>Capitalism did not give you a weekend. Capitalism did not give you a workday that ends after 8 hours. Both of those things were offered by Ford (and others) w

>Capitalism did not give you a weekend. Capitalism did not give you a workday that ends after 8 hours. Both of those things were offered by Ford (and others) without federal law forcing it as a way to attract the best workers away from his competitors, and as companies saw it worked, many followed suit. They've been obtained in many countries without using labor unions to force the govt to legislate them. Unions in the US fought for them, but those things were likely coming anyways as people got richer through producing more goods. And there are enough cases of those things being offered in non-union places long before federal law that it's not honest to say they are here solely because unions. The point is unions did not solely give us those things, or they would not also appear in places without such a labor movement. Many factors contributed to these things, unions, more production, i.e., more wealth for everyone, which are results of lot of pieces of progress. >Working hours are longer [0]. Americans working more then other OECD countries is not the result of unions or capitalism. It's culture. Hours worked has fallen as wages rose over the past few hundred years, wages rose because people became more productive. [1] China is a perfect example of how capitalism, not labor laws, release people from work and given them leisure and money. Under communism, there is ample labor law, which is the point of communism - all men are equal and all share. China got a two day weekend without needing unions to fight it through, they got more vacation, etc. [2] This is a result of the people making more, giving them more power, which is a result of people being more productive. It was not labor union there obtaining these things. As they've opened to capitalism, allowing growth by more efficient allocation of capital, the everyday person has vastly improved quality of life. The same pattern played out in USSR->Russia for a while, which then went back some on the capitalism part. India did the same. Other countries followed suit. [1] https://eh.net/encyclopedia/hours-of-work-in-u-s-history/ https://eh.net/encyclopedia/hours-of-work-in-u-s-history/ [2] https://confuciusmag.com/chinese-leisure-life https://confuciusmag.com/chinese-leisure-life