3 ms·

6 days used to be normal generations ago, and still is in many parts of the world. Perhaps we're just in a golden age that's about to end.

ossobuco 2y ago
I wonder what was all the progress in automation about then, just making a few capitalists richer while we regress to "generations ago"? The luddites don't sound so crazy anymore these days.
- i80and 2y ago
  Badging the Luddites as regressive dummies was never historically accurate, but has been a highly effective anti-labor framing. I've been glad to see more and more people rediscover lately their actual grievances.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
unfunco 2y ago
…or maybe not? Britain's biggest union demands a four day week: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/06/21/ftse-100-retail-sales-latest-updates/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/06/21/ftse-100-ret...
- giantg2 2y ago
  And how is the UK economy doing?
gambiting 2y ago
Funny how not that long ago everyone used to predict that with the increases of productivity worldwide we'll keep reducing our workload to a point where we'll work just few hours a week and remain just as productive. And it seems that this has happened for a select few but everyone else is working more and more just to afford rent and basic necessities.
- squidbeak 2y ago
  And anxiety over affording those necessities leads to drops in productivity.
- energy123 2y ago
  > And it seems that this has happened for a select few It's happened for anyone that owns housing without a mortgage in a wealthy country. Everyone else has to work full-time to pay their landlord or bank. Given the housing stock is kept artificially low, all remaining money in the average paycheck will necessarily be eaten up by housing. It doesn't really matter how productive the economy is. If shelter is kept scarce, the cost of housing will keep rising to eat up the rest of the average paycheck.
  - giantg2 2y ago
    "Given the housing stock is kept artificially low," I'm not sure I'd call it artificial. There are rational market forces at play. The real issue is that everyone wants to live in the same places, and the people there already want to preserve their lifestyle and investment.
    - CapstanRoller 2y ago
      >The real issue is that everyone wants to live in the same places They want to live where they can survive, and survival is dependent on money. Many people (myself included) would be perfectly happy living in a quiet remote area with basic amenities.
    - energy123 2y ago
      San Francisco approves less than 20 new housing units each year. Nobody is allowed to build where people want to live. That's artificial.
- Agentus 2y ago
  I got into AI specifically, because the automation and productivity yields would result in a 4hr work week for most if not all upon full fruition. That dream-like bubble got popped when I was reminded by a savvy individual at a hackathon basically what you alluded to in your post. He was concerned that the elites would hoard the productivity of AI as they would get a controlling stake and it wouldn't benefit the common people as much. At first I was slightly incredulous and thought better of my fellow humans but then after seeing countless confirming examples in different settings, you and this hackathon guy have a worrisome point. Capitalist forces, at least its current iteration and various other political-economic systems seem incapable or willfully defiant on providing rent and basic necessities. We have the wealth to shelter all and feed all for a fraction of human effort yet gaining access to reliable shelter and food is a continual struggle for those not in the top rungs of wealth earners. Capitalism is reaaaaally good at producing wealth, it's atrocious at spreading it around or serving the needs of the lower classes. So many things point at increasing wealth and automation doesn't trickle down in meaningful ways to the lower classes. Tesla's obviously going through some recent struggles, it's cutting 10-ish % of its workforce, yet the board repeatedly push through a multi-billion dollar package for technoking... Barf. Besides that jarring example, I wish I could remember a lot of people making elicit abstract takes, on the failings of democracy and capitalism at serving the people. But one is: David Graeber. He talked about bullshit jobs and the promise of the 15 hour work week according the John Keynes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs. I recommend youtube videos of him or reading his book. I'm sure Noam Chomsky has some good points. There's also Norm Finklesteins comment about what he calls a mausoleum in New York, a multi-million dollar building owned by internationals that's empty, all the while there's homeless outside. The contrast is striking. I've heard Greek has had similar problems in recent past of foreigners owning lots of the touristry spots pushing out the locals. Then there are plenty of situations where there's some corporation thats the main wealth creator in an area. The majority stakeholders of course somehow finesse their way into more than their fair share of the wealth with some rationalizations that most people buy into without a second thought. But the math discrepency over the long term doesn't quite paint a copasetic picture. Neighboring that, I like doing this thought experiment: It's clear there aren't any super humans on this planet. No "true" self-made billionaires IE billionaires that can make a billion without any other human involvement. Sure it's easy to become a billionaire when you financially hoodwink a group collaboration taking a lionshare of the stake by some financial contraption that most have no idea what's going on or have no negotiation power to be like NAH. Even so, there will always be the next useful idiot to agree to get taken advantage of to make Jeff Bezos rich. Maybe not an idiot, but starving and desperate to get food. But back to the majority stakeholders. So the majority stakeholders get extremely lopsidedly compensated. Here is where trickle-down does work. Others have to find a way to "service" these majority stakeholders so that they can depart those wealth hoarders from the pennies pinched between their fingers and exchange that for food and shelter from price-gouging landlords in cities where building enough shelter at good pricing is such an insurmountable obstacle (My apologies I'm laying it on too thick). The trickle down effect in the economy takes the shape of how the wealth hoarders want to be served. If Jeff Bezos wants a stadium-sized yacht and a personal lower orbit shuttle service. Well the economy contorts, IE industrial capacity and labor effort, that contorts with its discretionary capacity to serve those needs and those who are willing to provide that can get their housing and sustanence needs taken care of. The stadium-sized yacht and spaceship side hustle wouldn't upset me so much if Amazon's work conditions weren't so notorious and also if everyone's shelter was already prioritized before reaching out for more absurd business schemes. Regardless, our political-economic systems (Greece or elsewhere) definitely are failing some key evaluation metrics regardless of the spin proponents like to place on them.
close04 2y ago
Productivity has increased substantially over the past few generations. Longer working time just captures more of that productivity for the benefit of the employer. This is a continuation of another trend over the past generations, to have increased productivity over a much larger segment of the population (more women joined the workforce) and yet the benefits of this were mostly captured by the employers, at least in the countries where this was more thoroughly documented and didn’t suffer any upheaval or regime changes to influence the numbers (e.g. the US).
litoE 2y ago
In Chile in the 1950s they had a 48-hour work (and school) week: Monday through Saturday. However, it was common for people to just not show up for work on Mondays, jocularly referred to as "celebrating Saint Monday's Day", even though they forfeited one day's pay. In 1959 the government implemented a new program: if you worked the full 6 days you were paid for 7 days. If you worked less than 6 days, you were only paid for the days you actually worked; that meant that taking Monday off now cost you two days pay. The "Saint Monday's Day" practice quickly died away.
- xtracto 2y ago
  Here in Mexico it's pretty normal for companies to require working mon to sat.
pjscott 2y ago
Maybe it's just a Greece thing. I notice that other EU countries are doing a lot better than them economically; not sure why Greece in particular seems to be struggling.
EasyMark 2y ago
Perhaps the majority should stop letting a bunch of elites tell it what to do? They only have the power we let them have.

ossobuco 2y ago

I wonder what was all the progress in automation about then, just making a few capitalists richer while we regress to "generations ago"? The luddites don't sound so crazy anymore these days.

i80and 2y ago
Badging the Luddites as regressive dummies was never historically accurate, but has been a highly effective anti-labor framing. I've been glad to see more and more people rediscover lately their actual grievances.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

unfunco 2y ago

…or maybe not? Britain's biggest union demands a four day week: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/06/21/ftse-100-retail-sales-latest-updates/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/06/21/ftse-100-ret...

giantg2 2y ago
And how is the UK economy doing?

gambiting 2y ago

Funny how not that long ago everyone used to predict that with the increases of productivity worldwide we'll keep reducing our workload to a point where we'll work just few hours a week and remain just as productive. And it seems that this has happened for a select few but everyone else is working more and more just to afford rent and basic necessities.

squidbeak 2y ago
And anxiety over affording those necessities leads to drops in productivity.
energy123 2y ago
> And it seems that this has happened for a select few It's happened for anyone that owns housing without a mortgage in a wealthy country. Everyone else has to work full-time to pay their landlord or bank. Given the housing stock is kept artificially low, all remaining money in the average paycheck will necessarily be eaten up by housing. It doesn't really matter how productive the economy is. If shelter is kept scarce, the cost of housing will keep rising to eat up the rest of the average paycheck.
- giantg2 2y ago
  "Given the housing stock is kept artificially low," I'm not sure I'd call it artificial. There are rational market forces at play. The real issue is that everyone wants to live in the same places, and the people there already want to preserve their lifestyle and investment.
  - CapstanRoller 2y ago
    >The real issue is that everyone wants to live in the same places They want to live where they can survive, and survival is dependent on money. Many people (myself included) would be perfectly happy living in a quiet remote area with basic amenities.
  - energy123 2y ago
    San Francisco approves less than 20 new housing units each year. Nobody is allowed to build where people want to live. That's artificial.
Agentus 2y ago
I got into AI specifically, because the automation and productivity yields would result in a 4hr work week for most if not all upon full fruition. That dream-like bubble got popped when I was reminded by a savvy individual at a hackathon basically what you alluded to in your post. He was concerned that the elites would hoard the productivity of AI as they would get a controlling stake and it wouldn't benefit the common people as much. At first I was slightly incredulous and thought better of my fellow humans but then after seeing countless confirming examples in different settings, you and this hackathon guy have a worrisome point. Capitalist forces, at least its current iteration and various other political-economic systems seem incapable or willfully defiant on providing rent and basic necessities. We have the wealth to shelter all and feed all for a fraction of human effort yet gaining access to reliable shelter and food is a continual struggle for those not in the top rungs of wealth earners. Capitalism is reaaaaally good at producing wealth, it's atrocious at spreading it around or serving the needs of the lower classes. So many things point at increasing wealth and automation doesn't trickle down in meaningful ways to the lower classes. Tesla's obviously going through some recent struggles, it's cutting 10-ish % of its workforce, yet the board repeatedly push through a multi-billion dollar package for technoking... Barf. Besides that jarring example, I wish I could remember a lot of people making elicit abstract takes, on the failings of democracy and capitalism at serving the people. But one is: David Graeber. He talked about bullshit jobs and the promise of the 15 hour work week according the John Keynes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs. I recommend youtube videos of him or reading his book. I'm sure Noam Chomsky has some good points. There's also Norm Finklesteins comment about what he calls a mausoleum in New York, a multi-million dollar building owned by internationals that's empty, all the while there's homeless outside. The contrast is striking. I've heard Greek has had similar problems in recent past of foreigners owning lots of the touristry spots pushing out the locals. Then there are plenty of situations where there's some corporation thats the main wealth creator in an area. The majority stakeholders of course somehow finesse their way into more than their fair share of the wealth with some rationalizations that most people buy into without a second thought. But the math discrepency over the long term doesn't quite paint a copasetic picture. Neighboring that, I like doing this thought experiment: It's clear there aren't any super humans on this planet. No "true" self-made billionaires IE billionaires that can make a billion without any other human involvement. Sure it's easy to become a billionaire when you financially hoodwink a group collaboration taking a lionshare of the stake by some financial contraption that most have no idea what's going on or have no negotiation power to be like NAH. Even so, there will always be the next useful idiot to agree to get taken advantage of to make Jeff Bezos rich. Maybe not an idiot, but starving and desperate to get food. But back to the majority stakeholders. So the majority stakeholders get extremely lopsidedly compensated. Here is where trickle-down does work. Others have to find a way to "service" these majority stakeholders so that they can depart those wealth hoarders from the pennies pinched between their fingers and exchange that for food and shelter from price-gouging landlords in cities where building enough shelter at good pricing is such an insurmountable obstacle (My apologies I'm laying it on too thick). The trickle down effect in the economy takes the shape of how the wealth hoarders want to be served. If Jeff Bezos wants a stadium-sized yacht and a personal lower orbit shuttle service. Well the economy contorts, IE industrial capacity and labor effort, that contorts with its discretionary capacity to serve those needs and those who are willing to provide that can get their housing and sustanence needs taken care of. The stadium-sized yacht and spaceship side hustle wouldn't upset me so much if Amazon's work conditions weren't so notorious and also if everyone's shelter was already prioritized before reaching out for more absurd business schemes. Regardless, our political-economic systems (Greece or elsewhere) definitely are failing some key evaluation metrics regardless of the spin proponents like to place on them.

close04 2y ago

Productivity has increased substantially over the past few generations. Longer working time just captures more of that productivity for the benefit of the employer. This is a continuation of another trend over the past generations, to have increased productivity over a much larger segment of the population (more women joined the workforce) and yet the benefits of this were mostly captured by the employers, at least in the countries where this was more thoroughly documented and didn’t suffer any upheaval or regime changes to influence the numbers (e.g. the US).

litoE 2y ago

In Chile in the 1950s they had a 48-hour work (and school) week: Monday through Saturday. However, it was common for people to just not show up for work on Mondays, jocularly referred to as "celebrating Saint Monday's Day", even though they forfeited one day's pay. In 1959 the government implemented a new program: if you worked the full 6 days you were paid for 7 days. If you worked less than 6 days, you were only paid for the days you actually worked; that meant that taking Monday off now cost you two days pay. The "Saint Monday's Day" practice quickly died away.

xtracto 2y ago
Here in Mexico it's pretty normal for companies to require working mon to sat.

pjscott 2y ago

Maybe it's just a Greece thing. I notice that other EU countries are doing a lot better than them economically; not sure why Greece in particular seems to be struggling.

EasyMark 2y ago

Perhaps the majority should stop letting a bunch of elites tell it what to do? They only have the power we let them have.