A 3 day weekend sounds about right - plenty of time to decompress, to do fun stuff, to take care of responsibilities, to reflect and explore. Technological increases in productivity should be used to give us all increased leisure time - which is in itself productive (in terms of being better humans), and even drives demand for the entertainment sectors.
For knowledge workers who are productive enough to be able to experience a four-day work week, should society do anything to support essential workers so that they can also have a four day work week?
Nurses and doctors are often called full-time at 32 hours. It's time to make that official, and stop burning our our medical folk. Making medicine into a calling only, and it's practitioners martyrs, helps no one.
Likewise, two grocery store workers should be able to raise children together and live a meaningful life. Since we're no longer paying people well enough to support a family with forty hours of labor, the least we can do is make it possible with sixty.
Bloody yes! But the bloody contract of society was shifted in 1980 from welfare of society to maximizing financial gains of CEOs and dividends of shareholders. And the economical performance dropped in result of it! The compounded rate of return dropped!! [1] It’s about time they paid us back.
When air traffic controllers demanded a 32hr week in order to stop burning out, the entire guild of ATCs in America was sacrificed on the altar by President Reagan! [2]
Not to sound sarcastic/mean here, just my way of thinking - If four days a week is better than five, why not three? Why stop there, why not two days a week? Wouldn't the metrics show that workers are "happier" only working two days a week for five days worth of pay? Wouldn't the metrics show that workers have a better life outside of work if they only have to work two days a week? Of course they would be. Does that mean we should do it? Does that mean it's what's best for us?
What would the long term results of our country working less be? Do you honestly think if we stopped putting as many days of work in that we'd be just as productive? What would the long term happiness of the workers be when the results of everyone just not working as much finally impacts our economy/country? Do you honestly think there will be no impact?
The research also don't seem very impressive. It's like the UBI studies where they just give a small group of people free money every month for a while, and those people say that it made them happy, so apparently that's all the evidence we need that it's a good idea, because they were happy. Of course giving free money to people makes them happy. Of course paying people the same amount for less hours of work makes them happy. That's not the point. My questions are a) does it actually work at scale, and b) does it produce good long term results.
To answer your first point, I'm assuming 4 days a week presents itself as a good compromise between worker happiness and productivity given our level of technology and efficiency. Two or three days of work a week would be better for happiness, but our society isn't productive enough to reasonably manage it.
As for whether our society as a whole would be as productive, I would reckon that the increased consumption (especially on leisure), and the increased amount of innovation due to decreased supply of labour and free time for individuals would offset the 20% reduction in labour hours.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 31.6 ms ] threadNurses and doctors are often called full-time at 32 hours. It's time to make that official, and stop burning our our medical folk. Making medicine into a calling only, and it's practitioners martyrs, helps no one.
Likewise, two grocery store workers should be able to raise children together and live a meaningful life. Since we're no longer paying people well enough to support a family with forty hours of labor, the least we can do is make it possible with sixty.
When air traffic controllers demanded a 32hr week in order to stop burning out, the entire guild of ATCs in America was sacrificed on the altar by President Reagan! [2]
[1]: https://www.cringely.com/2018/02/26/win-lose-wall-street-scr...
[2]: https://www.npr.org/2021/08/05/1025018833/looking-back-on-wh...
And those groups can switch every month or quarter.
(Note: if you like work, and want to do more than four-days of work, _you get to have a whole extra day to start your own company under this idea_)
What would the long term results of our country working less be? Do you honestly think if we stopped putting as many days of work in that we'd be just as productive? What would the long term happiness of the workers be when the results of everyone just not working as much finally impacts our economy/country? Do you honestly think there will be no impact?
The research also don't seem very impressive. It's like the UBI studies where they just give a small group of people free money every month for a while, and those people say that it made them happy, so apparently that's all the evidence we need that it's a good idea, because they were happy. Of course giving free money to people makes them happy. Of course paying people the same amount for less hours of work makes them happy. That's not the point. My questions are a) does it actually work at scale, and b) does it produce good long term results.
As for whether our society as a whole would be as productive, I would reckon that the increased consumption (especially on leisure), and the increased amount of innovation due to decreased supply of labour and free time for individuals would offset the 20% reduction in labour hours.