7 ms·

> This sort of thing is really supposed to be a fun pursuit of the independently wealthy. Not really, no. Studying requires time but little resources. Is there

> This sort of thing is really supposed to be a fun pursuit of the independently wealthy. Not really, no. Studying requires time but little resources. Is there a reason we don't have more free time? At the end of the 19th century, anarchist thinkers predicted with modern techniques we'd be down to 10h weekly work. Instead, society took the wrong turn and doubled down on "bullshit jobs" (see David Graeber) and the social control apparatus (police, surveillance industry, private security). If we shared work equally and stopped working for greedy soulless corporate overlords, everyone would have time to spend on a PHD! EDIT: If you doubt how much work is required by capitalist society but actually useless by any meaningful standard, remember what happened during the COVID lockdowns. Most jobs are not "essential". If you work in an office, you're mostly (if not entirely) useless to society as a whole.

rufus_foreman 5y ago
>> remember what happened during the COVID lockdowns I do remember. There were massive shortages of goods and services. It sucked.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  > It sucked. Strongly agree. And yet the system didn't collapse. I don't know about where you're from, but here in France: - products shortages was due to people piling up, and was very localized - the services shortage was organized by people in power to create drama: hospitals refusing non-covid cases, food banks and other NGOs closing their doors... it was all architectured as part of a "shock doctrine" All in all, i agree some useful jobs have been deemed non-essential and stopped, and that's a problem. But still, i think a lot of people usually working in offices (which are 99% useless jobs [0]) suddenly realized how their employment does not contribute to society. [0] You could argue working behind a desk to help people fill forms for social security and whatnot is a useful job, but i personally consider it a useless job because it's only required because the bureaucracy makes it hard to access social services on purpose (so people don't get it). If we had free healthcare, housing and food for all, there would be close to 0 (though never 0) useful office jobs.
roenxi 5y ago
> ...anarchist thinkers predicted with modern techniques we'd be down to 10h weekly work... On the other hand, do you consider an end-of-the-19th-century lifestyle an acceptable target to aim at? I've found people tend to aim a lot higher when given the option.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  > On the other hand, do you consider an end-of-the-19th-century lifestyle an acceptable target to aim at? In some regards, yes. In others, not. I'm not saying we should throw away all medical progress from the last century if that's what you're wondering. Or that we should have factories in city centers spilling toxic byproducts directly into the street as was common back then. I'm arguing our modern comfort standards are not correlated with how much work takes place, because most of what we consider work today does not produce anything meaningful/useful. I believe a 10h work week is a high estimate for how much we need to work to maintain our lifestyle [0], accounting for the dismantling of slave labor in poorer countries which produce everything we consume. The amount of work necessary to produce food over a century has been cut by at least two orders of magnitude, and although there's a lot to learn from some mistakes (monoculture destroys soil and exposes plants to sickness, and fertilizers make the land sterile) we can benefit from scientific discoveries applied to traditional techniques, such as permaculture in the field of growing stuff. Also, you can take into account how much infrastructure has been individualized, which also accounts for resource/energy waste. Do we really need one oven/fridge per person? Mutualizing infrastructure saves resources. Overall, i'm convinced a decent modern life is possible [1] if we as a society decide to investigate the topic, instead of planning the next great scheme to steal money from the public for the already-insanely-rich known as "Green New Deal" which will certainly not do anything to save the environment. Only a global revolution can save us from doom. The people in power and the people who own the industry are precisely the classes of people who put us in this situation. They are both incapable and unwilling to address issues. I'm not exactly saying we need to chop their heads (though that is tempting) but we as humans must do our best without expecting anything from these psychopaths running the show. [0] Though it requires other measures such as fighting planned obsolescence and resource waste. [1] Not exactly as we know it. We would probably use different materials, build less tall buildings and live in overall less-urban cities (etc). But we could still enjoy what we consider modern comfort (abundant medicine/food/heat).
eecc 5y ago
Indeed. It’s not about productivity but rather maintaining the social pyramid intact. The tragedy is in this assumption that extending opportunities to the middle and bottom layers will detract from the privilege of the top. While it is true to some extent that innovation and change does result exactly in that, in reality we’re all just missing out on the tide of prosperity. But we’re hell bent on differential wealth and competitive advantage, all slaves to the egotistical gene
mc32 5y ago
Essential was a misnomer. What it tried to capture without saying it was people who needed to be on-site to perform their duties. The majority was blue collar work and service work -both very manual endeavors, but it also included doctors and supervisory engineers who keep things like water treatment running, drug manufacturing, research moving, etc. But we still needed “office” workers who support other areas of enterprises. Legal, contracts, compliance, HR, financial, development, management, etc. All still very essential to the viability of an enterprise but who could perform those duties remotely. Sure there is necessary fluff like all the idiotic “trainings” in different things that are self- perpetuating industries that are in reality box checking exercises, they are a drag but a minority of things.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  > But we still needed “office” workers who support other areas of enterprises. Legal, contracts, compliance, HR, financial, development, management, etc. I precisely meant that society would be better off without all these "jobs". They are useless constructs required by capitalism and competition, but do not build anything useful for society, except maybe for compliance (if by that you meant quality assurance). Moreover, i would argue that productive jobs don't have to be so many. When you have ten supermarkets selling the same shit, you need storage and logistics for all of them run by different people. If we lived in a society of cooperation not competition, each supermarket could probably be run on half the jobs currently required (if not much less). Likewise for food production. If canteens were serviced by people who enjoy that and consider it a useful service to their peers, and not to ensure their basic survival through wage slavery, then we'd have overall less venues to feed everyone and much less food waste. I'm not arguing against free initiative to start some project, i'm just arguing capitalism and its competition places very wrong incentives that wastes tons of human labor and actual resources that a mutualized/cooperative economy would save.
  - mc32 5y ago
    Consumerism is a problem in that it causes ephemeral and superfluous goods. From fast-fashion to overly large autos and search for fame (hollywood or tik-tok) and some of the ready-made options which we could do at home. But... The above probably described much of the "essential" workers. Capitalism is not the problem. Consumerism and advertising and the media are the creators of this artificial demand. Communism or socialism would not fix things either. There you have no choice of what you will be in society. That is determined for you by your school and your connections. And because the economic demands are different, there is usually less automation, meaning more boring work. Now, sure, doctors and bricklayers may get more even compensation, though one may get a better apartment, but you're not in the driver's seat and you don't get to figure out your place in life (ala UBI dream), you get to do what the state (or if cooperative based, the cooperative) thinks they need you. You may ultimately become a parasite, but t will be where they want you as a parasite. Communism/Socialism can usually do just as well as capitalism in terms of basic research (medicines, energy, etc), but tend to have a blind spot for other life-style centered improvements.
RHSeeger 5y ago
> If you doubt how much work is required by capitalist society but actually useless by any meaningful standard, remember what happened during the COVID lockdowns. Most jobs are not "essential". If you work in an office, you're mostly (if not entirely) useless to society as a whole. That is ridiculous. Many, many businesses closed, and many, many more were impacted in ways that will take years to recover from. Many employees took short term cuts in pay or benefits just so the companies they work for could survive. Then add to that many of the jobs that couldn't be done during covid aren't useless, but the impact of not doing them scales over time. A good example of this is a sales person for a company that makes a product. Sure, if they can't bring in new clients for a few months, the company will hurt but may be ok. But if you take away their sale people forever, you might as well just close down the company. Just because we _did_ survive without certain employees for a period of time doesn't make them all useless. The long term impacts are substantial.
- convolvatron 5y ago
  you're kind of agreeing with the parent. salespeople are clearly required by capitalism, but aren't directly responsible for extracting resources or converting them into something useful.
  - RHSeeger 5y ago
    But many, many countries are capitalistic, so those roles that are required for capitalism are contributing and/or required for those societies. If everyone grew their own gardens and was a vegetarian, only consuming what they grew themselves, then the people working in grocery stores wouldn't be essential. But our society doesn't do that, so they are.
    - southerntofu 5y ago
      You can have an economy without capitalism. Capitalism is defined by private property and shareholding. But you could have a modern society based on consented cooperation. Have everyone who wants help in the fields (more people like that than you think), and if my neighbors think it's useful we'll have a grocery store but without money. We'll just take turns to feed the shelves and clean the floor and worry about the logistics. And if we grew too many potatoes for our local consumption, the people from other neighborhoods may well enjoy them and have some other stuff to send in our direction as well.
pgcj_poster 5y ago
> At the end of the 19th century, anarchist thinkers predicted with modern techniques we'd be down to 10h weekly work Similarly, John Maynard Keynes, who probably had access to better data, predicted that increased productivity would allow us to work 15 hours / week by now. And his projections for productivity growth were accurate—however the benefits never materialized. You see something similar with women entering the work force. It used to be that married men worked 8 hours a day, and that provided for their wives, who stayed home and took care of children, etc. Then it became more common for married women to work as well. You would expect that this would mean that husbands and wives would split the work and do 4 hours/day each and likewise share domestic responsibilities. But that's not what happened. Instead men still work 8 hours a day, and women work nearly as long and also bear most of the responsibility for childcare and the home.
- glogla 5y ago
  > however the benefits never materialized. They definitely materialized. Where you think the Bezos' and Musk's billions come from? They never materialized for workers.
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    Sorry i can't upvote you enough :)
- southerntofu 5y ago
  > John Maynard Keynes, who probably had access to better data Why? To be honest, my "10 hour" estimate was not a direct quote, i don't remember if the authors i read said 4 or 15, but i do remember it was on this scale. > You see something similar with women entering the work force. So true.
concinds 5y ago
Pretty humorous to quote anarchist thinkers and then endorse the government’s arguments, unilaterally telling me my gym is “not essential”, and deploying one of the biggest rollback in public liberties within democracies in history! More to the point of the article, I’d argue most PhD work meets the definition of “bullshit jobs” much better than Graeber’s unrigorous and widely contested book. It’s clear to me that we’re moving towards a two-tier economy, with one tier best described as varying levels of “broke” (which includes everyone from homeless people like her, to people who buy second hand BMWs and Mercedes who don’t have even $50,000 in savings), and asset owners. Earning money outside a salary is essential, whether online, or by starting a business, or OnlyFans-style stuff. More resourceful people with multiple, diversified income source will thrive, and people who believe “the system” has their back, and that a salaried life is the “prestigious”, “default” path, will crumble. I guarantee you, there are people making money online, working 10h a week like you say, living in third-world countries that give you more day-to-day freedom (as long as you’re not a political opponent) than Western democracies. It’s not a dream, it’s reality! If you’re an anarchist, don’t expect the government to bail you out. The “dream life” according to you, is very real, today, and you can get to it with maybe a year of hard work, with the added benefit of being geopolitically independent, and able to bail if things get bad.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  > Pretty humorous to quote anarchist thinkers and then endorse the government’s arguments, unilaterally telling me my gym is “not essential” Sorry if i gave this impression. I precisely put "essential" in quotation marks to indicate that the interpretation is very subjective and variable. What i meant was that in order to have housing and food and what i personally consider basic human needs, most jobs are not needed: many people who previously felt like their job was a form of contribution to society took a step back with the first lockdowns and realized that overall and on average, society did just fine without them working at all. That's what i meant, and i certainly did not intend to imply that a virus can be beaten with cops and batons as most of our governments have tried (and failed), or that breathing fresh air and physical exercise should be illegal. Overall, there were pretty good anarchist analysis of the current Covid 1984 (wink) epidemic [0] [1], and you'll probably be glad to know i defied the lockdown and curfew on several occasions due to militant and/or mutual aid activities. > More to the point of the article, I’d argue most PhD work meets the definition of “bullshit jobs” Depends on what you call a job. If you do that to earn money and fame, sure that's bullshit. But in other cases, can we even call it a job? All PhD candidates (not a lot) i ever met here in France were in rather precarious situations and were studying questions that explicitly fascinated them, as part of related militant and creative activities. That kind of active curiosity often reminds me of the hacker spirit, but of course that's not the kind of mindset taught in most academic circles (the original "Watchdogs" for Nizan). I often see people in various fields engaging in serious study of an issue that affects them. In computing, in cooking, in mechanics. We don't call these PhD because there's gatekeeping in academia, but most people are doing actual research work at some point in their life and i think that's something worth acknowledging/incentivizing. It strikes me that there are often similarities between certain blogposts detailing a problem space, and an actual research paper... but one is certainly less esteemed in our society. > If you’re an anarchist, don’t expect the government to bail you out. Even if you aren't an anarchist, please don't expect anything from powers that be. Read some historical propaganda and history of social struggles, or social sciences research papers. > The “dream life” according to you, is very real, today, and you can get to it I definitely agree with this part of the sentence, but we don't give it the same meaning. For me autonomy is something that is built collectively: there is no freedom or equality if only i enjoy them (or in other words, and as the saying goes, "none are free until all are free"). Earning a high-enough wage to afford to pay a landlord and supermarkets and dozens of evil corporations for very basic services is not a dream life in my view: i view it as earning a greater share of the pie baked off the back of exploited people. Personally, i'm more interested in free communes and how to build radical alternatives to the dystopian nightmare we're in. [0] https://crimethinc.com/2020/04/10/and-after-the-virus-the-perils-ahead-resistance-in-the-year-of-the-plague-and-beyond https://crimethinc.com/2020/04/10/and-after-the-virus-the-pe... [1] https://fr.tild3.org/en/blog/2021/may-first/ https://fr.tild3.org/en/blog/2021/may-first/ (disclaimer: i co-wrote this one)
mensetmanusman 5y ago
We are working less: https://images.app.goo.gl/SMmv3m9K6UaLinpQ6 https://images.app.goo.gl/SMmv3m9K6UaLinpQ6 People forget that agriculture is hard. We have it good now in comparison, but lots of changes are needed to make it great.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  My grandparents ran away from agricultural villages to a heavily industrial city, because living there was comparatively easier, even though grandpa had a lot of work running a steam engine. (Steam engines require a lot of heavy manual work to run.) Agriculture without mechanisation is absolutely brutal on human body, plus you are dependent on random fluctuations in weather. A bad year or, God forbid, two bad years in a row meant a credible threat of starvation in the 1910s or 1920s for "ordinary" peasants. And if the men were called to military service, as in the Great War (some were exempt, but not nearly enough), then women and the elderly had to do all the heavy work such as tiling, which they often could not. People have all kinds of romantic concepts of rural life. It was rather harsh.
- majewsky 5y ago
  Note that your source does not argue the point you make directly after it. The graph explicitly covers only "non-agricultural activities". As for non-agricultural activities, 1870 marks the early peak of industrialization before unions and worker parties forced schedules down to the now-established 40-hour-per-week mark. Unfortunately, the primary source for the graph (https://ourworldindata.org/working-hours https://ourworldindata.org/working-hours) does not say anything about agricultural working hours pre-industrialization. They note efficiency increases in agriculture through automation, but since the agricultural workforce declined at the same time, there is no clear answer at least from this source.
  - mensetmanusman 5y ago
    Thanks for pointing this out. My thought process was trying to highlight that many more of us would have been farmers 100 years ago :) The farmers I know seem to have a 24/7-esque job in terms of all the things they juggle. The weird thing is that they are so ridiculously productive compared to the past having learned all these new tools, but their compensation is about in line with prior generations, because most all the productivity gains have gone to capital owners.
killtimeatwork 5y ago
> At the end of the 19th century, anarchist thinkers predicted with modern techniques we'd be down to 10h weekly work. Many people in the US could easily have 10h work week, if they could just reign in their creeping lifestyle inflation and live like people did at the end of 19th century. Instead, most people opt to work more in exchange for significantly more comfort and pleasure. It's an unconscious choice for most - they can't even fathom living beyond a certain standard, so they in essence HAVE TO work fulltime. But the option to work less is there, they just don't realize it is.
- glogla 5y ago
  > Many people in the US could easily have 10h work week, if they could just reign in their creeping lifestyle inflation and live like people did at the end of 19th century. This is a dangerous lie that makes it sound like most people's money are going to luxuries. They don't. Over 30 % of average household spending in the US goes to rent or other housing, with insurance and healthcare being next 20 % and transportation next 15 %. See https://www.elitepersonalfinance.com/average-household-budget/ https://www.elitepersonalfinance.com/average-household-budge... You might think people are spending money on TVs and iPhones and cars but most people buy a TV or iPhone every month - to their landlord, and once in a while buy a new car to their hospital.
  - rufus_foreman 5y ago
    >> Over 30 % of average household spending in the US goes to rent or other housing, with insurance and healthcare being next 20 % and transportation next 15 % Well housing is a great example of creeping lifestyle inflation. At the end of the 19th century, the average new house size was around 1,000 square feet and the average household size was close to 5 people. So 200 square feet per person. Today the average new house size is around 2,500 square feet and the average household size is 2.5 people. So 1,000 square feet per person. That's lifestyle inflation. If you're OK with 1,000 square feet shared with 4 other people, you can live more cheaply. Health insurance wasn't common then and health care was close to non-existent. Penicillin hadn't even been invented yet. If you cut yourself and it got infected, you might die. If you're OK with living the way your great grandparents lived, you can live more cheaply. If you get sick, pray. The average new car price is $40,000. That's another great example of creeping lifestyle inflation. I think I might have spent $40,000 in total on the 7 cars I have owned in my life. If you're OK with people at work making fun of the car you drive, you can live more cheaply.

rufus_foreman 5y ago

>> remember what happened during the COVID lockdowns I do remember. There were massive shortages of goods and services. It sucked.

southerntofu 5y ago
> It sucked. Strongly agree. And yet the system didn't collapse. I don't know about where you're from, but here in France: - products shortages was due to people piling up, and was very localized - the services shortage was organized by people in power to create drama: hospitals refusing non-covid cases, food banks and other NGOs closing their doors... it was all architectured as part of a "shock doctrine" All in all, i agree some useful jobs have been deemed non-essential and stopped, and that's a problem. But still, i think a lot of people usually working in offices (which are 99% useless jobs [0]) suddenly realized how their employment does not contribute to society. [0] You could argue working behind a desk to help people fill forms for social security and whatnot is a useful job, but i personally consider it a useless job because it's only required because the bureaucracy makes it hard to access social services on purpose (so people don't get it). If we had free healthcare, housing and food for all, there would be close to 0 (though never 0) useful office jobs.

roenxi 5y ago

> ...anarchist thinkers predicted with modern techniques we'd be down to 10h weekly work... On the other hand, do you consider an end-of-the-19th-century lifestyle an acceptable target to aim at? I've found people tend to aim a lot higher when given the option.

southerntofu 5y ago
> On the other hand, do you consider an end-of-the-19th-century lifestyle an acceptable target to aim at? In some regards, yes. In others, not. I'm not saying we should throw away all medical progress from the last century if that's what you're wondering. Or that we should have factories in city centers spilling toxic byproducts directly into the street as was common back then. I'm arguing our modern comfort standards are not correlated with how much work takes place, because most of what we consider work today does not produce anything meaningful/useful. I believe a 10h work week is a high estimate for how much we need to work to maintain our lifestyle [0], accounting for the dismantling of slave labor in poorer countries which produce everything we consume. The amount of work necessary to produce food over a century has been cut by at least two orders of magnitude, and although there's a lot to learn from some mistakes (monoculture destroys soil and exposes plants to sickness, and fertilizers make the land sterile) we can benefit from scientific discoveries applied to traditional techniques, such as permaculture in the field of growing stuff. Also, you can take into account how much infrastructure has been individualized, which also accounts for resource/energy waste. Do we really need one oven/fridge per person? Mutualizing infrastructure saves resources. Overall, i'm convinced a decent modern life is possible [1] if we as a society decide to investigate the topic, instead of planning the next great scheme to steal money from the public for the already-insanely-rich known as "Green New Deal" which will certainly not do anything to save the environment. Only a global revolution can save us from doom. The people in power and the people who own the industry are precisely the classes of people who put us in this situation. They are both incapable and unwilling to address issues. I'm not exactly saying we need to chop their heads (though that is tempting) but we as humans must do our best without expecting anything from these psychopaths running the show. [0] Though it requires other measures such as fighting planned obsolescence and resource waste. [1] Not exactly as we know it. We would probably use different materials, build less tall buildings and live in overall less-urban cities (etc). But we could still enjoy what we consider modern comfort (abundant medicine/food/heat).

eecc 5y ago

Indeed. It’s not about productivity but rather maintaining the social pyramid intact. The tragedy is in this assumption that extending opportunities to the middle and bottom layers will detract from the privilege of the top. While it is true to some extent that innovation and change does result exactly in that, in reality we’re all just missing out on the tide of prosperity. But we’re hell bent on differential wealth and competitive advantage, all slaves to the egotistical gene

mc32 5y ago

Essential was a misnomer. What it tried to capture without saying it was people who needed to be on-site to perform their duties. The majority was blue collar work and service work -both very manual endeavors, but it also included doctors and supervisory engineers who keep things like water treatment running, drug manufacturing, research moving, etc. But we still needed “office” workers who support other areas of enterprises. Legal, contracts, compliance, HR, financial, development, management, etc. All still very essential to the viability of an enterprise but who could perform those duties remotely. Sure there is necessary fluff like all the idiotic “trainings” in different things that are self- perpetuating industries that are in reality box checking exercises, they are a drag but a minority of things.

southerntofu 5y ago
> But we still needed “office” workers who support other areas of enterprises. Legal, contracts, compliance, HR, financial, development, management, etc. I precisely meant that society would be better off without all these "jobs". They are useless constructs required by capitalism and competition, but do not build anything useful for society, except maybe for compliance (if by that you meant quality assurance). Moreover, i would argue that productive jobs don't have to be so many. When you have ten supermarkets selling the same shit, you need storage and logistics for all of them run by different people. If we lived in a society of cooperation not competition, each supermarket could probably be run on half the jobs currently required (if not much less). Likewise for food production. If canteens were serviced by people who enjoy that and consider it a useful service to their peers, and not to ensure their basic survival through wage slavery, then we'd have overall less venues to feed everyone and much less food waste. I'm not arguing against free initiative to start some project, i'm just arguing capitalism and its competition places very wrong incentives that wastes tons of human labor and actual resources that a mutualized/cooperative economy would save.
- mc32 5y ago
  Consumerism is a problem in that it causes ephemeral and superfluous goods. From fast-fashion to overly large autos and search for fame (hollywood or tik-tok) and some of the ready-made options which we could do at home. But... The above probably described much of the "essential" workers. Capitalism is not the problem. Consumerism and advertising and the media are the creators of this artificial demand. Communism or socialism would not fix things either. There you have no choice of what you will be in society. That is determined for you by your school and your connections. And because the economic demands are different, there is usually less automation, meaning more boring work. Now, sure, doctors and bricklayers may get more even compensation, though one may get a better apartment, but you're not in the driver's seat and you don't get to figure out your place in life (ala UBI dream), you get to do what the state (or if cooperative based, the cooperative) thinks they need you. You may ultimately become a parasite, but t will be where they want you as a parasite. Communism/Socialism can usually do just as well as capitalism in terms of basic research (medicines, energy, etc), but tend to have a blind spot for other life-style centered improvements.

RHSeeger 5y ago

> If you doubt how much work is required by capitalist society but actually useless by any meaningful standard, remember what happened during the COVID lockdowns. Most jobs are not "essential". If you work in an office, you're mostly (if not entirely) useless to society as a whole. That is ridiculous. Many, many businesses closed, and many, many more were impacted in ways that will take years to recover from. Many employees took short term cuts in pay or benefits just so the companies they work for could survive. Then add to that many of the jobs that couldn't be done during covid aren't useless, but the impact of not doing them scales over time. A good example of this is a sales person for a company that makes a product. Sure, if they can't bring in new clients for a few months, the company will hurt but may be ok. But if you take away their sale people forever, you might as well just close down the company. Just because we _did_ survive without certain employees for a period of time doesn't make them all useless. The long term impacts are substantial.

convolvatron 5y ago
you're kind of agreeing with the parent. salespeople are clearly required by capitalism, but aren't directly responsible for extracting resources or converting them into something useful.
- RHSeeger 5y ago
  But many, many countries are capitalistic, so those roles that are required for capitalism are contributing and/or required for those societies. If everyone grew their own gardens and was a vegetarian, only consuming what they grew themselves, then the people working in grocery stores wouldn't be essential. But our society doesn't do that, so they are.
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    You can have an economy without capitalism. Capitalism is defined by private property and shareholding. But you could have a modern society based on consented cooperation. Have everyone who wants help in the fields (more people like that than you think), and if my neighbors think it's useful we'll have a grocery store but without money. We'll just take turns to feed the shelves and clean the floor and worry about the logistics. And if we grew too many potatoes for our local consumption, the people from other neighborhoods may well enjoy them and have some other stuff to send in our direction as well.

pgcj_poster 5y ago

> At the end of the 19th century, anarchist thinkers predicted with modern techniques we'd be down to 10h weekly work Similarly, John Maynard Keynes, who probably had access to better data, predicted that increased productivity would allow us to work 15 hours / week by now. And his projections for productivity growth were accurate—however the benefits never materialized. You see something similar with women entering the work force. It used to be that married men worked 8 hours a day, and that provided for their wives, who stayed home and took care of children, etc. Then it became more common for married women to work as well. You would expect that this would mean that husbands and wives would split the work and do 4 hours/day each and likewise share domestic responsibilities. But that's not what happened. Instead men still work 8 hours a day, and women work nearly as long and also bear most of the responsibility for childcare and the home.

glogla 5y ago
> however the benefits never materialized. They definitely materialized. Where you think the Bezos' and Musk's billions come from? They never materialized for workers.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  Sorry i can't upvote you enough :)
southerntofu 5y ago
> John Maynard Keynes, who probably had access to better data Why? To be honest, my "10 hour" estimate was not a direct quote, i don't remember if the authors i read said 4 or 15, but i do remember it was on this scale. > You see something similar with women entering the work force. So true.

concinds 5y ago

Pretty humorous to quote anarchist thinkers and then endorse the government’s arguments, unilaterally telling me my gym is “not essential”, and deploying one of the biggest rollback in public liberties within democracies in history! More to the point of the article, I’d argue most PhD work meets the definition of “bullshit jobs” much better than Graeber’s unrigorous and widely contested book. It’s clear to me that we’re moving towards a two-tier economy, with one tier best described as varying levels of “broke” (which includes everyone from homeless people like her, to people who buy second hand BMWs and Mercedes who don’t have even $50,000 in savings), and asset owners. Earning money outside a salary is essential, whether online, or by starting a business, or OnlyFans-style stuff. More resourceful people with multiple, diversified income source will thrive, and people who believe “the system” has their back, and that a salaried life is the “prestigious”, “default” path, will crumble. I guarantee you, there are people making money online, working 10h a week like you say, living in third-world countries that give you more day-to-day freedom (as long as you’re not a political opponent) than Western democracies. It’s not a dream, it’s reality! If you’re an anarchist, don’t expect the government to bail you out. The “dream life” according to you, is very real, today, and you can get to it with maybe a year of hard work, with the added benefit of being geopolitically independent, and able to bail if things get bad.

southerntofu 5y ago
> Pretty humorous to quote anarchist thinkers and then endorse the government’s arguments, unilaterally telling me my gym is “not essential” Sorry if i gave this impression. I precisely put "essential" in quotation marks to indicate that the interpretation is very subjective and variable. What i meant was that in order to have housing and food and what i personally consider basic human needs, most jobs are not needed: many people who previously felt like their job was a form of contribution to society took a step back with the first lockdowns and realized that overall and on average, society did just fine without them working at all. That's what i meant, and i certainly did not intend to imply that a virus can be beaten with cops and batons as most of our governments have tried (and failed), or that breathing fresh air and physical exercise should be illegal. Overall, there were pretty good anarchist analysis of the current Covid 1984 (wink) epidemic [0] [1], and you'll probably be glad to know i defied the lockdown and curfew on several occasions due to militant and/or mutual aid activities. > More to the point of the article, I’d argue most PhD work meets the definition of “bullshit jobs” Depends on what you call a job. If you do that to earn money and fame, sure that's bullshit. But in other cases, can we even call it a job? All PhD candidates (not a lot) i ever met here in France were in rather precarious situations and were studying questions that explicitly fascinated them, as part of related militant and creative activities. That kind of active curiosity often reminds me of the hacker spirit, but of course that's not the kind of mindset taught in most academic circles (the original "Watchdogs" for Nizan). I often see people in various fields engaging in serious study of an issue that affects them. In computing, in cooking, in mechanics. We don't call these PhD because there's gatekeeping in academia, but most people are doing actual research work at some point in their life and i think that's something worth acknowledging/incentivizing. It strikes me that there are often similarities between certain blogposts detailing a problem space, and an actual research paper... but one is certainly less esteemed in our society. > If you’re an anarchist, don’t expect the government to bail you out. Even if you aren't an anarchist, please don't expect anything from powers that be. Read some historical propaganda and history of social struggles, or social sciences research papers. > The “dream life” according to you, is very real, today, and you can get to it I definitely agree with this part of the sentence, but we don't give it the same meaning. For me autonomy is something that is built collectively: there is no freedom or equality if only i enjoy them (or in other words, and as the saying goes, "none are free until all are free"). Earning a high-enough wage to afford to pay a landlord and supermarkets and dozens of evil corporations for very basic services is not a dream life in my view: i view it as earning a greater share of the pie baked off the back of exploited people. Personally, i'm more interested in free communes and how to build radical alternatives to the dystopian nightmare we're in. [0] https://crimethinc.com/2020/04/10/and-after-the-virus-the-perils-ahead-resistance-in-the-year-of-the-plague-and-beyond https://crimethinc.com/2020/04/10/and-after-the-virus-the-pe... [1] https://fr.tild3.org/en/blog/2021/may-first/ https://fr.tild3.org/en/blog/2021/may-first/ (disclaimer: i co-wrote this one)

mensetmanusman 5y ago

We are working less: https://images.app.goo.gl/SMmv3m9K6UaLinpQ6 https://images.app.goo.gl/SMmv3m9K6UaLinpQ6 People forget that agriculture is hard. We have it good now in comparison, but lots of changes are needed to make it great.

inglor_cz 5y ago
My grandparents ran away from agricultural villages to a heavily industrial city, because living there was comparatively easier, even though grandpa had a lot of work running a steam engine. (Steam engines require a lot of heavy manual work to run.) Agriculture without mechanisation is absolutely brutal on human body, plus you are dependent on random fluctuations in weather. A bad year or, God forbid, two bad years in a row meant a credible threat of starvation in the 1910s or 1920s for "ordinary" peasants. And if the men were called to military service, as in the Great War (some were exempt, but not nearly enough), then women and the elderly had to do all the heavy work such as tiling, which they often could not. People have all kinds of romantic concepts of rural life. It was rather harsh.
majewsky 5y ago
Note that your source does not argue the point you make directly after it. The graph explicitly covers only "non-agricultural activities". As for non-agricultural activities, 1870 marks the early peak of industrialization before unions and worker parties forced schedules down to the now-established 40-hour-per-week mark. Unfortunately, the primary source for the graph (https://ourworldindata.org/working-hours https://ourworldindata.org/working-hours) does not say anything about agricultural working hours pre-industrialization. They note efficiency increases in agriculture through automation, but since the agricultural workforce declined at the same time, there is no clear answer at least from this source.
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  Thanks for pointing this out. My thought process was trying to highlight that many more of us would have been farmers 100 years ago :) The farmers I know seem to have a 24/7-esque job in terms of all the things they juggle. The weird thing is that they are so ridiculously productive compared to the past having learned all these new tools, but their compensation is about in line with prior generations, because most all the productivity gains have gone to capital owners.

killtimeatwork 5y ago

> At the end of the 19th century, anarchist thinkers predicted with modern techniques we'd be down to 10h weekly work. Many people in the US could easily have 10h work week, if they could just reign in their creeping lifestyle inflation and live like people did at the end of 19th century. Instead, most people opt to work more in exchange for significantly more comfort and pleasure. It's an unconscious choice for most - they can't even fathom living beyond a certain standard, so they in essence HAVE TO work fulltime. But the option to work less is there, they just don't realize it is.

glogla 5y ago
> Many people in the US could easily have 10h work week, if they could just reign in their creeping lifestyle inflation and live like people did at the end of 19th century. This is a dangerous lie that makes it sound like most people's money are going to luxuries. They don't. Over 30 % of average household spending in the US goes to rent or other housing, with insurance and healthcare being next 20 % and transportation next 15 %. See https://www.elitepersonalfinance.com/average-household-budget/ https://www.elitepersonalfinance.com/average-household-budge... You might think people are spending money on TVs and iPhones and cars but most people buy a TV or iPhone every month - to their landlord, and once in a while buy a new car to their hospital.
- rufus_foreman 5y ago
  >> Over 30 % of average household spending in the US goes to rent or other housing, with insurance and healthcare being next 20 % and transportation next 15 % Well housing is a great example of creeping lifestyle inflation. At the end of the 19th century, the average new house size was around 1,000 square feet and the average household size was close to 5 people. So 200 square feet per person. Today the average new house size is around 2,500 square feet and the average household size is 2.5 people. So 1,000 square feet per person. That's lifestyle inflation. If you're OK with 1,000 square feet shared with 4 other people, you can live more cheaply. Health insurance wasn't common then and health care was close to non-existent. Penicillin hadn't even been invented yet. If you cut yourself and it got infected, you might die. If you're OK with living the way your great grandparents lived, you can live more cheaply. If you get sick, pray. The average new car price is $40,000. That's another great example of creeping lifestyle inflation. I think I might have spent $40,000 in total on the 7 cars I have owned in my life. If you're OK with people at work making fun of the car you drive, you can live more cheaply.