the Protestant work ethic — schopenhauer1
What would it take to reduce the work week? — schopenhauer1
What would it take to reduce the work week? — schopenhauer1
IF workers owned the means of production, and IF production were for need and not profit, then a 40 hour work week would be an anachronism. Unfortunately, workers do not own the means of production. — Bitter Crank
Among the earlier generations of Lutherans, Calvinists, et al, these were vital issues. What percent of the population, do you think, actually know who John Calvin or Martin Luther were and what they taught? — Bitter Crank
A reduction in hours worked has to be accompanied at the same time by a significant increase in wages and benefits, else the worker is just further impoverished. — Bitter Crank
Whether or not it has anything to do with Protestantism, [don't Catholics work as hard as Lutherans?] most people seem to believe that working is a good thing. They do well to think positively about work, because not having an income means having a pretty bad life. There's nothing particularly Protestant about that. — Bitter Crank
And so then they join another company or try to start their own, which works out all the time of course. — schopenhauer1
What would it take to reduce the work week? — schopenhauer1
Dramatically changing the values people live by, so that everyone works 20 hours at most, but everyone has a job, albeit a low paying one, and people live in modest cirumstances, three generations per home. And have fewer or no children, until the human population reduces to an economically viable level. — baker
Good luck with reducing the work week! — baker
Work is required to maintain existence. Food has to be grown, clothing has to be made, shelter has to be built. A lot of work has to be done before we can move on to arts and crafts. — Bitter Crank
Can mechanization and automation deliver the basic requirements and allow us the leisure of hunter gatherers? — Bitter Crank
Simplify, simplify, simplify--both an end and a means. — Bitter Crank
A truism which certain other philosophies bypass. But I won't say it. — schopenhauer1
Service jobs and maintaining the machines themselves... probably not. — schopenhauer1
The CEO believes that a rising tide raises all ships.. Simplifying then makes no sense. — schopenhauer1
QUESTION: For most of our history, hunter-gatherers managed this task and didn't spend anywhere close to 40 hours a week doing it. Can mechanization and automation deliver the basic requirements and allow us the leisure of hunter gatherers?
Around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago there was a critical shift: We started domesticating plants and animals, doing agriculture, and living in large groups in one place. Some anthropologists think that humans were one of the animals that got domesticated by a brand new power elite. From there it has been down hill ever since--for the average non-elite human. Exploiting other humans has proved to be a reliable way of getting ahead in the world--not since the industrial revolution, but since the agricultural revolution of 10,000 years ago. — Bitter Crank
I don't think we all have to spend 40 hours a week 'reproducing and maintaining society', but life in the global society has to be simplified, especially for 1st world people. We need to stop doing a lot of the stuff we are doing that is aimed at keeping the economy revved up--advertising, marketing, promotion, selling, financing, upward mobility, ceaseless acquisition of new gadgets (be it a fancier watch or a bigger Tesla) and so on.
Simplify, simplify, simplify--both an end and a means. — Bitter Crank
In a highly integrated technocapitalist civilization, that would take something like (I prefer) restructuring the global nation-state system to institutionalize macro-incentives for international economic democracies supplimented by community-based time banking. (Yeah, I know, this will never happen.) Otherwise, it can be done, I suppose, far less equitably by accelerating automation (which is already happening, just hasn't reached the permanent unemployment crisis threshold yet) or, less humanely, by crashing the global population to around 2 billion (i.e. state-sanctioned antinatal programs!) in order to severely reduce mass consumption demand from the current magnitude β or both in tandem.What would it take to reduce the work week? — schopenhauer1
For the rest of us, the essential tasks of raising food, making clothing, and making (or maintaining) shelter still requires a relatively small amount of time. We donate vast amounts of time to the CEO and his ilk -- parasites all. — Bitter Crank
Most people find this idea no more appealing than antinatalism. We are about equally out of step with the rest of the world. — Bitter Crank
Fair question. I don't think it is the Protestant Work Ethic that holds this in place so much as capitalism and faith of free market economics - every bit as religious as Religion. — Tom Storm
Mind you, as David Graeber (Bullshit Jobs: A Theory) points out that there are many, many men and women in 40 hour a week jobs that do 7 hours of actual work. — Tom Storm
ic democracies supplimented by community-based time banking. (Yeah, I know, this will never happen.) Otherwise, it can be done, I suppose, far less equitably by accelerating automation (which is already happening, just hasn't reached the permanent unemployment crisis threshold yet) or, less humanely — 180 Proof
Are you talking about the idea of simplicity? — schopenhauer1
It is still true that simplifying life, whenever, wherever, however possible would give us more time to live. — Bitter Crank
what is the difference of a worker working for a state entity and worker working for a private entity in terms of exploitation? — schopenhauer1
Can you give examples? — schopenhauer1
Yep, but the idea that one should not reduce work because it somehow confers a sort of virtue, is what I mean.. — schopenhauer1
In a more mundane sense Bitter Crank is right.. what can happen is employers pay workers the same or more but reduce hours.. In other words, reduction in hours does not equate to reduction in pay, they have to be inverse. — schopenhauer1
But we like our plumbing, heat, cars, roads, electrical grid.. etc. etc. endless blather.. just think STEM fields. We like our movies, our popular music, etc. etc. We like our electronics.. we like our easy to obtain items from online or department stores.. The CEO would just say that their fiefdom provides for us the "free time" in our non-work time to enjoy all that stuff. — schopenhauer1
What would it take to reduce the work week? — schopenhauer1
None whatsoever.
Please note: my socialist alternative does not exchange working for a capitalist pig with working for a state pig. The third possibility is the worker-owned, worker-managed economy. We don't have a lot of experience with this approach, but we have some--cooperatives, for instance. — Bitter Crank
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