5 ms·

There's always going to be a competitor who is willing to work 5 hours.

mc32 9y ago
Not a problem, just make it illegal and export the externalities. On the other hand, you're right if you mean workers abroad would be willing to work longer hours for less pay --be they overseas outsourced workers or otherwise. But, internally, at least, it could be made illegal to get over the competitive aspect out of the picture.
TwelveNights 9y ago
The question the article wants to address though is whether or not working longer is working better. Maybe 5 hours will produce more work than 4, but this is attacking our traditional 8 hour system with the concept that, in the long run, you may be as productive while working less hours. Then again, their last point about hunter-gatherers isn't very convincing, since our needs have dramatically changed in the last couple hundred years.
- mc32 9y ago
  I think people's natural tendency will be that if they can get away with 25% slack time now, they'll also take 25% slack time then, rather than halving their proportional slack time. Basically people adjust really quick to the new baseline.
zsd 9y ago
Preposterous. The inertia holding the 8-hour day in place is due to employers' not needing to change their ways, not due to some imagined environment where businesses compete on how much time is worked. Were that the case, there'd be such an effect now. Businesses don't seem to be driving 9-hour days. Some lawyers, doctors, and others do work that much, I will grant you that. But they're clearly the exception because they also make good money, had to work hard to become accredited, and generally clearly chose that kind of lifestyle rather than being forced into it. Sure, you could now claim 8 hours just happens to be the economic equilibrium. But then I invite you to reread this article.
- QAPereo 9y ago
  Lawyers in particular will happily bill as many hours as they can, generally speaking.
  - vostok 9y ago
    More specifically, partners will happily have their associates bill as many hours as they can.
jxramos 9y ago
I remember listening to Daniel Hannan throwing this number of the number of Germans it takes to work as many hours as an American. Maybe they're just more productive ;). "In the short term, what's not to like? But there comes a point when you realize that you've been funding this on credit, that you've been depending on external assistance, and that your productivity has fallen further and further behind until you've got to the stage that we've now reached where it takes 4 Germans to work the same hours as 3 Americans. And that in the long term that is just not sustainable. Europe now that it's in a globalized economy competing against China and India and indeed North America, finds that it is shrinking precipitously. In the 1970s, in 1974, Europe accounted for 36%, or Western Europe, for 36% of World GDP. Today it's 25%, 10 years from now it will be 15%. That is an extraordinary decline, over a period when the US share of world GDP has remained pretty steady, round about 26%. So there was always going to be a reckoning and I'm afraid that reckoning has come now." Daniel Hannan https://youtu.be/Ufyov9RO8I0?t=648 https://youtu.be/Ufyov9RO8I0?t=648
- cameldrv 9y ago
  The difference in work culture in Germany is large. Americans may spend more time at work than Germans, but Germans work more hours. Even friendly watercooler chats are kept to a minimum, and doing something like looking at Facebook on company time would be considered an infraction in a majority of German workplaces.
  - jrs235 9y ago
    This is the experience I had while visiting and working with German colleagues. They don't mess around at work. They get done in 4 hours what Americans do in 8.
  - majewsky 9y ago
    Really? I'm a German working in Germany and if you look at the timestamps on my comments, you'll see that a fairly significant proportion of those are made during work. I've seen plenty of coworkers trading Facebook or whatever, and people chit-chat all the time. Well, not everybody of course, but for example, my own morning routine involves visiting the coworkers at their desks to check on their work and coordinate, and that includes some friendly banter, of course.
ThomPete 9y ago
But it will not always be the most successful approach. Really depends on the type of business and project.
Aeolun 9y ago
There's also always going to be a competitor who is willing to work 10, 12 or even 14 hour days. That doesn't seem to hold back the businesses working 8 hours though.
- tomc1985 9y ago
  > That doesn't seem to hold back the businesses working 8 hours though. Because the competitor is a hardworking idiot who didn't realize that sort of thinking stopped being effective once computers took over.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- latigidigital 9y ago
  The extended workday is underrated. I'd much rather whip out two 16-hour days than waste all week accomplishing the same tasks.
DonbunEf7 9y ago
Since no other comment explicitly spelled it out fully: Why don't people work nine hours in the USA? The answer is very simple: Benefits, overtime, breaks, and other bits of labor law are written around an eight-hour day. This coerces employers and employees alike into preferring eight hours over seven or nine, simply as a matter of optimizing the business's need to pay out overtime with the employee's need to secure FTE benefits. If there were such a thing as a 20hr work week in law, not defined as part-time with no benefits, but defined as part-time with partial or full benefits, then I imagine that everybody's tune would change quite quickly and we would end up multimodal, with one peak at four hrs/day and another at eight hrs/day.
mdekkers 9y ago
There's always going to be a competitor who is willing to work 5 hours. Great, and as long as they will work 5 hours, and I will work 4, I know I will have the fresher, better ideas in the long run.

mc32 9y ago

Not a problem, just make it illegal and export the externalities. On the other hand, you're right if you mean workers abroad would be willing to work longer hours for less pay --be they overseas outsourced workers or otherwise. But, internally, at least, it could be made illegal to get over the competitive aspect out of the picture.

TwelveNights 9y ago

The question the article wants to address though is whether or not working longer is working better. Maybe 5 hours will produce more work than 4, but this is attacking our traditional 8 hour system with the concept that, in the long run, you may be as productive while working less hours. Then again, their last point about hunter-gatherers isn't very convincing, since our needs have dramatically changed in the last couple hundred years.

mc32 9y ago
I think people's natural tendency will be that if they can get away with 25% slack time now, they'll also take 25% slack time then, rather than halving their proportional slack time. Basically people adjust really quick to the new baseline.

zsd 9y ago

Preposterous. The inertia holding the 8-hour day in place is due to employers' not needing to change their ways, not due to some imagined environment where businesses compete on how much time is worked. Were that the case, there'd be such an effect now. Businesses don't seem to be driving 9-hour days. Some lawyers, doctors, and others do work that much, I will grant you that. But they're clearly the exception because they also make good money, had to work hard to become accredited, and generally clearly chose that kind of lifestyle rather than being forced into it. Sure, you could now claim 8 hours just happens to be the economic equilibrium. But then I invite you to reread this article.

QAPereo 9y ago
Lawyers in particular will happily bill as many hours as they can, generally speaking.
- vostok 9y ago
  More specifically, partners will happily have their associates bill as many hours as they can.

jxramos 9y ago

I remember listening to Daniel Hannan throwing this number of the number of Germans it takes to work as many hours as an American. Maybe they're just more productive ;). "In the short term, what's not to like? But there comes a point when you realize that you've been funding this on credit, that you've been depending on external assistance, and that your productivity has fallen further and further behind until you've got to the stage that we've now reached where it takes 4 Germans to work the same hours as 3 Americans. And that in the long term that is just not sustainable. Europe now that it's in a globalized economy competing against China and India and indeed North America, finds that it is shrinking precipitously. In the 1970s, in 1974, Europe accounted for 36%, or Western Europe, for 36% of World GDP. Today it's 25%, 10 years from now it will be 15%. That is an extraordinary decline, over a period when the US share of world GDP has remained pretty steady, round about 26%. So there was always going to be a reckoning and I'm afraid that reckoning has come now." Daniel Hannan https://youtu.be/Ufyov9RO8I0?t=648 https://youtu.be/Ufyov9RO8I0?t=648

cameldrv 9y ago
The difference in work culture in Germany is large. Americans may spend more time at work than Germans, but Germans work more hours. Even friendly watercooler chats are kept to a minimum, and doing something like looking at Facebook on company time would be considered an infraction in a majority of German workplaces.
- jrs235 9y ago
  This is the experience I had while visiting and working with German colleagues. They don't mess around at work. They get done in 4 hours what Americans do in 8.
- majewsky 9y ago
  Really? I'm a German working in Germany and if you look at the timestamps on my comments, you'll see that a fairly significant proportion of those are made during work. I've seen plenty of coworkers trading Facebook or whatever, and people chit-chat all the time. Well, not everybody of course, but for example, my own morning routine involves visiting the coworkers at their desks to check on their work and coordinate, and that includes some friendly banter, of course.

ThomPete 9y ago

But it will not always be the most successful approach. Really depends on the type of business and project.

Aeolun 9y ago

There's also always going to be a competitor who is willing to work 10, 12 or even 14 hour days. That doesn't seem to hold back the businesses working 8 hours though.

tomc1985 9y ago
> That doesn't seem to hold back the businesses working 8 hours though. Because the competitor is a hardworking idiot who didn't realize that sort of thinking stopped being effective once computers took over.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
latigidigital 9y ago
The extended workday is underrated. I'd much rather whip out two 16-hour days than waste all week accomplishing the same tasks.

DonbunEf7 9y ago

Since no other comment explicitly spelled it out fully: Why don't people work nine hours in the USA? The answer is very simple: Benefits, overtime, breaks, and other bits of labor law are written around an eight-hour day. This coerces employers and employees alike into preferring eight hours over seven or nine, simply as a matter of optimizing the business's need to pay out overtime with the employee's need to secure FTE benefits. If there were such a thing as a 20hr work week in law, not defined as part-time with no benefits, but defined as part-time with partial or full benefits, then I imagine that everybody's tune would change quite quickly and we would end up multimodal, with one peak at four hrs/day and another at eight hrs/day.

mdekkers 9y ago

There's always going to be a competitor who is willing to work 5 hours. Great, and as long as they will work 5 hours, and I will work 4, I know I will have the fresher, better ideas in the long run.