Posted on 01/12/2012 10:04:22 AM PST by AngelesCrestHighway
To save the world -- or really to even just make our personal lives better -- we will need to work less. Time, like work, has become commodified, a recent legacy of industrial capitalism, where a controlled, 40-hour week in factories was necessary. Our behavior is totally out of step with human priorities and today’s economy. To lay the foundations for a "steady-state" economy -- one that can continue running sustainably forever -- a recent paper argues that it’s time for advanced developed countries transition to a normal 21-hour work week. This does not mean a mandatory work week or leisure-time police. People can choose to work as long, or short, as they please. It’s more about resetting social and political norms. That is, the day when 1,092 hours of paid work per year becomes the "standard that is generally expected by government, employers, trade unions, employees, and everyone else."
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
But I guess some of us have to work hard to pay the taxes to support all the "work-shy" people out there.
These “save the world” socialist engineers are insane! They want to cut your consumption by cutting your pay check. It’s the same old mud hut and bicycle crowd for everyone while the likes of Nancy Pelosi still live in their mansions. These people want us to go backwards! GO TO HELL!
The author doesn’t realize that the 15 hour work week is already alive and well in the public sector. The main problem is that public sector employees get paid for 40 hours of work.
It goes to show you that no matter how smart you are, and how much education you have, you can still be a stupid ass!
Mike
It goes to show you that no matter how smart you are, and how much education you have, you can still be a stupid ass!
Mike
Why not? Look how well that has worked for the PIGS: Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal.
“When I pointed out that they simply wouldn’t do business on those terms, he said that the Government had to mandate it...”
typical communist answer...the government would have to mandate it. People like this make Art Bell look normal.
Same BS they tried in France - reduce the work week to 35 hours so that more people have to be hired to cover the schedule, if not the actual production.
I’d put it in the same category as laying off the bulldozer operator and hiring a hundred people with shovels. More people are working, right?
Why not give them spoons?
It takes an Ivy-League education to be this stupid.
>>Anyone putting in 40 hours or less in a week doesn’t make real money.
Anyone making ‘real money’ has half their income stolen by the government to buy the votes of crack-addled parasites.
The redefinition of productivity as ‘doing the same amount of work in less time’ as opposed to ‘doing more work in the same amount of time’ (thus freeing up time for innovation) is not necessarily socialist (e.g. ‘Atlas Shrugged’ or ‘Starving the Monkeys’)
You have obviously never worked in transportation.
Works for me. I can spend the added free tome coning and planking.
If the person is getting paid for piece work, by the unit produced, then your point makes sense. The required number of units were completed, therefore there’s no use in hanging around any longer than necessary.
If they are paid by the hour, and completed all of the ‘expected work’ in less time than had been allocated, and assuming that the person isn’t killing himself or shortchanging quality to do it, then the amount of ‘expected work’ is obviously set too low.
This makes no sense to me on any level. Less work time for most people means less pay. More free time for most people means spending more money.
That means overtime pay starts at 22 hours???? So I need to go from salary to hourly so I can get overtime pay for the additional 40 to 50 hours a week I normally work.
Welcome to "Back To The '50s," liberal style. Amazing how many of their "new" ideas are older than I am. It makes me want to ask, "Who's the Tory, morning glory?"
Maybe to save Obama....if everyone only works part time others will have to work the other 20 hours a week.
If an employer limits hours, he doesn’t have to provide benefits for his employees. Simple economics which has nothing to do with saving the world.
salaried engineers and many corporate jobs are difficult to model after 40 hour work weeks. Some weeks are 80 hours of inspiration and other weeks barely can squeeze out 16. For manual labor, sure, hourly dictates work, but not for thinking jobs.
These liberals are the Luddites of the 21st century. They can’t handle not being cavemen so they try to drag the rest of us down to their level.
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