and us moving into cashless society. I bet it comes around 2021 and get rid of Dollars&Euros. You behave or you don't eat. Everybody is chipped and talking against the government is considered "domestic terrorism" like the FBI already announced.

This new electronic currency is backed by gold that they have taken from WTC, Libya, Egypt and Iraq. There is still time, so add Syria and Iran to that list.

If you still live in the "matrix" this all sounds a like wild conspiracy theory to you, but you will eventually see it. Maybe it is too late then.

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#174

Post by zajio1am »

dannyw wrote: post #104
lmilcin wrote: post #95

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…

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.

For 20 hours a week, you can just work 2.5 8h shifts, not necessary 5 4h shifts.

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#175

Post by isimluk »

bsanr2 wrote: post #58
dcolkitt wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree with you. The average eight hour office worker probably only does do four hours of work a day. But I think the problem is that that nearly everyone has internalized that cadence. If every office worker had their schedule cut to a 20 hours a week, I strongly suspect that only 10 hours of work would actually get done. It's just too much of the low efficiency is culturally ingrained on every level from…

I beg to differ. Everywhere I've worked, people have despised the waiting built into the processes they have to conform to. Many roles are constructed so that they're actually two roles: one is pure productivity, with clear goals and deadlines. The other is some sort of service role where you're at the beck and call of clients who could waltz in whenever, defined less by your productivity than by your availability (w…

> But that would cut into C-suite bonuses and dividends.

I beg to differ. I think, the mixture of work items as you describe is solely motivated on fear that employees may produce less if not under 8hours control in open plan office. The fear however may not have anything to do with the reality.

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#176

Post by ido »

WalterBright wrote: post #172
ido wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh man, either you have a completely different experience than me or you don't know what it's like working elsewhere. I'm Israeli & spent the last 6 years living in Germany. I lived in Austria for 8 years before that. Israel is quite a dog-eat-dog hyper-capitalism kind of economy, maybe not to the wild extent of the US but definitely closer to it than to Germany & Austria (the two countries have very similar culture/…

> Libertarian anti-working-class vitriol Libertarians are not anti-working-class.

Maybe anti-poor is a better description? Could also be that I only notice the assholes and the milder form of libertarians just don't stick out as much :)

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#177

Post by kugla123 »

Swizec wrote: post #146
Consultant32452 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, they don't need to have terrible wages. Do they though? Are daycare workers a healthy mix of educated men and women with a lot of other economic opportunities but choose to be daycare workers because of the pay or emotional rewards?

Where I’m from (slovenia) you need to major in kindergarten education to be a kindergarten teacher. So while the major is a little limited, it’s still a bachelors.

And starting wage is lowest as it can be - minimal wage.

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#178

Post by majewsky »

UglyToad wrote: post #154
wwn_se wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't understand this presumably American fixation with the 40 hour week. It's almost 10% longer than the default UK week which is already too long. Having worked both and currently on 36.75 there's still a huge amount of slack and wasted time assuming software development or other office jobs.

> I don't understand this presumably American fixation with the 40 hour week.

Not just America. We have elections coming up in Saxony (a state in East Germany), so I watched a 2-hour interview with the current MP from the conservative party (the same party as Angela Merkel). When it came to the topic of UBI and automation, he adamantly refused to consider any policy that would move away from the 40-hour work week. He meant that there were so many challenges ahead of us, we couldn't afford to lose any of our precious working hours. His mantra seems to be "Work harder, not smarter".

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#179

Post by lifeisstillgood »

malux85 wrote: post #102
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #98

I can measure my output quite effectively and could, if allowed by my boss, adjust my hours to ensure some constant level of output - ie work less when Inwas being more productive. However my boss cannot measure that output - it's generally too complex, too uncertain too ... software-y Until we fix that, which is possible, we are stuck with "work 8 hours"

Your boss cannot measure that, I would argue, because he's incompetent (assessing progress of subordinate is a primary management function) As a boss myself, if my developers finish early, they are free to go. I can read their code and pull requests, I know who is pulling their weight. When I worked at Google, all of my bosses (including project managers) could read code at a superficial level, and accurately assess…

I may have been too simplistic

1. The work is never finished. As such no matter how productive you are or not there is more to do. So when do you say "Ok go home early?"

2. My view of productive may differ from my boss - and that gets further afield as the hierarchy goes up - so let's say you were working on Google+ (insert corporate white elephant) - no matter how productive you were in the small, it was ultimately a waste.

3. Output can be measured by reading code, yes absolutely- but it can also be measured by outcome of code (ie the report now runs five tones faster)

these last two is measurement by value - and that gets hairy.

So it's not quite "pointy haired boss" is bad

So does google allow folks to go home early? it is that like the "as much holiday as you like" uncertainty ploy?

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#180

Post by majewsky »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #139
ido wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Germany, both my kids go to public kindergarten/daycare (there is no distinction between the 2 here, it starts when the child is 1 year old) & the kindergarten teachers are mostly German themselves. They don't earn great wages but they are not indentured servants either.

Right. So there's a large group of mostly women who accept low wages to store children so more privileged people can go earn higher wages.

If anything, the wages are so low because people like you consider these thankless hard jobs "child storage".
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