4 ms·

You're right. It's funny you mention law because my brother-in-law is a partner at a large law firm. He took family time: 3 hours away from work on a Sunday eve

by abirch 4y ago

You're right. It's funny you mention law because my brother-in-law is a partner at a large law firm. He took family time: 3 hours away from work on a Sunday evening for an extended family dinner. The guy works crazy hard. The odd thing is how John Maynard Keynes predicted that we'd have a 15 hour work week. If you translated everyone's salary at the dinner table from a 60 hour work week to a 15 hour work week, they'd be just fine (except for me, I'd need a 20 hour work week). But where are those jobs? It seems like you've got to work crazy hours for a crazy large amount of money.

Archelaos 4y ago
It is always instructive to go back to the sources and look at what Keynes actually wrote: "But beyond this, we shall endeavour to spread the bread thin on the butter-to make what work there is still to be done to be as widely shared as possible. Three-hour shifts or a fifteen-hour week may put off the problem for a great while. For three hours a day is quite enough to satisfy the old Adam in most of us!"[1] He is talking not only talking about avarage working hours per worker, but about avarage working hours per person able to work. So let's have a look at the UK (where Keynes lived) of 2021: Gross domestic product: GBP ~2.2 tril.[2] Working age population: 41 mil.[3] Overall weekly hours worked: ~ 1 bil.[4] This means 24.4 hours work per week earning GPB ~1,080 (GBP ~53,650 per year) for each one in the working population. If they had worked only 15 hours with the same productivity, earnings would have been GBP 663 weekly (GBP ~35,500 per year), or a total of GBP ~1,35 tril, which is aprox. the number of 1994/1995. (Or a little less than Greece today.[5]) In other words: if work could be evenly distributed over the population able to work, hourly rates were identical and people were content with the living standard of the mid 1990s (and all else being equal), a 15 hour work week for everyone would be enough for the UK. [1] http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/281744/gdp-of-the-united-kingdom/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/281744/gdp-of-the-united... [3] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTGBQ647S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTGBQ647S -- One might argue that this number includes a lot of people who are not able to work or still in education and thus are not available for the workforce. On the other side it excludes a lot of people in older age, who might still be able to work. For a lack of better statistics and to make calculation easy, I assume that the two roughly cancel each other out. If you disagree, just use your own estimation and see if the result of the calculation really differs much. [4] Rough estimate from this table of weekly total hours: https://www.statista.com/statistics/280795/overall-weekly-hours-of-work-uk/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/280795/overall-weekly-ho... [5] UK's GDP per capita * (15/24.4) ~= Greece's GDP, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...
- abirch 4y ago
  I was going off the exact quote that you quoted from "Economic Possibilities For Our Grandchildren." Keynes even had the caveat that this may take longer with a war. He was extrapolating out productivity gains and moving it to reduced hours instead of extra wealth. My question is still where can I earn 1/3 my salary but only work 20 hours a week.

by abirch 4y ago

Archelaos 4y ago

It is always instructive to go back to the sources and look at what Keynes actually wrote: "But beyond this, we shall endeavour to spread the bread thin on the butter-to make what work there is still to be done to be as widely shared as possible. Three-hour shifts or a fifteen-hour week may put off the problem for a great while. For three hours a day is quite enough to satisfy the old Adam in most of us!"[1] He is talking not only talking about avarage working hours per worker, but about avarage working hours per person able to work. So let's have a look at the UK (where Keynes lived) of 2021: Gross domestic product: GBP ~2.2 tril.[2] Working age population: 41 mil.[3] Overall weekly hours worked: ~ 1 bil.[4] This means 24.4 hours work per week earning GPB ~1,080 (GBP ~53,650 per year) for each one in the working population. If they had worked only 15 hours with the same productivity, earnings would have been GBP 663 weekly (GBP ~35,500 per year), or a total of GBP ~1,35 tril, which is aprox. the number of 1994/1995. (Or a little less than Greece today.[5]) In other words: if work could be evenly distributed over the population able to work, hourly rates were identical and people were content with the living standard of the mid 1990s (and all else being equal), a 15 hour work week for everyone would be enough for the UK. [1] http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/281744/gdp-of-the-united-kingdom/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/281744/gdp-of-the-united... [3] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTGBQ647S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTGBQ647S -- One might argue that this number includes a lot of people who are not able to work or still in education and thus are not available for the workforce. On the other side it excludes a lot of people in older age, who might still be able to work. For a lack of better statistics and to make calculation easy, I assume that the two roughly cancel each other out. If you disagree, just use your own estimation and see if the result of the calculation really differs much. [4] Rough estimate from this table of weekly total hours: https://www.statista.com/statistics/280795/overall-weekly-hours-of-work-uk/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/280795/overall-weekly-ho... [5] UK's GDP per capita * (15/24.4) ~= Greece's GDP, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...

abirch 4y ago
I was going off the exact quote that you quoted from "Economic Possibilities For Our Grandchildren." Keynes even had the caveat that this may take longer with a war. He was extrapolating out productivity gains and moving it to reduced hours instead of extra wealth. My question is still where can I earn 1/3 my salary but only work 20 hours a week.