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> Those displaced (50% in the example above) can go and provide services in another area... Why should only the pin producers get 4 hour weeks. What about those

by jahaja 6y ago

> Those displaced (50% in the example above) can go and provide services in another area... Why should only the pin producers get 4 hour weeks. What about those have to toil in the field for 8 hours a day to produce food? So for the sake of fairness, no one should get to work less hours? It's pretty clear that Russell's sentiment is that this should be expanded to society as a whole.

dantheman 6y ago
Sure people can work less hours, but right now people choose to want more things - better healthcare, larger houses, more entertainment and choose to work more hours. Certain areas are clearly broken - education, medicine, and housing -- but that's largely due to government interference.
- jahaja 6y ago
  > Sure people can work less hours, but right now people choose to want more things - better healthcare, larger houses, more entertainment and choose to work more hours. That has not been proven. If anything the opposite. I'm sure that a significant portion of the population would choose less time at work over non-essential consumption given the choice. There's a reason that full-time working hours are always changed universally - having the leverage and the economic base to individually request part-time is a privilege. Furthermore there's usually a disproportional economic punishment when one's working hours doesn't reach some "full-time" threshold, not to mention the likely social punishment like having a harder time to get promoted and similar. People like to assume that people choose non-essential goods over leisure but for some reason they are never very keen on trying to prove it by giving workers the choice without undue punishment. A good experiment could be to allow people to choose to whether they'd like to get their raise (or if lucky, convert the yearly bonus) in time or money, or perhaps some split. > but that's largely due to government interference. Only in the US it seems.

by jahaja 6y ago

dantheman 6y ago

Sure people can work less hours, but right now people choose to want more things - better healthcare, larger houses, more entertainment and choose to work more hours. Certain areas are clearly broken - education, medicine, and housing -- but that's largely due to government interference.

jahaja 6y ago
> Sure people can work less hours, but right now people choose to want more things - better healthcare, larger houses, more entertainment and choose to work more hours. That has not been proven. If anything the opposite. I'm sure that a significant portion of the population would choose less time at work over non-essential consumption given the choice. There's a reason that full-time working hours are always changed universally - having the leverage and the economic base to individually request part-time is a privilege. Furthermore there's usually a disproportional economic punishment when one's working hours doesn't reach some "full-time" threshold, not to mention the likely social punishment like having a harder time to get promoted and similar. People like to assume that people choose non-essential goods over leisure but for some reason they are never very keen on trying to prove it by giving workers the choice without undue punishment. A good experiment could be to allow people to choose to whether they'd like to get their raise (or if lucky, convert the yearly bonus) in time or money, or perhaps some split. > but that's largely due to government interference. Only in the US it seems.