>>That’s what I meant about the standard 40 hour week(middle class tax), as with houses, some work less and some work more, some have more amenities and more land. But there is a median, taxes are structured for taxation goals - how would it work with a ‘perfect world’ 25 hour week?
Going to a shorter work week requires several paradigm shifts. The first is “what do people do with the time off?” If they use the time off to drive around and spend money, then we’ll have a problem. If we spend the extra time volunteering, going to school, and actually raising our own kids for a change, then the time will be benficial to society.
The second is “pay people for what they do and not the hours they work.” This will take a lot of rethinking on the part of employees and employers. This is the hardest change.
The third is “learn to live on less”. People will need to live on less money when they work less hours, unless they are smart and productive. You are correct that the government will have a problem with that and will try to shift taxes accordingly. But, moving to a consumption tax instead of income tax does a lot to fix this problem.
Now, to the honest, there is as much chance of this working as there is for most Christians to behave like Christ. But the current system is destroying our humanity and has been for a long time. Perhaps the two are related, since a person who works as cog in a machine for 40+ hours a week, with another 10 hours stuck in traffic driving to their job as a cog at the same time as all the other cogs has a hard time getting in touch with their spirituality.
If we could solve those 3 problems I listed, we might just become better people than the industrial robots we are today.
With cell phones and connectivity to the office Virtual Network, people work a lot of off-hours, still checking emails.
It’s almost like being permanently “on call”. There is the expectation now that people are checking their emails throughout the day even while they aren’t in the office. The lines are getting even more blurred.