Posted 6 years, 11 months ago around lunchtime by oso
At the outset of the Great Depression in 1930 Keynes wrote an essay entitled “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren” in which he declared that the economic problem, in the sense of meeting subsistence needs of everyone in the rich societies, might be solved in a hundred years. The issue would then become one of how to deal with leisure as the work week declined to three hours a day, a total of fifteen hours a week. At that point, he claimed, a new moral code might develop to bring society “out of the tunnel of economic necessity into the daylight.” Until then, however, the world would have to stick to an alienated moral code in which “fair is foul and foul is fair,” that is, one based on the greed and exploitation associated with the accumulation of capital.
The End of Rational Capitalism
The 15 hour work week suits me just fine. Maybe I should sleep in for the next 25 years.
As a constant confrencer, do you find it hard to...
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As it has always been for those against free markets and capitalism, the “problem” still remains: how do we punish those who’d want to work 4 hours a day?
Instilling mediocrity into such an upwardly-striving and innovative species as our own is tough.
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It was three hours a day Derek.
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Actually, if you want to get by on 15 hours a week you probably already could. Of course this would mean living a life with a standard of living comparable to 100 years ago when the average person made less than $4000 in today’s dollars. Working 15 hours a week at $5.12 an hour (wages unheard of at the time) puts you right about there.
But obviously that standard of living would mean no iPods, no blogs, no cell phones, no cars, no flights to Mexico, and no non-fat caramel lattes. Not to mention that back then there were no cures for things like polio, tuberculosis, and whooping cough which killed both rich and poor.
People work more for a reason, we gain more from wages than we lose in leisure time. Of course everyone is free to determine that cut-off for themselves, but I think I know what life you would prefer Oso.
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It’s the non-fat caramel lattes that I wouldn’t be able to give up.
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In that case make it 15 and a half hours a week and you are set…
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I understood you, Oso. I’m saying the anticapitalists won’t have a problem when 3 hour workdays are the standard if they penalize sufficiently those who’d want to work 4 hours (or more), and [gasp] produce more goods/research longer/write longer/create longer/earn more money.
Perhaps make a law that says any hours worked longer than 3 and your pay will not only be distributed to the proletariat, but you will be docked pay for being a rightist deviationist and an enemy of the people.
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Derek, my apologies. I blame the 40 hour work week for not allowing enough time to practice my reading comprehension. Anyway, yes, docking pay seems like a pretty sound solution for those god damned work horses.
Or better, we could force them to do something completely unproductive like weblogging.
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i currently only work four hours a day, four or five days out of the week and i really like it. i left a full-time job with benefits last november and my income is now a fourth of what it used to be. i don’t get to spend my money on four dollar lattes anymore but its okay i have my life back–more time to be creative and the luxury to do nothing if i feel like it. sadly the situation that the excerpt describes above sounds too ideal to ever be achieved, i don’t think we are ever going to be faced with too much leisure time.
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Four dollar lattes are all about the media trying to lead you around by the nose. Instead you should lead yourself around by the nose. You are much better off starting your own business and working the number of hours you want to work. It’s also good for society – you set a good example.
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[...] more.” I thought that was pretty smart. And it reminds me of a comment Peter left a few posts ago saying we could easily live a comfortable life – according [...]