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And I bet most of us will still be working a 5 day week, despite all the savings from automation.

sak5sk 7y ago
This doesn't have to be the case. It is up to new business owners to decide how much their employees should work, what they should make and how often they should take vacations. Anyone can set an example at any time. As far as I know there is nothing to stop anyone from setting their own standards for fewer working days, shorter days, better pay, more vacations.
- adamsea 7y ago
  It’s also up to the law
  - sak5sk 7y ago
    Is there a law that says I can't pay you a full time's salary for 20 hours a week instead of 40?
    - bluGill 7y ago
      The law of competition. Assuming that your employees are less productive overall on a 20 hour week, the competition paying get a 40 hour week gets more done for their money and thus are cheaper for their customers. There are a lot of assumptions in there. Getting everybody to work 168 hour weeks (24x7) seems like it should be even better, but it turns out that as you get close to that workload your employees are less productive. Fatigue will ensure your useful productivity is less than someone working somewhat lesser hours who is allowed to sleep. (I'm going to assume you require your people eat at their desk, otherwise starvation will kill them) You also lose because if there is even a rumor that other companies allow their people who have a life they will quit, and replacing people cost productivity. We can take the opposite extreme: you work 1 hour per week. At this point your productivity is very low because you can never get "in the zone", and in fact your entire hour at work is spend just trying to remember what you do. Someplace in the middle is the sweet spot. 20 hour weeks may be worth it - perhaps you can pay your people half as much and still give them as much income as they want, and still get the productivity you need to compete. Perhaps you can justify paying as much for 20 hours as your competitors pay for 40 hours because you employees enjoy that extra time and so they don't quit - you get better productivity because you don't have to teach them new things. Each company needs to figure it out. in general society has settled on 40 hour weeks as a good number. There is no legal law making it best, but considering the compromises it isn't a bad number.
      - ghaff 7y ago
        And people are used to what they're used to. Would a lot of people prefer to work 4 days a week all other things being equal? Sure. But a lot fewer would be interested in earning 80% (or maybe less when the cost of benefits are taken into account) of their salary especially given that their partner/friends/kids/etc. would probably not have that time off. And working 5 days a week most weeks just seems pretty normal. As you say, Western society seems to have settled on that as a fairly reasonable number with the main variation in how much vacation people get on top of that.
      - lotsofpulp 7y ago
        >in general society has settled on 40 hour weeks as a good number. There is no legal law making it best, but considering the compromises it isn't a bad number. It might be a bad number going forward, considering the widening income/wealth divides.
- nwsm 7y ago
  It's not about setting an example. Companies optimize for profit and shareholder return. We aren't just waiting for one visionary company to show all the others that it's possible to keep the same number of, pay them the same, and have them work less hours. We are waiting for regulation of automation to spread the benefit. We could fund a UBI or better unemployment by taxing some % of the total benefit of automation.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  It's not up to businesses, it's up to the government. Businesses have to compete with one another. Hence the need for standards that apply to everyone, so the game is being played with certain requirements, such as environmental, food safety, work hours, etc.
Frost1x 7y ago
It's a system of perpetual indentured servitude based largely on factors you had no control of by your birth and have virtually no control of after. As long as most peoples' basic needs are met and there's a carrot in front of them promising someday they'll have it better/easier, people will keep on running towards that carrot and maintain the status quo.
- marcusverus 7y ago
  Are you trapped in the 1940s Soviet Union? Here in the present day, the vast majority of people have the option to live in low COL areas and work part time and yet most people don't choose to do this. That's not because 'The System' is keeping them down, it is because they prefer to trade more time for more money, stuff, and security.
refurb 7y ago
Unless you want your standard of living to stagnate, yes you do.

This doesn't have to be the case. It is up to new business owners to decide how much their employees should work, what they should make and how often they should take vacations. Anyone can set an example at any time. As far as I know there is nothing to stop anyone from setting their own standards for fewer working days, shorter days, better pay, more vacations.

adamsea 7y ago
It’s also up to the law
- sak5sk 7y ago
  Is there a law that says I can't pay you a full time's salary for 20 hours a week instead of 40?
  - bluGill 7y ago
    The law of competition. Assuming that your employees are less productive overall on a 20 hour week, the competition paying get a 40 hour week gets more done for their money and thus are cheaper for their customers. There are a lot of assumptions in there. Getting everybody to work 168 hour weeks (24x7) seems like it should be even better, but it turns out that as you get close to that workload your employees are less productive. Fatigue will ensure your useful productivity is less than someone working somewhat lesser hours who is allowed to sleep. (I'm going to assume you require your people eat at their desk, otherwise starvation will kill them) You also lose because if there is even a rumor that other companies allow their people who have a life they will quit, and replacing people cost productivity. We can take the opposite extreme: you work 1 hour per week. At this point your productivity is very low because you can never get "in the zone", and in fact your entire hour at work is spend just trying to remember what you do. Someplace in the middle is the sweet spot. 20 hour weeks may be worth it - perhaps you can pay your people half as much and still give them as much income as they want, and still get the productivity you need to compete. Perhaps you can justify paying as much for 20 hours as your competitors pay for 40 hours because you employees enjoy that extra time and so they don't quit - you get better productivity because you don't have to teach them new things. Each company needs to figure it out. in general society has settled on 40 hour weeks as a good number. There is no legal law making it best, but considering the compromises it isn't a bad number.
    - ghaff 7y ago
      And people are used to what they're used to. Would a lot of people prefer to work 4 days a week all other things being equal? Sure. But a lot fewer would be interested in earning 80% (or maybe less when the cost of benefits are taken into account) of their salary especially given that their partner/friends/kids/etc. would probably not have that time off. And working 5 days a week most weeks just seems pretty normal. As you say, Western society seems to have settled on that as a fairly reasonable number with the main variation in how much vacation people get on top of that.
    - lotsofpulp 7y ago
      >in general society has settled on 40 hour weeks as a good number. There is no legal law making it best, but considering the compromises it isn't a bad number. It might be a bad number going forward, considering the widening income/wealth divides.
nwsm 7y ago
It's not about setting an example. Companies optimize for profit and shareholder return. We aren't just waiting for one visionary company to show all the others that it's possible to keep the same number of, pay them the same, and have them work less hours. We are waiting for regulation of automation to spread the benefit. We could fund a UBI or better unemployment by taxing some % of the total benefit of automation.
lotsofpulp 7y ago
It's not up to businesses, it's up to the government. Businesses have to compete with one another. Hence the need for standards that apply to everyone, so the game is being played with certain requirements, such as environmental, food safety, work hours, etc.

Frost1x 7y ago

It's a system of perpetual indentured servitude based largely on factors you had no control of by your birth and have virtually no control of after. As long as most peoples' basic needs are met and there's a carrot in front of them promising someday they'll have it better/easier, people will keep on running towards that carrot and maintain the status quo.

marcusverus 7y ago
Are you trapped in the 1940s Soviet Union? Here in the present day, the vast majority of people have the option to live in low COL areas and work part time and yet most people don't choose to do this. That's not because 'The System' is keeping them down, it is because they prefer to trade more time for more money, stuff, and security.

refurb 7y ago

Unless you want your standard of living to stagnate, yes you do.