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Please enlighten me but what I don't understand is how total output can be maintained If... Output = Productivity * Time Then to reduce the amount of working

by ethr_ 5y ago

Please enlighten me but what I don't understand is how total output can be maintained If... Output = Productivity * Time Then to reduce the amount of working time by 20% requires an increase in Productivity to maintain the same output, and therefore earnings and wealth (certainly at socialte level) How does the 4 day working week movement hope to achieve this simply by working less? (I.e. without the traditional capital investment in machinery to allow workers to operate more efficiently) Does being more relaxed or having more time off really achieve that? Also what about competition with other societies? China's 996 culture seems completely nuts and too far the other way, but damn are they prepared to work hard!! There's a danger they will just out-compete (in terms of overall output), which doesn't seem desirable

readonthegoapp 5y ago
there have been more than a few companies -- like Microsoft Japan -- that claim that going to a 4-day work week actually increased their total productivity -- assuming that is your primary objective. if you've ever worked a shorter work week, you've probably felt the productivity increase personally. the way i see it, unless/until the US massively destabilizes, presumably due to internal power struggles/rising right-wing authoritarianism/etc., US elites will remain global policymakers for the next 100 years -- assuming organized human life on earth still exists at that point. US military spending is a way to guarantee our tech (and military, and cultural, and diplomatic) supremacy -- that number goes up every year, even accounting for inflation. and the US is geographically golden -- another reason we need to control space -- it could make us vulnerable in a way we have not been before. but all that said, the US is turning into a developing nation in terms of income/wealth/opportunity inequality -- that could, in theory, slow growth and 'global competitiveness', but i'm not sure it really matters in the new global, financialized economy, with very few controls on capital flows -- i.e. the interests of American elites -- what we refer to as 'the national interest' -- are not the interests of the rest of us. right now, it is primarily black people in America that have been marginalized/discarded as unncessary/extraneous, but that policy is starting to gobble up other poor people like latinos and even some white people -- there's no reason that trend has to stop that i can see. that's why it's so necessary to strip black people, and Democratic-leaning voters generally, of the vote. but if you do a simple google news search for '4 day work week', you're likely to see a spate of articles dropping all sorts of facts and figures and research and trials and anecdotes -- they're generally positive articles: https://www.google.com/search?q=4-day+work+week&newwindow=1&rlz=1CAIGZW_enUS905US905&sxsrf=AOaemvK6eBNebM4o4oEFR6_35OCJQNEjPA:1642806790659&source=lnms&tbm=nws&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjV_sOZ_MP1AhWkk4kEHQ9eCKIQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1242&bih=595&dpr=1.1 https://www.google.com/search?q=4-day+work+week&newwindow=1&...

by ethr_ 5y ago

readonthegoapp 5y ago

there have been more than a few companies -- like Microsoft Japan -- that claim that going to a 4-day work week actually increased their total productivity -- assuming that is your primary objective. if you've ever worked a shorter work week, you've probably felt the productivity increase personally. the way i see it, unless/until the US massively destabilizes, presumably due to internal power struggles/rising right-wing authoritarianism/etc., US elites will remain global policymakers for the next 100 years -- assuming organized human life on earth still exists at that point. US military spending is a way to guarantee our tech (and military, and cultural, and diplomatic) supremacy -- that number goes up every year, even accounting for inflation. and the US is geographically golden -- another reason we need to control space -- it could make us vulnerable in a way we have not been before. but all that said, the US is turning into a developing nation in terms of income/wealth/opportunity inequality -- that could, in theory, slow growth and 'global competitiveness', but i'm not sure it really matters in the new global, financialized economy, with very few controls on capital flows -- i.e. the interests of American elites -- what we refer to as 'the national interest' -- are not the interests of the rest of us. right now, it is primarily black people in America that have been marginalized/discarded as unncessary/extraneous, but that policy is starting to gobble up other poor people like latinos and even some white people -- there's no reason that trend has to stop that i can see. that's why it's so necessary to strip black people, and Democratic-leaning voters generally, of the vote. but if you do a simple google news search for '4 day work week', you're likely to see a spate of articles dropping all sorts of facts and figures and research and trials and anecdotes -- they're generally positive articles: https://www.google.com/search?q=4-day+work+week&newwindow=1&rlz=1CAIGZW_enUS905US905&sxsrf=AOaemvK6eBNebM4o4oEFR6_35OCJQNEjPA:1642806790659&source=lnms&tbm=nws&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjV_sOZ_MP1AhWkk4kEHQ9eCKIQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1242&bih=595&dpr=1.1 https://www.google.com/search?q=4-day+work+week&newwindow=1&...