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Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days

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Re: Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days

#21

Post by agf »

Chinjut wrote: post #17
scarmig wrote: post #16

I wonder what a plausible model for productivity by hours work is, and whether it varies by occupation. Especially for piecemeal labor, after getting to the point where you maintain your baseline level of skill (say, 10 hours/week?), it seems like each marginal hour will have less productivity than the previous. It probably never drops to negative, unless we're talking 80 hour weeks. It's less clear to me that the sa…

How is a lowered retirement age a raw deal for people who die before they retire?

Not the poster nor am I endorsing this, just explaining it. Everyone who works full time would benefit from a shorter work week. Only people who live to retire benefit from a lower retirement age. So if you're considering the two policies as alternatives, then one is definitely a raw deal for people who die early. Given relatively few people die after starting to work full time but before retirement age, I don't think that's the issue with this proposal.

Re: Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days

#22

Post by Chinjut »

IGotThroughIt wrote: post #18
ljm wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well he’s not wrong. We’re all dead at the end. What is your impression of mortality?

Do you honestly believe that he meant it in a literal sense? You as well as I know that he meant it would be better to emphasize on short term plans as opposed to long term plans. It is simply a question of time preference and I'm simply saying that he would therefore not be best placed to make plans for our grandchildren. He'd be inclined optimize for the present as opposed to the future especially when we're resour…

Do you honestly believe Keynes' point with this pithy aphorism was that short-term plans are always superior to long-term plans? The fuller quote is "But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task, if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us, that when the storm is long past, the ocean is flat again.". He was pushing back on the use of a theory of long-term economic equilibrium in predicting day-to-day conditions, not expressing a preference to screw one's grandchildren over for present gains.

Re: Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days

#23

Post by IGotThroughIt »

Chinjut wrote: post #15
IGotThroughIt wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for myself as a mobile and wed dev so I have my clients who pay my bills and several apps I'm working on in parallel.

The number of hours you volunteer to put into working for yourself is, frankly, completely irrelevant to the issue of hours demanded by a boss from their employees, who surely have things in their life they'd rather be doing with their time. Using the former as a way to argue that the latter should be kept high is an uncharitable mentality.

If you've run a business you'd know that the hours demanded by a boss are far less than those required to be successful as an enterprise owner. I've been in both worlds and it isn't easier because you own the business.

It's all work at the end of the day and it is not easy. It's hard but we get to choose the direction our life takes while weighing the costs, benefits and risks involved.

Re: Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days

#24

Post by dragonwriter »

IGotThroughIt wrote: post #10
choward wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seriously enjoy your work so much that you don't have anything you would rather be doing? Not even a side project? You must be working on the coolest thing ever.

I work for myself as a mobile and wed dev so I have my clients who pay my bills and several apps I'm working on in parallel.

> I work for myself as a mobile and wed dev

This issues is about proletarian labor (rented by a capitalist in an employment relation) not petit bourgeois labor (applied to one’s own capital in an independent business.)

Servile and self-directed labor aren't the same thing.

Re: Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days

#25

Post by dementik »

This is partly untrue.

PM Marin has proposed this idea as "utopia" in August 2019. When she presented this vision, she was not yet PM.

Additionally, she proposed 6 hour work-day OR 4 work-day week, not AND.

It is kind of weird that here in Finland this was "nice idea, but probably problematic to implement" when this was on the news in August. And now it pops out in not-so-respected news media like this.

Re: Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days

#26

Post by chadcmulligan »

SuddsMcDuff wrote: post #14

I don't think it should be assumed that less time at work is necessarily preferable. What will people do with all their additional spare time? Sure, they might spend their days learning art, history, philosophy. They might take up writing poetry, painting or learning the piano. Or, they might vegetate in front of the TV, take up drinking as a hobby, argue with strangers online and slowly decay into existential nihili…

Yes, we should be working 10 or 12 hour days, you never know when the devil will leap in.

What we really need to do is enforce the separation of church and state and keep the religious arguments out of political debate.

Re: Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days

#27

Post by notJim »

IGotThroughIt wrote: post #20
generalpass wrote: post #8

Just looking over her Wikipedia article it's not clear to me she's ever been involved in managing a business.

This is exactly my point. I honestly don't know how anything would ever get done with this kind of attitude. I'm not saying that we should overwork our labor force but what we have now seems fairly optimal.

Area capitalist opposes increased rights for labor

Re: Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days

#28

Post by Jedd »

IGotThroughIt wrote: post #23
Chinjut wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of hours you volunteer to put into working for yourself is, frankly, completely irrelevant to the issue of hours demanded by a boss from their employees, who surely have things in their life they'd rather be doing with their time. Using the former as a way to argue that the latter should be kept high is an uncharitable mentality.

If you've run a business you'd know that the hours demanded by a boss are far less than those required to be successful as an enterprise owner. I've been in both worlds and it isn't easier because you own the business. It's all work at the end of the day and it is not easy. It's hard but we get to choose the direction our life takes while weighing the costs, benefits and risks involved.

> It's hard but we get to choose ...

This is the crux of a state mandated shorter work week.

In Australia, the default is between 35 and 40 hours, 5 days a week.

Some people work more hours, some fewer. A proposal to change the standard wouldn't affect that arrangement.

People who enjoy working longer hours, say for a pursuit they enjoy or endorse, or like you to build up their own wealth at a much faster rate, likely wouldn't be affected by such a policy change.

I do hope you're not suggesting that your personal preferences should inform proposed policy changes like this?

Re: Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days

#29

Post by IGotThroughIt »

notJim wrote: post #27
IGotThroughIt wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly my point. I honestly don't know how anything would ever get done with this kind of attitude. I'm not saying that we should overwork our labor force but what we have now seems fairly optimal.

Area capitalist opposes increased rights for labor

I've been a laborer too so I'm not arguing against laborers' rights. Labor and capital are symbiotic; one without the other would not function as efficiently as they do now.

We're doing okay with what we have is all I'm saying. Perpetually being in a state of revolution doesn't help anyone especially when things are going great. 40 hours seems fair to me; 24 hours doesn't.

I'm hard pressed to believe work would get completed in such a short time. We'd all be poorer for it.

Re: Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days

#30

Post by bborud »

A six hour day is plenty if you actually work and if you have a bit of discipline. Most people don't. They spend much of their day just goofing off - wasting their own time and often the time of their coworkers.

I bet most of you reading this do not spend 8-10-12 or whatever number of hours you claim to be at work actually working productively. You goof off often as much as half the time. Possibly more if you work for someone else.

_Work_ when you are at work.

If you are not actually working or if you are tired and unfocused: go home. If you are disciplined about this you will outperform those who spend more hours at work _easily_.

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