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If a person is so productive that he can do in 3 days, what others can do for 5 this person can go to the owner and negotiate directly. No need for government t

If a person is so productive that he can do in 3 days, what others can do for 5 this person can go to the owner and negotiate directly. No need for government to enforce a thing. I know some highly skilled programmers that are on 10 hours/week paid retainers. No unions or governments helped with that. Also if the economy wasn't global and each country lived on an island may be this "might work". However, suppose you own a company in the country where you are mandated to employ people no more than 4 days/week. You are upright citizen and are supportive of the regulation. But your competitors, those greedy bastards, use low-paid offshore labour and undercut you in price or in time to market. Their costs are lower, so they're stealing a market share from you. The government has effectively increased the price of the labour in your product by 20%. What would the effect be for a person who wants to work 5 or 6 days, or 7 days if he'd like, he can't do that. He can't sell more than 4 days of work to 1 employer and would need to find a second job or start working as a contractor paid by project, not by hour. With the global economy & AI tools, the IT sector is especially vulnerable. Your job will be outsourced as long as the company finds a way to do it cheaper. It's either this, or bust. But IT jobs aren't don't have the constraints other material goods have. No legislation is stronger than invisible hand of the market. It's time to grow up...

giraffe_lady 2y ago
You could go back in time and use these exact arguments against the labor movement for the 8-hour work day. Would you? What's different?
- freefaler 2y ago
  If you have a global market and somebody can produce this cheaper than you it doesn't matter what a local government/union or an owner will mandate. The market will decide that. The 8-hour work day was possible in the British Empire, because it's an island with a lot of technology making their product at the time the cheapest and highest quality with great productivity per worker. Yes, unions helped with redistributing part of the profits to them with better conditions. That was good back then. Now, no such technological/productivity divide exist. Look what happened to US steel industry or auto industry. Global competition killed them. All wages are paid from the profit the company makes. If the company can't compete on the market no jobs for anyone. If you own the local power utility and power can't be easily imported/produced, you'd be able to pay higher wages and afford unions. Now if you build a SAAS business and pay 140K/yr to your programmer and your competitor pays 14K/yr for the same programmer in Bangladesh, who would survive? The 8-hour work day and even 4-hour work day are possible (as some government bureaucrats know) if you don't compete in the market. If you do, the profit will go to the person doing it for less. So technology is the only way forward. BTW, that is the way market economies allocate resources much more efficiently than centralized organizations. Brutal, but efficient. And for people this might mean cheap Chinese phones, but no job sadly. That's why it might be better to become a plumber than a react JS developer longer term. The big google profits are not forever and investors money will end someday.
toomuchtodo 2y ago
The US government has enacted tariffs on many goods from China, at upwards of 100% in some cases. This can be done for cross border labor as well, to prevent a race to the bottom with regards to labor regulations through exporting the externality. An economy need not be global; nation states control their markets, and access to them. https://www.reuters.com/business/us-locks-steep-china-tariff-hikes-many-start-sept-27-2024-09-13/ https://www.reuters.com/business/us-locks-steep-china-tariff... > No legislation is stronger than invisible hand of the market. It's time to grow up... The strength of legislation is a function of its civil and criminal penalties, as well as its economic incentives (positive or negative). Craft policy accordingly.
- freefaler 2y ago
  If you don't trade you won't have all the things you need. You can't legislate other peoples costs, subsidies, environment disregard, slave labour, natural resources and technological advances. As seen in DPRK in 1990s or Albania in 1950. If you don't produce something other countries want, you'll starve to death. Import raw materials, export finished products, that how the wealth of the West was built. Now with no technological edge this would be harder to achieve. Protectionism was attempted many times before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_Laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_Laws There is no free lunch. You need more efficient government with less restrictions, and a good workforce with imported highly skilled people from around the world (ready to work, ready to earn, ready to generate taxes). Technology will create the profit margin the society needs and with this it'll be able to take care of he ones that can't produce and need help.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    > You can't legislate other peoples costs, subsidies, environment disregard, slave labour, natural resources and technological advances. You absolutely can. The evidence of this is clear. If you want a recent example, see the Inflation Reduction Act, that requires domestically sourced supply chains for batteries, EVs, and solar panels, as well as union labor. TSMC now builds semiconductors in Arizona Apple uses, with US labor. Fiber optics being installed for rural bandwidth is mandated to be sourced from US providers. Steel is sourced from Nucor in Gallatin, Kentucky for domestic use. Policy drives outcomes at scale. https://time.com/6304143/inflation-reduction-act-us-global-impact/ https://time.com/6304143/inflation-reduction-act-us-global-i... ("How the Inflation Reduction Act Has Reshaped the U.S.—and The World") You say it cannot be done when it is being done. Policy works, and it can be used to bend economics to what the desired outcome is. A shorter work week can be a desired outcome.

giraffe_lady 2y ago

You could go back in time and use these exact arguments against the labor movement for the 8-hour work day. Would you? What's different?

freefaler 2y ago
If you have a global market and somebody can produce this cheaper than you it doesn't matter what a local government/union or an owner will mandate. The market will decide that. The 8-hour work day was possible in the British Empire, because it's an island with a lot of technology making their product at the time the cheapest and highest quality with great productivity per worker. Yes, unions helped with redistributing part of the profits to them with better conditions. That was good back then. Now, no such technological/productivity divide exist. Look what happened to US steel industry or auto industry. Global competition killed them. All wages are paid from the profit the company makes. If the company can't compete on the market no jobs for anyone. If you own the local power utility and power can't be easily imported/produced, you'd be able to pay higher wages and afford unions. Now if you build a SAAS business and pay 140K/yr to your programmer and your competitor pays 14K/yr for the same programmer in Bangladesh, who would survive? The 8-hour work day and even 4-hour work day are possible (as some government bureaucrats know) if you don't compete in the market. If you do, the profit will go to the person doing it for less. So technology is the only way forward. BTW, that is the way market economies allocate resources much more efficiently than centralized organizations. Brutal, but efficient. And for people this might mean cheap Chinese phones, but no job sadly. That's why it might be better to become a plumber than a react JS developer longer term. The big google profits are not forever and investors money will end someday.

toomuchtodo 2y ago

The US government has enacted tariffs on many goods from China, at upwards of 100% in some cases. This can be done for cross border labor as well, to prevent a race to the bottom with regards to labor regulations through exporting the externality. An economy need not be global; nation states control their markets, and access to them. https://www.reuters.com/business/us-locks-steep-china-tariff-hikes-many-start-sept-27-2024-09-13/ https://www.reuters.com/business/us-locks-steep-china-tariff... > No legislation is stronger than invisible hand of the market. It's time to grow up... The strength of legislation is a function of its civil and criminal penalties, as well as its economic incentives (positive or negative). Craft policy accordingly.

freefaler 2y ago
If you don't trade you won't have all the things you need. You can't legislate other peoples costs, subsidies, environment disregard, slave labour, natural resources and technological advances. As seen in DPRK in 1990s or Albania in 1950. If you don't produce something other countries want, you'll starve to death. Import raw materials, export finished products, that how the wealth of the West was built. Now with no technological edge this would be harder to achieve. Protectionism was attempted many times before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_Laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_Laws There is no free lunch. You need more efficient government with less restrictions, and a good workforce with imported highly skilled people from around the world (ready to work, ready to earn, ready to generate taxes). Technology will create the profit margin the society needs and with this it'll be able to take care of he ones that can't produce and need help.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  > You can't legislate other peoples costs, subsidies, environment disregard, slave labour, natural resources and technological advances. You absolutely can. The evidence of this is clear. If you want a recent example, see the Inflation Reduction Act, that requires domestically sourced supply chains for batteries, EVs, and solar panels, as well as union labor. TSMC now builds semiconductors in Arizona Apple uses, with US labor. Fiber optics being installed for rural bandwidth is mandated to be sourced from US providers. Steel is sourced from Nucor in Gallatin, Kentucky for domestic use. Policy drives outcomes at scale. https://time.com/6304143/inflation-reduction-act-us-global-impact/ https://time.com/6304143/inflation-reduction-act-us-global-i... ("How the Inflation Reduction Act Has Reshaped the U.S.—and The World") You say it cannot be done when it is being done. Policy works, and it can be used to bend economics to what the desired outcome is. A shorter work week can be a desired outcome.