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Can't wait till this happens in North America. I hope we realize shorter work days and basic income in the next couple of decades. Then we will truly have a gol
by it_learnses 11y ago
Can't wait till this happens in North America. I hope we realize shorter work days and basic income in the next couple of decades. Then we will truly have a golden age.
- Havoc 11y agoI fully expect the US to be the very last to switch.
- pkaye 11y agoI don't think the US will ever switch at the federal (or even state) level. Any changes would be driven from the industry and individual company level.
- ItsDeathball 11y agoI'm thinking the lag time will be around the same as the metric system, so anywhere from 55 years to forever.
- knodi123 11y agoThat's reasonable. We've been the last on so many other progressive social changes.
- skwirl 11y agoI'm kind of Ok with letting other countries try this one out first. I'm receptive to the idea of basic income, but the potential unintended consequences seem terrifying.
- nickff 11y agoIf anyone is to try this, the states are ideal candidates. People can (and do) vote with their feet when states implement negative policies, which is one reason they are "laboratories of democracy". In addition, it is clear that they have the consitutional authority to do this (while the federal government does not).
- s73v3r 11y agoThere still is quite a few hurdles to switching states, not the least of which is having the money to do so, and the ability to find a job and housing in the new state. Usually those that are the most affected by bad policy are the least able to move.
- skwirl 11y agoIt feels like something that would fail if only one state did it. A lot of low income people would move to that state for basic income and the high income people seeing massive tax increases would leave. Then the system would collapse. At a country level it is much more difficult for people to come and go and countries have some control over who does come and go. It would be better tried by some European country.
- Havoc 11y ago>If anyone is to try this, the states are ideal candidates. I'm inclined to disagree. It'll be easier to implement in a place like say Canada or a northern European country where there is already wide acceptance of social support structures.
- eli_gottlieb 11y agoMore terrifying than the status quo, or the consequences of not implementing income supports for the working class under present and coming economic conditions? Really?
- skwirl 11y agoYes.
- pnut 11y agoUS businesses will do one better! 0-hour workweeks for everyone, the second robotic slaves are economically advantageous!
- protomyth 11y agoNo joke. People are already getting cut to 25 or less hours for health insurance reasons. I was told in a staff meeting that we might be going to a 4-day week with the cut in pay that entails since we will have a budget shortfall and our health insurance is going to do a 3x increase this next year.
- ljk 11y agoor never switch, like the metric system
- dsuth 11y agoAbout the same time they move away from the Imperial measurement system.
- agorabinary 11y agoA golden age of after-work creative and productive output? If you don't have the passion to create something meaningful with X amount of free-time, what will X+1 do for you?
- ryandrake 11y agoIf your current X=1, then you could probably do double with X+1.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Avalaxy 11y agoI think the US should focus on more paid vacations days for starters.
- works_remote_ 11y agoor time off in general. Just a small sample of the cruelty inflicted on people by many companies: - Significant other or child dies -- too bad, so sad, go without pay. - Having a kid? Hope you enjoy not being paid while you have that extra medical expenses, or being marginalized. Worst case? You get fired. - Sick? Sucks to be you. (More of an aside, but I never personally understood the reason why the economy doesn't better support having children. An every-increasing supply of future consumers is what drives a lot of economic expansion in this country.)
- nickff 11y ago>"the economy doesn't better support having children" What do you mean by "the economy"? It is not clear (to me) why employers should pay fertile people more than sterile ones, or those who dislike contraception more than those who use it. Incentivizing child-bearing as a means of increasing future sales is not a good investment, even if we assume that said company will be a going concern by the time the child becomes financially independent. The solution to most of your issues seems to be increasing the number of opportunities available to people; this would provide them options, and additonal competition between employers would improve treatment of employees. We already see that in-demand employees are treated very well; the key is to make everyone more productive, and increase demand for labor services. How this can be achieved is, of course, a topic of great debate.
- aianus 11y agoIf I don't want children of my own because they're ridiculously expensive, why should I subsidize yours? There's no reason a private employer should pay you more because you want a kid.
- Retra 11y agoChildren are not personal property, they are a cultural resource, and it is perfectly acceptable to make people invest in the important parts of their culture. If you don't like it, give back all your state-printed social-agreement-enforcing cash and make your own monopoly money to hoard. You, as a participant in an economy, have social responsibilities. Caring for the next generation is a big one.
- tsotha 11y agoWhere will we get the money for that? We're already trillions of dollars short on future obligations.
- knodi123 11y agoOur mounting debt is a real problem, no joke. But the ideas behind basic income and shorter work days do not inherently require our government to spend more than the already astronomical sums it's currently leaking.
- lukeschlather 11y ago"Trillions of dollars" doesn't really give any insight into the scope of the problem, it just suggests the number is really large. The scope of the problem is that we have about 1.5 years worth of GDP in debt. So, with yearly payments of 10% of GDP, we could pay down the debt in 15 years. Suppose through automation we increase productivity by 50%. We could shorten the work week by 25%, add a tax to pay down 10% of the debt each year, and still maintain exactly the same standard of living while paying down the national debt in 10 years. Point being, the United States has no shortage of money to pay down our obligations.
- nickff 11y agoThe obligations extend well beyond the debt. Social security, medicare, and medicaid will be much more costly than the debt for at least 20 years (at current levels). Public sector pensions are another huge non-debt liability.
- outside1234 11y agoNetflix will pioneer it by launching the 0 hour work day. And then firing the bottom 20% consistently of the people who work the least.
- noarchy 11y agoExcept these are companies choosing to shorten their work days. This isn't a top-down imposition by government. I suspect you are envisioning a 6-hour day, with government requiring overtime compensation beyond that. As for basic income, that's another discussion entirely.
- eitally 11y agoIn all honesty, many knowledge worker jobs in the US are already un-clocked. Essentially, the company has an expectation that a job gets done and the employee has an expectation that they'll generally speaking be present at the office roughly during core hours. The unspoken agreement is that this ends up being roughly 40 hours per week, with concessions made on the employee's part when things get tough and on the employer's part to offset the aforementioned extra time. Ultimately, this serves the employer's purposes more than the employees', but it's better than the bad old days of clock-in, clock-out. Imho, most managers [at least in tech companies, but not just the big name tech companies] operate this "just get your job done" way. This is especially common in the Bay Area where a fair number of folks have 1.5-2hr each way commutes.
- buildops 11y agoSo ultimately what hours do most tech/knowledge companies work in the US? 9-5? 9-6? I've also heard stories of 9-9 or worse but wonder how much is startup myth.
- chipsy 11y ago9-6(8 at office, lunch hour uncounted) is typical for an established company that is not experiencing a managerial crisis.
- perfunctory 11y agoNo need to wait for it to happen nation wide. You can already start applying it for yourself. Try to negotiate a 4days week next time. If you can't find any employer who would agree to that, accept standard 5days contract, but then take a day off every other week or something. I'm sure there is a lot people can do to reduce their work time (stress) without waiting for it to "happen" country wide.