4 ms·

Roughly how much "work" does every person in the world need to do so that every person in the world can live a minimal but decent lifestyle? Of course, some pe

Roughly how much "work" does every person in the world need to do so that every person in the world can live a minimal but decent lifestyle? Of course, some people will want and take more than "decent", some people are disabled so its unreasonable to expect and unfair to demand for them to contribute the same amount, some people genuinely like to work all sorts of jobs (including hard labor), and speaking of, there are different jobs and no one way to quantify their "work". But this is a good starting point to answer the question: how much work is "enough"? With modern knowledge and medium-scale factories, can people spend 15-hour weeks producing enough to live comfortably, or do you need the average person to work 20-hour weeks of hard labor (or have 1/3 of the population work 60-hour weeks)?

BitwiseFool 4y ago
I think this is a question with an impossible answer. Life on Earth is far to varied and chaotic for any baseline value. Just like an ecosystem, everything is in constant flux.
nradov 4y ago
You're asking the wrong question. Regardless of the specific number of work hours that would be necessary to live a minimal but decent lifestyle (however you choose to define that), some people will always choose to work longer and harder in order to raise their social status. That status is often denominated in money but it can also take the form of possession of scarce resources, athletic skills, physical appearance, or fame. Most people are very status conscious and will then work harder themselves in order to keep up with the competition (or at least not fall too far behind). You might claim that this status seeking is irrational or unhealthy or whatever, but that's a moot point. It's fundamental human nature and will never change.
- janef0421 4y ago
  Even if humans would continue to attempt to gain social status by training to become buff pole-vaulters, I think it would be a massive improvement if that status seeking was decoupled from the economic system.
- ruined 4y ago
  social status is, by definition, cultural, and cultural values are malleable. i think it's also worth pointing out that work is perhaps not so connected to status as may be assumed. there is plenty of work that provides no status, and it seems to me that higher-status people work less.
  - lezojeda 4y ago
    Social status is indeed cultural, but the search for it comes from deep instincts found in a lot of other mammals besides us. Trying to go aginst the search of a higher social status is trying to stop gravity.
  - drdeca 4y ago
    By definition of “social status” or by definition of “cultural”? That something is malleable doesn’t imply that it is infinitely malleable. Also yes, more work does not correspond to higher status in any monotonic way like that. This doesn’t cause any problem for the claim that some people would opt to do more work in order to gain more status?
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    > social status is, by definition, cultural, and cultural values are malleable Is it? It turns out it's usually easier to tackle "fixed" characteristics coming from biology or physics. Cultural / social aspects are usually near-impossible to change by any single person or group.
  - nullfield 4y ago
    After you acquire a certain amount of resources, you’re able to care less about increasing your social status-for what else does “more social status” bring, if not more resources. I’m unable to avoid thinking back, again and again, as Shohreh Aghdashloo voices Avasarala in The Expanse talking about how they have UBI (Basic) because they can’t provide enough jobs-and if you take it you can’t work. We’re heading directly there, not as we produce things off-world (for now), but as we automate and head more and more towards post-scarcity. Our current models of microeconomics (and maybe macro, I can’t say) only hold up under a scarce amount of resources. If we somehow let a combination of “not-scarce-resources” plus a level of centralization over control of production and delivery of those not-actually-scarce-to-produce resources, but which cuts out people who don’t do “X” (whatever “X” is), we’re going to have an especially nasty problem.
WalterBright 4y ago
> Roughly how much "work" does every person in the world need to do so that every person in the world can live a minimal but decent lifestyle? It turns out people have to work harder for that than they do working under a free market system, where they get to keep what they earn.
- WaxProlix 4y ago
  > they get to keep what they earn. And 'earn' what they're allowed -- 'earn' is kind of a weasel word in that sentence.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    It is not a weasel word. If free market workers were only "allowed" some money, they would all be working at minimum wage. I personally know many working for well into 6 figures. It's under a non-free market system where the government sets your non-negotiable pay, i.e. what you're "allowed".
    - NoThisIsMe 4y ago
      "What they earn" only has meaning with respect to some wage; if one works a job at some wage then what they earn is just a matter of arithmetic, no matter if that wage is set by a government, a monopolistic employer, "the free market", or something else. A more interesting question is: how should we as a society set wages to best benefit society? Your answer, I gather, is to leave it to the market. I'm not sure what my answer is, but I do believe the current state of affairs ain't it. For one, I believe the guys that pick up the garbage (an essential and incredibly unpleasant, dangerous, and physically demanding job) should make at least as much as a software developer. If the market disagrees, then that's a small hint that maybe markets aren't the end-all-be-all of economic organization. Try to transcend for five seconds the decades of propaganda you've sustained -- capitalism is not a law of nature hits bong.
      - WalterBright 4y ago
HyperSane 4y ago
GDP/hour of labor is a really interesting metric. For the US it is about $75/hour.
- M95D 4y ago
  Romania has the second highest GDP/h in EU. Why? Because of undeclared employment / illegal work.
  - jocaal 4y ago
    I am guessing you mean GDP/capita-hour, if it was only gdp/hour that would imply Romania is the second largest economy in Europe
    - HyperSane 4y ago
      Sorry, I meant GDP/hour-of-labor.
  - jocaal 4y ago
    Or actually in that context it makes sense, I apologise
  - trifurcate 4y ago
    Is that really true? https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm , set the base to US dollars instead of 2015 normalized. Most EU countries and the EU average of $54.20/hour seems to be above Romania's figure of $38/hour.
zemvpferreira 4y ago
I also think this is a tricky but fun question. First off, what's minimal but decent? Maybe owning a phone with internet access and 4 changes of clothes. Eating enough nutritious food every week. Having a comfortable place to sleep, indoor plumbing and ease in moving about a 10 mile radius. Healthcare for emergencies only. That might total the equivalent of $50/week in consumption and $20K in sunken costs per person in the developed world. Much less in developing nations. You're thinking in terms of tens of hours when we could get by on minutes of work per day, if we optimised for comfortable survival. At the cost of stagnation. But not a bad trade-off to consider.

BitwiseFool 4y ago

I think this is a question with an impossible answer. Life on Earth is far to varied and chaotic for any baseline value. Just like an ecosystem, everything is in constant flux.

nradov 4y ago

You're asking the wrong question. Regardless of the specific number of work hours that would be necessary to live a minimal but decent lifestyle (however you choose to define that), some people will always choose to work longer and harder in order to raise their social status. That status is often denominated in money but it can also take the form of possession of scarce resources, athletic skills, physical appearance, or fame. Most people are very status conscious and will then work harder themselves in order to keep up with the competition (or at least not fall too far behind). You might claim that this status seeking is irrational or unhealthy or whatever, but that's a moot point. It's fundamental human nature and will never change.

janef0421 4y ago
Even if humans would continue to attempt to gain social status by training to become buff pole-vaulters, I think it would be a massive improvement if that status seeking was decoupled from the economic system.
ruined 4y ago
social status is, by definition, cultural, and cultural values are malleable. i think it's also worth pointing out that work is perhaps not so connected to status as may be assumed. there is plenty of work that provides no status, and it seems to me that higher-status people work less.
- lezojeda 4y ago
  Social status is indeed cultural, but the search for it comes from deep instincts found in a lot of other mammals besides us. Trying to go aginst the search of a higher social status is trying to stop gravity.
- drdeca 4y ago
  By definition of “social status” or by definition of “cultural”? That something is malleable doesn’t imply that it is infinitely malleable. Also yes, more work does not correspond to higher status in any monotonic way like that. This doesn’t cause any problem for the claim that some people would opt to do more work in order to gain more status?
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  > social status is, by definition, cultural, and cultural values are malleable Is it? It turns out it's usually easier to tackle "fixed" characteristics coming from biology or physics. Cultural / social aspects are usually near-impossible to change by any single person or group.
- nullfield 4y ago
  After you acquire a certain amount of resources, you’re able to care less about increasing your social status-for what else does “more social status” bring, if not more resources. I’m unable to avoid thinking back, again and again, as Shohreh Aghdashloo voices Avasarala in The Expanse talking about how they have UBI (Basic) because they can’t provide enough jobs-and if you take it you can’t work. We’re heading directly there, not as we produce things off-world (for now), but as we automate and head more and more towards post-scarcity. Our current models of microeconomics (and maybe macro, I can’t say) only hold up under a scarce amount of resources. If we somehow let a combination of “not-scarce-resources” plus a level of centralization over control of production and delivery of those not-actually-scarce-to-produce resources, but which cuts out people who don’t do “X” (whatever “X” is), we’re going to have an especially nasty problem.

WalterBright 4y ago

> Roughly how much "work" does every person in the world need to do so that every person in the world can live a minimal but decent lifestyle? It turns out people have to work harder for that than they do working under a free market system, where they get to keep what they earn.

WaxProlix 4y ago
> they get to keep what they earn. And 'earn' what they're allowed -- 'earn' is kind of a weasel word in that sentence.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  It is not a weasel word. If free market workers were only "allowed" some money, they would all be working at minimum wage. I personally know many working for well into 6 figures. It's under a non-free market system where the government sets your non-negotiable pay, i.e. what you're "allowed".
  - NoThisIsMe 4y ago
    "What they earn" only has meaning with respect to some wage; if one works a job at some wage then what they earn is just a matter of arithmetic, no matter if that wage is set by a government, a monopolistic employer, "the free market", or something else. A more interesting question is: how should we as a society set wages to best benefit society? Your answer, I gather, is to leave it to the market. I'm not sure what my answer is, but I do believe the current state of affairs ain't it. For one, I believe the guys that pick up the garbage (an essential and incredibly unpleasant, dangerous, and physically demanding job) should make at least as much as a software developer. If the market disagrees, then that's a small hint that maybe markets aren't the end-all-be-all of economic organization. Try to transcend for five seconds the decades of propaganda you've sustained -- capitalism is not a law of nature hits bong.
    - WalterBright 4y ago

HyperSane 4y ago

GDP/hour of labor is a really interesting metric. For the US it is about $75/hour.

M95D 4y ago
Romania has the second highest GDP/h in EU. Why? Because of undeclared employment / illegal work.
- jocaal 4y ago
  I am guessing you mean GDP/capita-hour, if it was only gdp/hour that would imply Romania is the second largest economy in Europe
  - HyperSane 4y ago
    Sorry, I meant GDP/hour-of-labor.
- jocaal 4y ago
  Or actually in that context it makes sense, I apologise
- trifurcate 4y ago
  Is that really true? https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm , set the base to US dollars instead of 2015 normalized. Most EU countries and the EU average of $54.20/hour seems to be above Romania's figure of $38/hour.

zemvpferreira 4y ago

I also think this is a tricky but fun question. First off, what's minimal but decent? Maybe owning a phone with internet access and 4 changes of clothes. Eating enough nutritious food every week. Having a comfortable place to sleep, indoor plumbing and ease in moving about a 10 mile radius. Healthcare for emergencies only. That might total the equivalent of $50/week in consumption and $20K in sunken costs per person in the developed world. Much less in developing nations. You're thinking in terms of tens of hours when we could get by on minutes of work per day, if we optimised for comfortable survival. At the cost of stagnation. But not a bad trade-off to consider.