7 ms·

Leisure is the new productivity

51 points by sethbannon 12y ago

zenogais 12y ago
Lost me at giving Henry Ford credit for the 40-hour workweek. Do you even read history? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day
- rifung 12y ago
  As far as I can tell, the link doesn't contradict what the post said. The article is US centric, and the link you gave supports their claim that Ford was the company which popularized the 40 hour work week. "By 1905, the eight-hour day was widely installed in the printing trades – see International Typographical Union (section) – but the vast majority of Americans worked 12-14 hour days. On January 5, 1914, the Ford Motor Company took the radical step of doubling pay to $5 a day and cut shifts from nine hours to eight, moves that were not popular with rival companies, although seeing the increase in Ford's productivity, and a significant increase in profit margin (from $30 million to $60 million in two years), most soon followed suit."
  - zenogais 12y ago
    Quote from the article: "Ironically, it was only when Henry Ford took the wildly controversial step of shuttering his automobile manufacturing factories on Saturday and cutting daily work hours from the then-standard 12 to 8 that workers began not only enjoying leisure time at home, but became more efficient and productive at work." Now if we re-read the Wikipedia article we see that, in fact, Ford was not the decisive factor but that there were a series of labor struggles before and after Ford's decision mostly outside the automotive industry that eventually won legislative support that truly universalized the 40-hour workweek. Thus Ford's role is minor, but perhaps decisive for the automotive industry only. Very different from the strong and historically warped claim made above.
    - rifung 12y ago
      My take from the article was that Ford popularized the idea. I definitely don't know enough about history to make a case either way, but at the very least the wikipedia article did not contradict it. It doesn't seem too far fetched to me that Ford's cutting daily work hours would have made a huge impact if only because it brought the idea to the public's eyes. At the very least it wouldn't surprise me if only because it wouldn't be the first time I read about Ford's influence on setting trends for working.
      - zenogais 12y ago
        I get what you were trying to say, for sure, but the fact of the matter is that you weren't actually familiar with the history, as you now admit, and ignored the entirety of the Wikipedia article except for a single sentence in order to draw support for the conclusion you wanted validated. Now you're falling back on pure conjecture to support your conclusion. The Wikipedia article does contradict the original statement, if you still don't see how then I can't really help you except to suggest you perhaps review in detail.
  - wavefunction 12y ago
    The eight-hour workday is one of the fruits of the struggles of labor unions before Ford Motors even got started. To then turn around and assign its introduction to a capitalist is ridiculous on its face but the sort of pro-corporate propaganda that is all too common in US culture.
    - akgerber 12y ago
      Capitalists love the 8-hour day, and would never murder children over it! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_View_Massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_View_Massacre
    - ashark 12y ago
      Judging from the rest of the article, which argues for more time off because it'll make workers more productive, it seems to be aimed precisely at capitalists. In that context some ego-stroking historical revisionism shouldn't be surprising. If it's in service of bringing about better worker rights in the US it's... I dunno, justified, I guess? Ends, means, and all that. Still gross.
cryoshon 12y ago
According to this (probably sugarcoated) article, the average person in the US works more than 40 hours per week. Attendant to this claim is the assumption that salaried employees are paid the same amount regardless of how much they work. We work more, and earn the same. We get zero guaranteed vacation days. We have labor policies that are worse than many impoverished countries. Our politicians are absolutely not working on solving this problem. What is needed are large scale strikes with a few simple demands, but it won't happen because people are too afraid of being cut loose and losing what little security they have.
- Delmania 12y ago
  In the United States, they will never do this. Our society is too heavily influenced by the "Protestant work ethic", and we have a folk lore about hard work and success. Plus many politicians are "pro-business" and take the stance many business owners do: that we should be grateful for having a job and be willing to sacrifice for our company without any expectation of reward.
  - bjelkeman-again 12y ago
    The Dutch have a strong Protestant work ethic too, and are pro-business, good traders and still consider five weeks holiday normal. What is needed is people to realise that those five weeks is not lost business, but happy productive employees for the rest of the year.
    - Chinjut 12y ago
      Or, what's needed is for us as a society to decide we have some other fundamental goal than "productivity".
      - bjelkeman-again 12y ago
        Yeah. That too. Being a European I have slightly different possibilities than in the U.S., but fundamentally, having lived in both places, I belive one can be the change here, and there.
tarikjn 12y ago
If (and I believe this), workers can be more productive with more leisure time, these companies will eventually prevail. Why try to regulate the market into doing it as she implies by comparing European countries, where by the way, unemployment is very high for the young? It is the surest way of doing it wrong. Nothing prevents companies from offering more vacation time, but forcing it with regulation will prevent a host of other good things to happen.
- Matumio 12y ago
  For some companies it may be more profitable to burn out employees and replace them with fresh meat. Do you even have a limitation on the weekly working hours in the US? Nothing against free markets, but the point of them is to improve our life.
squozzer 12y ago
It's quite possible that those who control the means of production already know everything mentioned in the CNN and like things the way they are. Salaried workers tend to be college-educated. Putting them on the treadmill reduces their ability to innovate and thereby threaten the established order. Hourly workers tend to have less education, which lowers their status and reduces their ability to threaten the established order. So leisure for them does not pose the same risks to the established order. Quick, what were the professions of the following people - Jefferson, Lenin, Castro, Ghandhi, Nehru, and Jinnah? Hint: they probably would have a hard time dabbling in revolution today without failing to meet their quota of billable hours.
- Chinjut 12y ago
  Small correction: "Gandhi". [The fact that you included Gandhi, Nehru, and Jinnah in your list suggests to me you quite possibly are South Asian and thus perhaps are already aware of this and simply made a typo; however, as this mistake (or, rather, its variant "Ghandi") is so common (I see the misspelt version far more frequently in Internet discussions than the correctly spelt one), and is related to frequent misspelling of my own name, I use any opportunity I can to bring attention to the correct spelling]
yoshizar 12y ago
There is some pretty misleading writing in this article. Take the sentence below: "Some years, international comparisons of GDP per hours worked have found, workers in Norway, Ireland, Denmark and even France, with their 30 days of paid vacation every year, their café culture, their generous paid family leave policies, their short work hours mandated by law and their new directive forbidding some employers from expecting workers to check work-related texts and emails after hours, beat us by a mile." In other words, In some years (not others), the GDP per hour worked is higher in countries where employees work fewer hours per year. If people work 20% less and are 10% more productive per hour when they do work, they're still less productive in total than if they didn't reduce their hours. Why does a company care if their salaried employees are more productive per hour? They just want that employee to maximize productivity over the employee's lifetime with the company. If the article has only historical anecdotes to demonstrate that employees are more productive in absolute terms if they work fewer hours, that's not very persuasive toward the point the author is trying to make, that major industries and large companies should change because they get more value out of having employees work fewer hours. I'm not saying I disagree with the author's point, only that they are using misleading evidence to try to support it.

51 points by sethbannon 12y ago

Lost me at giving Henry Ford credit for the 40-hour workweek. Do you even read history? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day

rifung 12y ago
As far as I can tell, the link doesn't contradict what the post said. The article is US centric, and the link you gave supports their claim that Ford was the company which popularized the 40 hour work week. "By 1905, the eight-hour day was widely installed in the printing trades – see International Typographical Union (section) – but the vast majority of Americans worked 12-14 hour days. On January 5, 1914, the Ford Motor Company took the radical step of doubling pay to $5 a day and cut shifts from nine hours to eight, moves that were not popular with rival companies, although seeing the increase in Ford's productivity, and a significant increase in profit margin (from $30 million to $60 million in two years), most soon followed suit."
- zenogais 12y ago
  Quote from the article: "Ironically, it was only when Henry Ford took the wildly controversial step of shuttering his automobile manufacturing factories on Saturday and cutting daily work hours from the then-standard 12 to 8 that workers began not only enjoying leisure time at home, but became more efficient and productive at work." Now if we re-read the Wikipedia article we see that, in fact, Ford was not the decisive factor but that there were a series of labor struggles before and after Ford's decision mostly outside the automotive industry that eventually won legislative support that truly universalized the 40-hour workweek. Thus Ford's role is minor, but perhaps decisive for the automotive industry only. Very different from the strong and historically warped claim made above.
  - rifung 12y ago
    My take from the article was that Ford popularized the idea. I definitely don't know enough about history to make a case either way, but at the very least the wikipedia article did not contradict it. It doesn't seem too far fetched to me that Ford's cutting daily work hours would have made a huge impact if only because it brought the idea to the public's eyes. At the very least it wouldn't surprise me if only because it wouldn't be the first time I read about Ford's influence on setting trends for working.
    - zenogais 12y ago
      I get what you were trying to say, for sure, but the fact of the matter is that you weren't actually familiar with the history, as you now admit, and ignored the entirety of the Wikipedia article except for a single sentence in order to draw support for the conclusion you wanted validated. Now you're falling back on pure conjecture to support your conclusion. The Wikipedia article does contradict the original statement, if you still don't see how then I can't really help you except to suggest you perhaps review in detail.
- wavefunction 12y ago
  The eight-hour workday is one of the fruits of the struggles of labor unions before Ford Motors even got started. To then turn around and assign its introduction to a capitalist is ridiculous on its face but the sort of pro-corporate propaganda that is all too common in US culture.
  - akgerber 12y ago
    Capitalists love the 8-hour day, and would never murder children over it! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_View_Massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_View_Massacre
  - ashark 12y ago
    Judging from the rest of the article, which argues for more time off because it'll make workers more productive, it seems to be aimed precisely at capitalists. In that context some ego-stroking historical revisionism shouldn't be surprising. If it's in service of bringing about better worker rights in the US it's... I dunno, justified, I guess? Ends, means, and all that. Still gross.

cryoshon 12y ago

According to this (probably sugarcoated) article, the average person in the US works more than 40 hours per week. Attendant to this claim is the assumption that salaried employees are paid the same amount regardless of how much they work. We work more, and earn the same. We get zero guaranteed vacation days. We have labor policies that are worse than many impoverished countries. Our politicians are absolutely not working on solving this problem. What is needed are large scale strikes with a few simple demands, but it won't happen because people are too afraid of being cut loose and losing what little security they have.

Delmania 12y ago
In the United States, they will never do this. Our society is too heavily influenced by the "Protestant work ethic", and we have a folk lore about hard work and success. Plus many politicians are "pro-business" and take the stance many business owners do: that we should be grateful for having a job and be willing to sacrifice for our company without any expectation of reward.
- bjelkeman-again 12y ago
  The Dutch have a strong Protestant work ethic too, and are pro-business, good traders and still consider five weeks holiday normal. What is needed is people to realise that those five weeks is not lost business, but happy productive employees for the rest of the year.
  - Chinjut 12y ago
    Or, what's needed is for us as a society to decide we have some other fundamental goal than "productivity".
    - bjelkeman-again 12y ago
      Yeah. That too. Being a European I have slightly different possibilities than in the U.S., but fundamentally, having lived in both places, I belive one can be the change here, and there.

tarikjn 12y ago

If (and I believe this), workers can be more productive with more leisure time, these companies will eventually prevail. Why try to regulate the market into doing it as she implies by comparing European countries, where by the way, unemployment is very high for the young? It is the surest way of doing it wrong. Nothing prevents companies from offering more vacation time, but forcing it with regulation will prevent a host of other good things to happen.

Matumio 12y ago
For some companies it may be more profitable to burn out employees and replace them with fresh meat. Do you even have a limitation on the weekly working hours in the US? Nothing against free markets, but the point of them is to improve our life.

squozzer 12y ago

It's quite possible that those who control the means of production already know everything mentioned in the CNN and like things the way they are. Salaried workers tend to be college-educated. Putting them on the treadmill reduces their ability to innovate and thereby threaten the established order. Hourly workers tend to have less education, which lowers their status and reduces their ability to threaten the established order. So leisure for them does not pose the same risks to the established order. Quick, what were the professions of the following people - Jefferson, Lenin, Castro, Ghandhi, Nehru, and Jinnah? Hint: they probably would have a hard time dabbling in revolution today without failing to meet their quota of billable hours.

Chinjut 12y ago
Small correction: "Gandhi". [The fact that you included Gandhi, Nehru, and Jinnah in your list suggests to me you quite possibly are South Asian and thus perhaps are already aware of this and simply made a typo; however, as this mistake (or, rather, its variant "Ghandi") is so common (I see the misspelt version far more frequently in Internet discussions than the correctly spelt one), and is related to frequent misspelling of my own name, I use any opportunity I can to bring attention to the correct spelling]

yoshizar 12y ago

There is some pretty misleading writing in this article. Take the sentence below: "Some years, international comparisons of GDP per hours worked have found, workers in Norway, Ireland, Denmark and even France, with their 30 days of paid vacation every year, their café culture, their generous paid family leave policies, their short work hours mandated by law and their new directive forbidding some employers from expecting workers to check work-related texts and emails after hours, beat us by a mile." In other words, In some years (not others), the GDP per hour worked is higher in countries where employees work fewer hours per year. If people work 20% less and are 10% more productive per hour when they do work, they're still less productive in total than if they didn't reduce their hours. Why does a company care if their salaried employees are more productive per hour? They just want that employee to maximize productivity over the employee's lifetime with the company. If the article has only historical anecdotes to demonstrate that employees are more productive in absolute terms if they work fewer hours, that's not very persuasive toward the point the author is trying to make, that major industries and large companies should change because they get more value out of having employees work fewer hours. I'm not saying I disagree with the author's point, only that they are using misleading evidence to try to support it.