4 ms·

To make this claim about the US is to overlook that basically all western countries have 40 hour work weeks. Are they all failing democracies too? Its a shame

To make this claim about the US is to overlook that basically all western countries have 40 hour work weeks. Are they all failing democracies too? Its a shame how many Americans are too busy hating America to look outside the border and see how good they have it, but also how most of their “uniquely American” problems are not unique at all. (My perspective is as an Australian living in America. And my comment doesn’t apply to guns.)

lmm 4y ago
US working hours are legitimately higher than most of the developed world.
- goodpoint 4y ago
  And worker rights are objectively much worse.
vouwfietsman 4y ago
This is not really true though, 40 hour working weeks are very much not something western countries "have" in the general sense of having a constitution or police force. In many western countries, especially northern Europe, it is a given that parents (especially women, but also men) work less than 40 hours, even in demanding jobs. As a more general example, the municipalities of many cities in the Netherlands consider 36 hours a full time job, in the sense that getting paid more than 36 hours is actually beyond your contract and working that long is very unlikely to happen. Personally I work a demanding tech job with 32 hours a week, like others in this thread, this does not hurt my performance. The real problem, and reason I suspect you use the word "have", is that this is fundamentally a cultural issue where the resolution is not for "the bad companies to stop demanding all this work" but actually the entire society moving away from the idea that work is somehow the only way to constructively spend your time, and for money being the only value that is worth pursuing. Concretely what this means is that the fetishization of work must stop. This includes hustle culture, the idea of "side" or "passive" income, and the glorification of high salaries and high work "ethic" (see the use of the word ethic there, super interesting right). Opening hackernews itself, you can see that this mindset is widespread and actually not enforced by companies. If you look around the world, you will see that many societies don't work this way. Western societies became like this, for better or worse, through religion, specifically protestant christianity. If we look back now, saying that this is a good or bad thing is complete nonsense, but looking at the present we can desire for things to be different, and that desire is what is missing.
Frost1x 4y ago
>To make this claim about the US is to overlook that basically all western countries have 40 hour work weeks. >Are they all failing democracies too? If said populations voters in general think otherwise and its viable to execute, then yes. If not, then no. The point has very little to do with 40-hour work weeks and almost everything to do with the lack of policy reflecting reasonably implementable wants and needs of the population at large (again, while not trampling on human rights of minorities). The reason you see Americans hating on America is because they're unhappy in some way shape or form. Looking at those complaints externally, one might be inclined to dismiss those complaints because the situation is better than other locations relatively speaking in some respect from outside looking in. Ultimately, that doesn't negate the unhappiness of those complaining or a failure of a system designed specifically to address those shared views and frustrations through policy. It's possible for some things to appear "better" from the outside relative to another basis and still be undesirable by the population at large. I'm not well versed in labor rights in every country but in the US its not great, I can assure you. If you're comparing it to Somalia, it's probably amazing. That doesn't mean it can't be better in the US. Americans are often comparing America to itself and usually in a historic context: are things getting better or worse? We want to see progress, improvement in our lives or at least stability. That's of course not always possible because reality sinks in. When the pandemic hit, it wasn't a situation we could just "policy away" a viral infection without tradeoffs (social distancing, isolation, etc. were policy based but had ramifications on people's lives). I had a colleague from India who shared this frustration, they came from poverty in their country and moved into a high paying tech position here and would often bring up the same point that while so many complain in the US, "its better than many places." That point isn't invalid but that doesn't dismiss the desire to make it even better here, especially if it's possible and it's not the case of simple power imbalances. I came from poverty in the US. Maybe my poverty wasn't as bad as his poverty as a basis of comparison? Does the comparison really matter? We both want enjoyable happy present and future lives, let's focus on that instead of "who had/has it worse" and not use the worst to set the bar of progress. So, whether or not the situation is worse somewhere else doesn't invalidate frustration unless you are against progress for a population in general.
- ghiculescu 4y ago
  > almost everything to do with the lack of policy reflecting reasonably implementable wants and needs of the population at large And there’s my point. I think your claim is that most Americans want a 32 hour work week, and that the fact it doesn’t exist at large is proof of a failure of democracy. My claim is that by that logic every country in the world is a failed democracy since there’s always something that hasn’t been implemented by government that the people say they want in a poll. I don’t think that all democracies are failed democracies (and I doubt you do either), which means you should rethink your criteria for what makes a democracy successful.

lmm 4y ago

US working hours are legitimately higher than most of the developed world.

goodpoint 4y ago
And worker rights are objectively much worse.

vouwfietsman 4y ago

This is not really true though, 40 hour working weeks are very much not something western countries "have" in the general sense of having a constitution or police force. In many western countries, especially northern Europe, it is a given that parents (especially women, but also men) work less than 40 hours, even in demanding jobs. As a more general example, the municipalities of many cities in the Netherlands consider 36 hours a full time job, in the sense that getting paid more than 36 hours is actually beyond your contract and working that long is very unlikely to happen. Personally I work a demanding tech job with 32 hours a week, like others in this thread, this does not hurt my performance. The real problem, and reason I suspect you use the word "have", is that this is fundamentally a cultural issue where the resolution is not for "the bad companies to stop demanding all this work" but actually the entire society moving away from the idea that work is somehow the only way to constructively spend your time, and for money being the only value that is worth pursuing. Concretely what this means is that the fetishization of work must stop. This includes hustle culture, the idea of "side" or "passive" income, and the glorification of high salaries and high work "ethic" (see the use of the word ethic there, super interesting right). Opening hackernews itself, you can see that this mindset is widespread and actually not enforced by companies. If you look around the world, you will see that many societies don't work this way. Western societies became like this, for better or worse, through religion, specifically protestant christianity. If we look back now, saying that this is a good or bad thing is complete nonsense, but looking at the present we can desire for things to be different, and that desire is what is missing.

Frost1x 4y ago

>To make this claim about the US is to overlook that basically all western countries have 40 hour work weeks. >Are they all failing democracies too? If said populations voters in general think otherwise and its viable to execute, then yes. If not, then no. The point has very little to do with 40-hour work weeks and almost everything to do with the lack of policy reflecting reasonably implementable wants and needs of the population at large (again, while not trampling on human rights of minorities). The reason you see Americans hating on America is because they're unhappy in some way shape or form. Looking at those complaints externally, one might be inclined to dismiss those complaints because the situation is better than other locations relatively speaking in some respect from outside looking in. Ultimately, that doesn't negate the unhappiness of those complaining or a failure of a system designed specifically to address those shared views and frustrations through policy. It's possible for some things to appear "better" from the outside relative to another basis and still be undesirable by the population at large. I'm not well versed in labor rights in every country but in the US its not great, I can assure you. If you're comparing it to Somalia, it's probably amazing. That doesn't mean it can't be better in the US. Americans are often comparing America to itself and usually in a historic context: are things getting better or worse? We want to see progress, improvement in our lives or at least stability. That's of course not always possible because reality sinks in. When the pandemic hit, it wasn't a situation we could just "policy away" a viral infection without tradeoffs (social distancing, isolation, etc. were policy based but had ramifications on people's lives). I had a colleague from India who shared this frustration, they came from poverty in their country and moved into a high paying tech position here and would often bring up the same point that while so many complain in the US, "its better than many places." That point isn't invalid but that doesn't dismiss the desire to make it even better here, especially if it's possible and it's not the case of simple power imbalances. I came from poverty in the US. Maybe my poverty wasn't as bad as his poverty as a basis of comparison? Does the comparison really matter? We both want enjoyable happy present and future lives, let's focus on that instead of "who had/has it worse" and not use the worst to set the bar of progress. So, whether or not the situation is worse somewhere else doesn't invalidate frustration unless you are against progress for a population in general.

ghiculescu 4y ago
> almost everything to do with the lack of policy reflecting reasonably implementable wants and needs of the population at large And there’s my point. I think your claim is that most Americans want a 32 hour work week, and that the fact it doesn’t exist at large is proof of a failure of democracy. My claim is that by that logic every country in the world is a failed democracy since there’s always something that hasn’t been implemented by government that the people say they want in a poll. I don’t think that all democracies are failed democracies (and I doubt you do either), which means you should rethink your criteria for what makes a democracy successful.