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Big mistake. It was the 5-6 day week that built modern Japan. A lot of people are talking about cutting back on days everywhere. But now, more than ever, is w

Big mistake. It was the 5-6 day week that built modern Japan. A lot of people are talking about cutting back on days everywhere. But now, more than ever, is when we need to be working harder to get back to where we were before. (Of course, my attitude to these things is shaped by being a business owner -- not an employee. So take with that point of view)

andrewxdiamond 5y ago
The objective of work is not "to work", its to be productive. If a 4 day week is more productive than a 5 day, why wouldn't you support it as a business owner?
- tasogare 5y ago
  > The objective of work is not "to work", its to be productive. Exactly. Which is why of all governments the Japanese one is pushing the 4 day week is really surprising. Here the mentality is really to work for the show, even if resulting in no increase of production whatsoever.
echelon 5y ago
Only an owner would feel that way. Without significant equity, what's the point? The worker gets nothing except less life and more stress. The owner sucks up all the benefit.
- burlesona 5y ago
  Perhaps society would be better off if more of us were owners?
  - echelon 5y ago
    That's what the creator economy is!
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Apocryphon 5y ago
    Distributism?
    - rataata_jr 5y ago
      Small businesses?
  - spaetzleesser 5y ago
    It would definitely be better off if more people felt they were participating in economic growth. Over the last few decades most growth has gone to a small number of people and the rest didn't really benefit. This leads to a very cynical and resigned attitude.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Not really possible. If everyone is an owner, no one is an owner. You can try completely abolishing the worker/owner dichotomy though, which is very difficult but probably possible.
  - kumarvvr 5y ago
    You need a healthy mix of workers and owners. Those owners need incentives, and workers need protection. Money is a powerful drug and society needs to tame the habit. Otherwise, you will end up with conditions equal to slavery for the workers and royalty for the capital owners. All this will lead to is revolutions and bloodshed. Its ok to sacrifice rapid growth, in cycles, to steady but slower growth that has none.
- axaxs 5y ago
  I find the whole balance rather interesting. The worker thinks 'without my work, the owner would have nothing!' The owner thinks 'without my business, the worker would have nothing.' The truth is, both are right, to different degrees depending on the circumstances. A good owner should make workers feel they have a stake, whether by salary or ownership. A good worker should make the owner believe they are making a good decision by paying them. I have no answer to the debate in the title, I just find this little sub-argument fascinating.
whatever_dude 5y ago
Different times. There was a time you needed hands on deck; you needed many many people doing hard, mechanic work. This is a time where you need minds on deck. The "knowledge worker" as some places call it. You stretch them too thin and you get less for you money and time. Is a 4 day week better? I don't know. But I know it's not the same context as it was too years ago.
lxe 5y ago
Not a business owner, but I have a household. There's always more stuff to be done and it needs to be done faster to keep up. However I can't just expect everyone to keep "working harder" without sacrificing the household itself. Just letting things lapse, optimizing for speed through technology, and lowering expectations (un)surprisingly end up with a healthy household. Business can be run the same way.
29athrowaway 5y ago
In the short-term, overwork provides a productivity boost. But in the long-term, makes people less productive, people waste their time more... and the worst part: they neglect activities outside work. Like being with their families, or starting a family, or looking for a partner.
Apocryphon 5y ago
So how do you explain the last thirty years in Japan? Was there a decrease in work ethic?
- echelon 5y ago
  Furthermore, people are so worked to the bone that they forgot about having kids and raising families.
cableshaft 5y ago
What's with this obsession to 'get back to where we were before'? Where we were before was broken, and the pandemic helped reveal that. Poor work/life balance, income inequality, industries built on JIT processes which fail spectacularly when the unexpected happens (see lumber, shipping containers, semiconductors, etc), an unfortunate wake-up call that even with entire industries shut down and almost no flights and cars on the road we only reduced emissions by 13% so we're going to need to make incredible sacrifices and green-tech investments if we even want to hope at our promised 50% reduction by 2030. We shouldn't hope to get to where we were before. We should try to be better, and perhaps learn to live with less, because on a global scale we're not going to have a choice before too long whether we do it consciously or have it forced on us.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > What's with this obsession to 'get back to where we were before'? > Where we were before was broken, Not for the people with dominant power over society, including over the media organizations that write the narratives fed to the masses. And that's the answer to your question.
  - cableshaft 5y ago
    Good point, fair enough. We should push back against that narrative, then, I guess is my point.
- PraetorianGourd 5y ago
  Honestly, I can only imagine this is informed by a relatively privileged place in society. First of all, your focus on this boogeyman of work/life balance assumes that all but a small percent of the global population even has enough autonomy in their employment to enjoy any balance whatsoever. Most everyone in the world is at sustenance levels of labor, "work/life balance" is the work of being alive. Secondly, JIT everything worked for the past 100 years, failed during an unprecedented in history event (we've had pandemics, but we've never "shut down" society) and will probably recover to do well until the next once-in-a-century event. Solving the global emissions crises isn't going to occur via the wealthiest working remotely or "learning to live with less". Population growth is far and away the biggest contributor to global climate change. Not your commute to the office, but growing enough food, building enough homes and providing for nearly 10 billion people and counting. Again, most of these people don't have anywhere near the luxury of bemoaning a poor work/life balance. It is so telling that the answer you see to solve the woes of modern society -- which as you are commenting on HN, you and me and the rest of us are beneficiaries of -- is to work less and remotely. What sacrifice you make for the good of the world! I am sorry I just am beyond over the sanctimony and self-importance of everyone. Now that _you_ have _yours_ and can relax in relative comfort, lets call it a day and cut off the engine that rose you and yours out of poverty for those poor schmucks still dreaming of the comfort of a 40-hour work week.
73gfg 5y ago
Only given highly parallelizable tasks wherein input linearly maps to output, e.g. picking corn, laying train tracks, chopping trees, etc. Technology increases leverage allowing exponential outputs given the right inputs. Overworking employees ceases to be a viable strategy for high tech industries.
spaetzleesser 5y ago
"But now, more than ever, is when we need to be working harder to get back to where we were before." the question is whether working more really leads to working harder and more output. From what I see most people just go through the motion after a certain amount of work per week. They look busy and feel busy but I am not sure the output is there. I personally I am most productive if I work around 32 hours per week with some spurts of much more work in between.
kumarvvr 5y ago
> It was the 5-6 day week that built modern Japan Are you sure that is because of employees slogging in factories? Productive people outside of work will develop and nurture their passions. That is a net positive effect on the economy. This leads to new innovations, companies and benefit to the economy.
kwere 5y ago
human labour is becoming less and less relevant in production of goods & services, society must find a balance between an everdominant capital and diminuishing labour value (as a whole), keeping busy all hours in bullshit jobs is not the same as 50 years ago (from a global perspective)

andrewxdiamond 5y ago

The objective of work is not "to work", its to be productive. If a 4 day week is more productive than a 5 day, why wouldn't you support it as a business owner?

tasogare 5y ago
> The objective of work is not "to work", its to be productive. Exactly. Which is why of all governments the Japanese one is pushing the 4 day week is really surprising. Here the mentality is really to work for the show, even if resulting in no increase of production whatsoever.

echelon 5y ago

Only an owner would feel that way. Without significant equity, what's the point? The worker gets nothing except less life and more stress. The owner sucks up all the benefit.

burlesona 5y ago
Perhaps society would be better off if more of us were owners?
- echelon 5y ago
  That's what the creator economy is!
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Apocryphon 5y ago
  Distributism?
  - rataata_jr 5y ago
    Small businesses?
- spaetzleesser 5y ago
  It would definitely be better off if more people felt they were participating in economic growth. Over the last few decades most growth has gone to a small number of people and the rest didn't really benefit. This leads to a very cynical and resigned attitude.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  Not really possible. If everyone is an owner, no one is an owner. You can try completely abolishing the worker/owner dichotomy though, which is very difficult but probably possible.
- kumarvvr 5y ago
  You need a healthy mix of workers and owners. Those owners need incentives, and workers need protection. Money is a powerful drug and society needs to tame the habit. Otherwise, you will end up with conditions equal to slavery for the workers and royalty for the capital owners. All this will lead to is revolutions and bloodshed. Its ok to sacrifice rapid growth, in cycles, to steady but slower growth that has none.
axaxs 5y ago
I find the whole balance rather interesting. The worker thinks 'without my work, the owner would have nothing!' The owner thinks 'without my business, the worker would have nothing.' The truth is, both are right, to different degrees depending on the circumstances. A good owner should make workers feel they have a stake, whether by salary or ownership. A good worker should make the owner believe they are making a good decision by paying them. I have no answer to the debate in the title, I just find this little sub-argument fascinating.

whatever_dude 5y ago

Different times. There was a time you needed hands on deck; you needed many many people doing hard, mechanic work. This is a time where you need minds on deck. The "knowledge worker" as some places call it. You stretch them too thin and you get less for you money and time. Is a 4 day week better? I don't know. But I know it's not the same context as it was too years ago.

lxe 5y ago

Not a business owner, but I have a household. There's always more stuff to be done and it needs to be done faster to keep up. However I can't just expect everyone to keep "working harder" without sacrificing the household itself. Just letting things lapse, optimizing for speed through technology, and lowering expectations (un)surprisingly end up with a healthy household. Business can be run the same way.

29athrowaway 5y ago

In the short-term, overwork provides a productivity boost. But in the long-term, makes people less productive, people waste their time more... and the worst part: they neglect activities outside work. Like being with their families, or starting a family, or looking for a partner.

Apocryphon 5y ago

So how do you explain the last thirty years in Japan? Was there a decrease in work ethic?

echelon 5y ago
Furthermore, people are so worked to the bone that they forgot about having kids and raising families.

cableshaft 5y ago

What's with this obsession to 'get back to where we were before'? Where we were before was broken, and the pandemic helped reveal that. Poor work/life balance, income inequality, industries built on JIT processes which fail spectacularly when the unexpected happens (see lumber, shipping containers, semiconductors, etc), an unfortunate wake-up call that even with entire industries shut down and almost no flights and cars on the road we only reduced emissions by 13% so we're going to need to make incredible sacrifices and green-tech investments if we even want to hope at our promised 50% reduction by 2030. We shouldn't hope to get to where we were before. We should try to be better, and perhaps learn to live with less, because on a global scale we're not going to have a choice before too long whether we do it consciously or have it forced on us.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> What's with this obsession to 'get back to where we were before'? > Where we were before was broken, Not for the people with dominant power over society, including over the media organizations that write the narratives fed to the masses. And that's the answer to your question.
- cableshaft 5y ago
  Good point, fair enough. We should push back against that narrative, then, I guess is my point.
PraetorianGourd 5y ago
Honestly, I can only imagine this is informed by a relatively privileged place in society. First of all, your focus on this boogeyman of work/life balance assumes that all but a small percent of the global population even has enough autonomy in their employment to enjoy any balance whatsoever. Most everyone in the world is at sustenance levels of labor, "work/life balance" is the work of being alive. Secondly, JIT everything worked for the past 100 years, failed during an unprecedented in history event (we've had pandemics, but we've never "shut down" society) and will probably recover to do well until the next once-in-a-century event. Solving the global emissions crises isn't going to occur via the wealthiest working remotely or "learning to live with less". Population growth is far and away the biggest contributor to global climate change. Not your commute to the office, but growing enough food, building enough homes and providing for nearly 10 billion people and counting. Again, most of these people don't have anywhere near the luxury of bemoaning a poor work/life balance. It is so telling that the answer you see to solve the woes of modern society -- which as you are commenting on HN, you and me and the rest of us are beneficiaries of -- is to work less and remotely. What sacrifice you make for the good of the world! I am sorry I just am beyond over the sanctimony and self-importance of everyone. Now that _you_ have _yours_ and can relax in relative comfort, lets call it a day and cut off the engine that rose you and yours out of poverty for those poor schmucks still dreaming of the comfort of a 40-hour work week.

73gfg 5y ago

Only given highly parallelizable tasks wherein input linearly maps to output, e.g. picking corn, laying train tracks, chopping trees, etc. Technology increases leverage allowing exponential outputs given the right inputs. Overworking employees ceases to be a viable strategy for high tech industries.

spaetzleesser 5y ago

"But now, more than ever, is when we need to be working harder to get back to where we were before." the question is whether working more really leads to working harder and more output. From what I see most people just go through the motion after a certain amount of work per week. They look busy and feel busy but I am not sure the output is there. I personally I am most productive if I work around 32 hours per week with some spurts of much more work in between.

kumarvvr 5y ago

> It was the 5-6 day week that built modern Japan Are you sure that is because of employees slogging in factories? Productive people outside of work will develop and nurture their passions. That is a net positive effect on the economy. This leads to new innovations, companies and benefit to the economy.

kwere 5y ago

human labour is becoming less and less relevant in production of goods & services, society must find a balance between an everdominant capital and diminuishing labour value (as a whole), keeping busy all hours in bullshit jobs is not the same as 50 years ago (from a global perspective)