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> As early as the 1880s, Paul Lafargue, a son-in-law of Karl Marx, put forth the demand for a three-hour work day... If three-hour work day seemed feasible bac
by perfunctory 7y ago
> As early as the 1880s, Paul Lafargue, a son-in-law of Karl Marx, put forth the demand for a three-hour work day...
If three-hour work day seemed feasible back then it must be even more so today.
I think shorter working time is one of the most overlooked solutions to the climate catastrophe. And before you object by bringing up adverse economic effects, please consider that introducing 40-hour workweek did not collapse the economy.
"For example, in the U.S in the late 19th century it was estimated that the average work week was over 60 hours per week..."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time
- asark 7y agoI think three eights or four sixes (24 worked hours a week, either way) is a good goal to aim for, since it's the tipping point at which something other than paid work might dominate one's waking hours, while still leaving time for other normal activities and necessities.
- thrower123 7y agoI would rather work less longer days than more shorter days, under any scheme. Maybe in a world where I was working fully remote, it wouldn't matter, but the overhead of getting ready, commuting, and getting wound down again is a constant that doesn't vary significantly whether I work 12 hours or one.
- notahacker 7y agotbf I'm not sure the demands of a radical anarchist who wrote "The Right to Be Lazy" and quit practising medicine because he considered it quite useless are necessarily indicative of the practical feasibility of a 3 hour work day, then or now. Lafargue's the guy that was so uncompromising in his demands he put Marx off identifying as a Marxist! Not really seeing how a shorter work day alone saves the climate. Shorter shifts meaning more travel per unit of work completed could easily imply the opposite...