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Working 20 % less will cost you 20 % of your living standard, there is no way around that. There may be some jobs where people already effectively only work 4 d
by danbruc 3y ago
Working 20 % less will cost you 20 % of your living standard, there is no way around that. There may be some jobs where people already effectively only work 4 days and sit around doing nothing for one more day, in those cases you could maintain productivity if the people would squeeze all the work into the 4 days. And that the capitalists would voluntarily eat a 20 % loss seems pretty questionable to me.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoHumans constantly living on a discount (labor, climate, energy, etc) and upset when the true cost sets in. Is what it is. Living standards must go down if automation and other non human labor mechanisms can't keep productivity going up as total fertility rate [1] and populations [2] decline. I believe we agree organizing and unionizing is mostly the path to success here, due to unreasonable consumers and capital investors. Some jurisdictions might update labor law perhaps, lots of emotional and behavioral inertia to overcome though (along with plain ol' extractionist justification and belief systems). [1] https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rates/ https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rates/ [2] https://ourworldindata.org/age-structure https://ourworldindata.org/age-structure
- danbruc 3y agoI completely agree with you that we are living well beyond our means. And working less would be a way to lower our footprint, but that is probably not what most people have in mind when they consider a 4 day week. I also think it would not be the best choice, I think it would be better to not reduce the amount of work we do but instead of using the 5th day to produce more stuff we use it to produce better stuff with a smaller footprint.