How about eliminating advertising? Credit cards? mortgages? private cars? Credit cards, home loans, auto loans, education loans — Bitter Crank

Advertising is a way for the little guy to get ahead and be heard. Some people might ask what is wrong with this? Otherwise all you would know is X and Y big companies and not these other ones..

Loans are needed because they do not have the available capital at the time of purchase. What else would suffice in giving the owner the money to sell their property?

Here's the thing.. I agree with you in all this, but the change that would have to happen is related to how we think of income. Income has to be attached to some job-like entity in our current model.. If government took over all the things credit is doing with taxes, this would reduce the economic output and ultimately raise unemployment. But unemployment then shouldn't be attached with income to maintain this.. I am okay with that, but that is the piece of the puzzle you are missing. In your model it seems, employment is still tied to income..meanwhile you are advocating for policies which (at least in quantity output) reduces employment numbers.

This is why progressive nations need to put working hours caps into legislature: the preference for employers would be to have a smaller staff working longer hours: it keeps wages low, because there's a queue of people after your job. — Kenosha Kid

I think there should be more radical change. Income and employment should be severed. They are at odds to human happiness but are quite good for economic models that a priori rely on its own normative models as descriptive models. Economics is useful to an extent that ethics is useful to an extent. The moment though that economics pretends to be able to be descriptive, it becomes duplicitous. The very system it is looking at is built on the norms that it promotes.. You can never get out of its own self-induced models.

which seems to acknowledge the need for change. But you also seem to reject any answer that would require change. — Kenosha Kid

I am just trying to push people along, give them the opposing view, get to a place where everything is considered.

Having been an employer, and currently an employee, I believe the current method of compensation to be the main crux of the work week with reduction problem. As things are currently, an employee is not generally paid based on production or value to the company; we are paid on a "time for money" trade. I spend 12 hours at work, I get paid 11.08 hours (yep the company gets 0.92 hours of my time each shift with no compensation to me for it. I did not write the contract.) This modality results in the following fundamental problem: There is, outside of personal development, no motivation to increase efficiency in any way. The minimum acceptable level of performance to maintain employment is the maximum expectation of performance.

Example: When I was an apprentice, I made $16.50 an hour. Mike, at the same apprenticeship level as me, also made $16.50/hr. Over a 10 hour day I could wire 100 receptacles, and all would pass inspection. Mike could wire 75 receptacles and 15% would fail inspection and need to be redone. I was frequently sent to sites Mike had worked at to clean up his mess and make sure the work that had been done would actually function and pass inspection. Our pay cheques were identical, however our performance levels were far different. Mike met the requirements to not get fired, I exceeded them. We worked 40 hours a week, or more. Had we been paid for each receptacle that passed inspection, I would have made twice the amount that Mike made, which would have allowed me to work 50% less, with the same end result in pay, resulting in a shorter work week.

Even worse: when efficiency is punished, confirming to employees that working faster, and smarter will result in a net loss of income. Example: After completing my apprenticeship I worked for a small company and was sent out to do a security lighting wiring job. The quote for the job was $5000.00, with a time allotment of 40 hours labour (so I get paid $1000). My boss was terrible at estimates, and lazy to boot, so his quote was horribly wrong: the job took 2 hours total, not 40. The customer still had to pay the full quoted amount of the job (seriously), however, as there was no other work that week, I made $50.00 instead of $1000. Hard lesson learned. Had I been paid for the job, not the time on the job, the time off would have been much appreciated. As it was, I left the company shortly thereafter and began working for myself, and attempted to incorporate the lessons I had learned in running my own small business.

My model was simple enough: Employees are paid the industry standard rate (so minimum acceptable to attract an employee) when they met my minimum performance levels, however, if they exceeded performance levels they were increasingly rewarded in the form of a performance bonus. That was my theory, as that is what I felt had been missing from my previous positions: NO reward for achievement. After going through 18 employees (if you don't want to be at work, and so don't really work, you have no job with me) I had a few employees that were reliable enough to keep on, but none were interested in exceeding the minimum performance levels. Unfortunate, but ok, I know I work like a dog, and not everyone is going to want to do that. I hired one temporary employee for a single day job, out of town, long hours. I was clear with him before he signed on: We travel, we work until we are done, we come home. I anticipated the job to take 14 hours, plus travel, 18 hours each, all in. He agreed with the terms and we went to work. My estimate was wrong (it happens) the job took 24 hours, plus travel. And we did it, all of it, in one shot, as planned. At the 23 rd hour we were both in the trench, swinging shovels and picks, getting it done. I paid him in cash before I dropped him off, at the agreed upon hourly rate, which he was happy with. Then I doubled it, which stunned him. Then I offered him a full apprenticeship. NO bullshit 6 month trial period. If he wanted it we could do the paperwork the next day and he would start work at $18.00/hr, not the $10.00/hr minimum wage, and have $1.50/hr increases every 6 months until he capped out at $30.00/hr. Unfortunately for both of us, he was leaving the territory as he could not find decent work there and his fiancé had already left a few weeks earlier for the same reason. I have never made that offer to any other employee again, none seemed to be willing to work for it or really want it.

Now I am an employee, I make the same rate as everyone else in my area, with similar experience. We are paid for our time, not performance, or knowledge. Just time. A reduced work week now means a reduced income, so if you can afford it, a reduced work week is possible, otherwise, better be self employed and good at what you do.

I think there should be more radical change. — schopenhauer1

Sorry, that was descriptive, not prescriptive. I was describing what progressive nations are doing now.

The very system it is looking at is built on the norms that it promotes.. You can never get out of its own self-induced models. — schopenhauer1

Fair point. I've been thinking a lot about how we might have got to where we are (from equatorial hunter gatherers to global exploitative capitalists) and what paths are open to improve things. The best I can muster is pluralism. Our systems are totalitarian and difficult to move, requiring often bloody revolutions or (maybe, if we're lucky) catastrophe to be alterable even slightly. I think pluralism offers a chance to be more nimble.

I am just trying to push people along, give them the opposing view, get to a place where everything is considered. — schopenhauer1

Ah okay, I thought that was just you being a pessimist.

Ah okay, I thought that was just you being a pessimist. — Kenosha Kid

That I am, but this is more from Socratic methodology.. Consider opposing points, so they can be overcome and see if there is a stronger argument once the opposition is considered. To pretend that there is not (at least) two sides is foolhardy in any philosophical, political, or value-based endeavor.

I think there should be more radical change. Income and employment should be severed. — schopenhauer1

How does this synchronize with antinatalism?

How does this synchronize with antinatalism? — baker

Don't put people in the situation in the first place.. This is all post-facto stuff of course.

I mean, if you're not going to procreate and are not young anymore either, then why does it matter to you what happens to other people (such as whether they have a manageable work week and enough money)?

It's something most people deal with.. Why wouldn't it be discussed?

No, I'm asking you why do you, as an antinatalist, want to discuss it.

I answered here https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/625140 . So stop trolling ad homing or contribute to thread.

F.I.R.E.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZqBsLm7TuM

Heard of that?

Yes. I can see it working for some.

@Bitter Crank My sympathies and criticisms of all the forms of Marxism are nicely summed up by Bob Black here:

Better their incongruity, though than any extant version of leftism, whose devotees look to be the last champions of work, for if there were no work there would be no workers, and without workers, who would the left have to organize? — Abolition of Work, Bob Black

What a question! What a question! @schopenhauer1, I'm in awe at the breadth and depth your concerns. I have no problem imagining people raising issues that are, well, plain as the nose their faces but this matter of the workweek, only a person to whom details matter and who's genuinely interested in the welfare of people will notice. You're the real McCoy, I can tell you that. You should stand for president.

If you ask me, there's something horribly wrong with the 5 day workweek and 2 day weekend format. It seems to have been copy-pasted from a divine, Godly, work scehdule. God, as we all know, is omnipotent and we, lowly mortals, are, as far as I can tell, not! Something's off, don't you think?

I have no problem imagining people raising issues that are, well, plain as the nose their faces but this matter of the workweek, only a person to whom details matter and who's genuinely interested in the welfare of people will notice. You're the real McCoy, I can tell you that. You should stand for president. — TheMadFool

Is this sarcastic?

If you ask me, there's something horribly wrong with the 5 day workweek and 2 day weekend format. It seems to have been copy-pasted from a divine, Godly, work scehdule. God, as we all know, is omnipotent and we, lowly mortals, are, as far as I can tell, not! Something's off, don't you think? — TheMadFool

It's off because people have no imagination and fear change. Your mortgage says, "Can't fight it!".

I genuinely don't understand why an antinatalist would care about any worldly cause. If life as such is so bad that it would be better to never have lived at all, then why care about anything?

Probably the best method would be to lead by example rather than diktat. That way you don’t have to force people who want to work more, not less.

Reduce the work week for your employees. If people see that it works or is beneficial or gives you advantage, they might try to adopt it.

I genuinely don't understand why an antinatalist would care about any worldly cause. If life as such is so bad that it would be better to never have lived at all, then why care about anything? — baker

As I told you, because once already born, there's still a life to live. We are not promortalist, If you are going to ad hom/troll me, do it somewhere else. In other words, if you have nothing to say about the subject at hand, go fuck yourself and troll somewhere else (aka stop posting on this thread with the same question I have already answered.. aka stop ad homing with the same question about why I make questions at all on a philosophy forum other than antinatalism). You are not clever. You are not putting me in my place about being an antinatalist. You are not being cute. You are not doing anything. You are just annoying. If that was the goal, give yourself a pat on the back and move and annoy someone else.

Reduce the work week for your employees. If people see that it works or is beneficial or gives you advantage, they might try to adopt it. — NOS4A2

Fair enough, Ford's model of 40 hours lead to the Fair Labor Act in 1938 and 1940. The problem is the problem with most of these type of experiments.. Who wants to be the model? I do know that there are some companies such as listed here: https://buildremote.co/four-day-week/4-day-work-week-companies/

Maybe that will start a trend.. The problem is the disparity of white collar and blue collar.. but the even deeper problem is the idea that we need to make more output. Either more efficient output methods need to take place, or people must demand less it seems. Certainly owners of companies would want neither as unlimited growth of the company is usually the preferred mode of any business. Too many workers eats into profits, so that isn't much of a solution either to reduce work hours.

*sigh*

Without a comprehensive big picture view, it's not possible to come up with meaningful and viable solutions to a problem.

Marx gave us some valuable insights into the workings of the capitalist economy. Leftists, on the other hand, not so much -- especially in the last 40 years. During the 1930s, Communists helped organize unions and participated in the black struggle in the south. Then the Stalin-Ribbentrop treaty, and some communists discovered they were "premature anti-fascists". Crazy! (Uncle Karl said, "History repeats itself first as tragedy, second as farce".)

I identify as an old-style American socialist--reference Eugene Debs, d. 1926. "The left", as it exists in academia, identity politics, Portland, OR, et al has become a farce. Not much left of that version of the left -- a few old guys.

As to work, the past of work, the future of work... I've been bitching about work for decades. Modifying a quote from Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Workers (whose work is houses of hospitality for the poor and homeless and peace) "I commend work, and I abhor it."

Work that is an expression of the individual person's (not 'worker's) creativity and energy is a good thing. Digging up the soil and planting a garden is good work. Stoop labor from dawn till dusk cultivating crops for ConAgra is grim and dehumanizing. Sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day screwing around with meaningless data is soul killing, even if it isn't as bad as stoop labor. Doing charitable work that is funded for the sake of appearances alienates the better angels of our nature. On and on.

What it will take to reduce the work week is a seizure of power from the plutocratic kleptocracy by The People, and following through on abandoning all of the falsity of consumer culture (which has been cultivated by the capitalists for well over a century) and engaging in what might be an agonizing appraisal of what is good and worth keeping, and what is not.

Seizing the wealth and power of the Plutonic-kleptocrats will be extraordinarily difficult, so in the meantime, I recommend people who can do so, reduce their needs and wants so that they can keep themselves afloat on less the 40 hours per week, maybe 30, maybe 25. This is no easy thing, especially after 40 years of inflation and stagnant wages. It's like unto impossible in high-cost areas, like San Francisco, NYC, LA, Washington D.C., Boston, etc.

Antinatalism comes in handy for young people trying to do this. Raising a family pretty much forces one to work however much one can, and that still might not be enough,

Antinatalism comes in handy for young people trying to do this. Raising a family pretty much forces one to work however much one can, and that still might not be enough, — Bitter Crank

Absolutely. Having a child is an ascent to the current system. It is saying "I want to replicate/continue what is going on currently". The problem is nigh intractable. How does one make and distribute goods and services? We have created the carrot and stick of trying to achieve a middle class 40 hour work week. This is what we replicate over and over.

My point however, in providing the FDR article, is that the 40 hour work week was a concerted effort. Why can't it happen again? It happened in 1940. If businesses didn't lose their shit and cause him political problems, he might have gotten 30 hours, which was the original proposal.

"I need a dwelling, goods, and services. I must get this from income. Income is from working X, Y, Z jobs. Don't like it? Out of luck. But hey, if you don't mind it, keep reproducing it to another generation. Don't think too much.. keep replicating..."

Is this sarcastic? — schopenhauer1

No! It was meant in earnest. The issues that you raise bespeak a sincerity and dedication to a certain brand of philosophy and although I might disagree with you on that, I certainly am impressed by how deeply you've thought about the issues pertinent to it. Kudos to you.

It's off because people have no imagination and fear change. Your mortgage says, "Can't fight it!". — schopenhauer1

Yup! People are blind to the suffering they endure. I believe/suspect they've become habituated to it. I had a colleague who suffers from chronic migraine - he got used to it, so much so that he's restructured his life to factor in his rather debilitating ailment.

For my money, antinatalism is a philosophy, a way of thinking, that has a critical role in the way the world will look in the future. Being highly sensitive to pain/suffering, antinatalists seem to be just what we need - a reliable and powerful detector of problems humanity faces - and this would prove extremely useful to us in many different ways.

You guys have a nose for sorrow. The big issues - poverty, disease, aging, etc. - everyone notices but it takes a hardcore, true-blue antinatalist to sniff out the smaller but no less painful...er...difficulties we face. Keep up the good work.

Good day!

Antinatalism comes in handy for young people trying to do this. — Bitter Crank

How? Reducing the work week is a complex problem requiring a long-term perspective in order to be solved. Antinatalists, on principle, can't have such a long-term perspective.

For complex, large-scale problems, a convincing reply to the question "Why?" is needed.
Why do we want a shorter work week?
Why do we want to stop global warming?
Why do we want sustainable energy?

Fortunately or unfortunately, long-term projects like that require future thinking, several generations ahead. At the end of the day, people only really care about their children, if even that, while other considerations are too abstract to generate much momentum for long-term, complex, large-scale change.

@Bitter Crank
I thought you’d appreciate this one
https://existentialcomics.com/comic/418

... plutocratic kleptocracy ... power of the Plutonic-kleptocrats ... — Bitter Crank

:up:

Slaveholders —> pro shareholders —> contra stakeholders <- -> contra (the slave/automata system) plutocratic kleptocracy?
or pro (divided & conquored) identity politics?
or pro (divisive & coopted) populist reaction?

Even worse: when efficiency is punished, — Book273

The lessons of TQM. Greek hoplites in phalanx formation and modern managers in Total Quality Management know the same thing, that the better and the worse both are the enemy of the good, the good being the goal all are working toward. Not the right lesson for all endeavors, but a lesson that ought to be taught before being blind-sided by it.

And the world full of ignorant fools like the superintendent of schools in a community that had a high opinion of itself who told a large group of graduating teachers, candidates for employment, that in his school system the real work day for most teachers began after regular classes ended for the day with extra duties. And that all their teachers were above average! The only cure for such people being attrition!

... I recommend people who can do so, reduce their needs and wants so that they can keep themselves afloat on less the 40 hours per week, maybe 30, maybe 25. This is no easy thing, especially after 40 years of inflation and stagnant wages. It's like unto impossible in high-cost areas, like San Francisco, NYC, LA, Washington D.C., Boston, etc. — Bitter Crank

Quite often what seems hard is easier than expected. Maybe this is truer for me than others due to mindset though? I generally expect something, leaning toward horrific, for any plan I have. Then things appear much easier than I thought.

A lot of people are simply not willing to take a risk and many more simply keep on keeping on hoping to stumble upon someone they love and pursue that instead of pursuing something that doesn't generally make them completely miserable and seeing where that takes them.

People find it incredibly difficult to have an honest conversation with themselves (myself included). If you REALLY want to reduce your working hours you have to ask yourself why and what benefits there are from this. Followed by 'would I be willing to take advantage of these benefits or squander them?'

@schopenhauer1

I've been out of work now for months (due to the pandemic) and I'm not that bothered about work as I have enough saved to keep myself going. When I was working prior to the pandemic I was working 25 hrs a week and taking a holiday (for 7-10 days) roughly every 3 months. People who live back in my country of birth find it hard to get their head around that I can do this. It can be done but the simple truth is many are not willing to move out of their comfort zones.

It seems too many get stuck wanting things that don't really serve any significant benefit (short or long term) because people are - as a I said - not very willing to have a conversation with themselves.

Can hours be reduced? Yes, if the public simply refuse to bend to the will of the employers and take control of their situation in some little way. Much easier for some than others, but imo it is usually easier than people think (not that it is EASY though). The true difficulty is understanding the use of failure and understanding because it has to be worked for doesn't mean it is not worth it.

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