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> Enforcing a 4 day work-week would be a good start. The labor surplus is caused by decreased scarcity. Prosperity has decoupled from labor. This is not a prob

• loup-vaillant 13y ago
  > The labor surplus is caused by decreased scarcity. Not exactly. The number one factor is hourly productivity, which more than doubled since the 70s. At the same time, demand also doubled, just not as fast (there are a few missing %). That difference is where labour surplus mainly came from. > This is not a problem! If your an employer, sure: this is an employer's market. But ultimately, this drives salaries down, and consumption, then employment. There's a reason why Ford advocated the 5 days work-week when everyone else went for 6, and why he paid $5 a day when the norm was $2.5. He wanted his employees to buy his cars. > artificial shortage of labor We're already under such "artificial shortage". Minus the shortage, of course, but we have vacations, 5 day work weeks… If you let the market choose, you would soon have many people working 50-60 hours per week for less than the minimum wage. (I mean, we would have more of them.) I just want to push the cursor further on the "artificial" side.