The 4 Hour Work Day

Discussion in 'Off Topic Area' started by TGN, Mar 12, 2014.

  1. TGN

    TGN Valued Member

    This link discusses the many possible benefits of a reduced workday, which should imply at the very least an increase in wages. Organizations such as the Center for Economic Research indicate that minimum wage today (had it kept up with advances in productivity) should be $21.72/hour per 2012 estimate. That combined with research that shows that fewer hours actually means higher productivity per hour should be the basis of serious food for thought on this issue.

    http://www.4hourworkday.org/benefits
     
  2. Happy Feet Cotton Tail

    Happy Feet Cotton Tail Valued Member

    May chime back in later but if you are interested in this subject then there is a really good book on this written by two economists/political theorists (The Skidelsky's) where they argue that we need to rethink the purpose of economic activity to push it towards healthy and happy societies rather than just productive ones.

    It's an interesting book with elements of "constructivist politics" in it. I keep a record of books I have read along with short reviews to remind me of my thoughts on them, so I'll stick that below with a link.

    [ame="http://www.amazon.com/How-Much-Enough-Money-Good/dp/1590515072"]How Much is Enough?: Money and the Good Life: Robert Skidelsky, Edward Skidelsky: 9781590515075: Amazon.com: Books[/ame]

    "How Much Is Enough" by Robert and Edward Skidelsky.

    The Skidelsky's set out to argue for a society that pursues "good living" rather than economic growth for its own sake. The book has a strong start that lays down the Faustian bargain of Keynesian economics in order to begin a discussion of where it all went wrong and why we have not, as Keynes predicted, shifted to work less in the "age of abundance". Interestingly they argue that public discourse has been framed in a dominant language of economic utility and that this is to blame for many of our current failings; in particular our inability to articulate arguments in any other form than that which gels with liberal capitalism.

    We must, the Skidelsky's argue, reclaim the ability to argue in terms of what produces good, happy citizens and reject the push to couch our rhetoric in terms of economic prosperity pandering to the dominant culture of insatiable growth.

    Unfortunately when the authors touch on theories competitive with their own and possible positions of objection their attitude is often condescending. Marxist interpretations of the manufacturing of consumerist desire, for instance, are summarily dismissed as simply being implausible with no further argument provided.

    On a similar note the books chapter on environmentalism is particularly crude. The authors spend almost three quarters of it attempting to pathologise the green movement rather than engage with its key themes; for instance their chapter on environmentalism includes a thinly veiled jab at Heidegger's previous nazi affiliations, a jab whose only foreseeable purpose is to discredit the environmentalist movements in which he participated.

    "How Much is Enough" asks important questions about what we should be aiming for in our public policy and goals for living and in that respect is a worthwhile read; it is a shame then that it occasionally sinks into dismissive smugness when the opportunity for a proper dialectic arises.
     
    Last edited: Mar 13, 2014
  3. TGN

    TGN Valued Member

  4. pseudo

    pseudo Padawan

  5. raaeoh

    raaeoh never tell me the odds

    Reality check. You cannot compare apples to karate. If i only worked 4 hours a day your internet would most likely not work. It takes 1 hour from the time I start till I arrive at you buisness. 1 hour to hear you complain about the money yo lost and to find out you turned off your own power to your device. (easy job here) record that you are a dumb donkey, and pick up a new job. look up you location and drive there. 3 hrs gone. this leaves me with one hour to discover that the fiber was cut, call a crew to re open the hole that was buried to hide the fact that the fiber was cut, splice the fiber seal the fiber and lastly tell you that you turned off you power and that is why you cannot connect to your favorite porn site yet. Oh wait I ran out of time 9 hours ago. I guess you need to wait at least 3 more days.

    I hate studies of this nature. they are always like most MA the only way! If I took time to use proper caps and punctuation, we are talking even more time lost. ;)
     
    Last edited: Apr 20, 2014
  6. Happy Feet Cotton Tail

    Happy Feet Cotton Tail Valued Member

    There is a question here in terms of how achievable a four hour work day is for a various industries, even more problematic for the four hour work day than your job sorting peoples internet is the off-shore industry or the military. Both industries require people to be "on site" for much more than a couple of hours. However I think holding the project to tightly to 4 hours kind of misses the point.

    Personally I think the idea that we should ask why our economic reality makes us work more than is beneficial is good. But the idea of trying to improve the situation through legislating a four hour work day is not very smart.

    For instance if we mandate a four hour work day, ignoring the problems with implementing this in industries such as oil or defense it may lead to some pretty bizzare stuff in other industries.

    For instance Cocktail bar staff that get on at 9pm for the evening rush would have to clock out at 1 O'clock. So either the bar closes at 1am or it brings in a whole new set of staff for the last couple of hours of service and clean up. Meaning you have people working from 1 till 3 in the morning, not to mention the potential disruption from having to change-over staff at the busiest point of the night. Being productive includes being flexible and un-conditionally robbing people of the ability to work more than four hours to get a job done is going to be harmful

    Also with a reduction in working hours (even if it is not a 4 hour thing but instead is a reduction of weekly working hours) it may require other people to be hired to fill gaps. So business owners will be potentially hiring more people and paying higher wages... can't imagine many of them will be thrilled at such a prospect.

    There a number of benefits to reducing working hours and allowing more participation in the labor force but I don't think you can just mandate that from the top down, it needs to come as a natural result of re-structuring the work environment.

    I like the idea but the only way I can see it being implemented successfully is through a co-operative movement where the business and employee interests over-lap to the extent that a potential loss in Net Profit isn't seen as a bad thing if it serves the employee interests. The reason we work the way we do today is largely about providing profit for those at the top of the ladder. It simply isn't in the financial interests of business for people to work a 4 hour work day and I think that will be the major problem for these kinds of projects. The best way forward if we want the benefits of more free time and control over working hours IMO is going to be trying to create models of business and production that view the business as serving the employees rather than vice versa.


    TL;DR: Sure a 4 hour work day won't work in a number of industries, but that's not the interesting thing about this topic.
     
    Last edited: Apr 20, 2014
  7. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    Unless you own your own business, you are not working for you.

    Your quality of life is whatever your employers deem necessary to keep you emplyed.

    Or worse if you're at the bottom of the pile in unskilled work (which, these days includes call centres and the like, not just manual labour), because as long as your employers can replace you, they can treat you like dirt.

    I don't think this can change without a substantial shift in how we operate as a culture. Unfortunately, I feel inertia is against us in this.
     
  8. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    If only people could form groups to collectively bargain for better working conditions.
     
  9. Happy Feet Cotton Tail

    Happy Feet Cotton Tail Valued Member

    Precisely, which is why I am in favor of things like worker owned co-operatives etc. :)
     
  10. raaeoh

    raaeoh never tell me the odds

    Now there is an idea. It would however lead to an over paid lazy non productive work force. (As i post this while at work)
     
  11. Happy Feet Cotton Tail

    Happy Feet Cotton Tail Valued Member

    If the only way to make the economy productive is to strip the work-force of their ability to bargain... then I think we should look for a new economy. Kind of sad that the thing that can get in the way of productivity is the same thing that has been so instrumental in safe-guarding peoples welfare.
     
    Last edited: Apr 20, 2014
  12. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    I don't understand why a union can't enforce higher pay and better benefits, but not create a situation where it's harder for the employer to fire an unproductive worker. That's one of the things I don't like about unions, it's hard as hell to fire somebody. If this would happen the level of threat for not producing would still be there, but people who still get decent pay and benefits. :dunno:

    Every body just wants to exploit everyone else for their own purposes, which is why everything is always messed up. :mad:
     
  13. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    Only if the employer hires incapable managers.
     
  14. Dave76

    Dave76 Valued Member

    Over paid and lazy is a subjective term. To the board of McDonalds most their workers are overpaid and don't get enough work done. From the burger cooks point of view, he or she is trying to figure out how to pay all the bills.
     
  15. Dave76

    Dave76 Valued Member

    There is a journeyman I was working with last week who will not be returning to the job because of unproductivity/incompetence. He wasn't fired, he just won't be getting much work, if any.
    I do know this is a problem with unions but wonder how much it is exaggerated by those who don't like unions.
     
  16. raaeoh

    raaeoh never tell me the odds

    I am pro union I am in the cwa, and vp of our local. In many ways my statement is true. $25 an hour union janitor, who needs a contractor for windows because that is not his job. My brother is non union high voltage elictrician. He makes around $24 an hour he even sweeps.

    I like the 4 day work week thing.
     
  17. Happy Feet Cotton Tail

    Happy Feet Cotton Tail Valued Member

    Some more thoughts on this:

    I get the same feeling from the "four hour work day" as I do from the "guaranteed minimum income"; it's part of this project of "pragmatic politics" where people produce radical solutions to economic and political problems while trying to keep the language that advocates for them politically secular.

    Now there are two broad outlooks people take on "pragmatic politics":

    A: Great! Pragmatic politics, finally we can use politics to do something useful while ignoring the dogma and ideologies of all those political types!

    B: *dripping with sarcasm* Great... Pragmatic politics, finally we can argue about politics while pretending that everyone has an ideology... except us of course.

    I mean it's quite clear beneath the surface where this four hour day is coming from (I mean its site clearly shows support for unions)... ...and I don't know if that's a good thing (the attempt to hide political affiliations, not the unions). Groups like the Zeitgeist movement spend a lot of time re-inventing the wheel by arguing for political positions that already exist while pretending that they don't have a political outlook and that really detracts from their ability to tap into the existing political pulse.

    I can't help but feel maybe this is a down-side and that these groups should be more honest about where they sit on the political spectrum and less time pretending that they don't have an agenda when they clearly do.
     
    Last edited: Apr 20, 2014
  18. Dave76

    Dave76 Valued Member

    It is interesting to me that if the employee/employer relationship is tilted in favor the employee it is viewed as so terrible for the country/economy. Those who are vehemently opposed to this would like all sorts of legislation passed to prevent this. Yet for most of history(and currently for most work) the relationship greatly favors the employer and most of those opposed to unions don't seem to have a problem with it.
     
  19. raaeoh

    raaeoh never tell me the odds

    I find most who oppose unions are ignorant of what unions really do. I also know why so many oppose unions, and find it hard to disagree with them, on many of their issues.
    I personally believe the employee/ employer relationship should be tilted slightly more to the employer.
     
  20. Happy Feet Cotton Tail

    Happy Feet Cotton Tail Valued Member

    Well the employer will nearly always have the upper-hand as long as there is an employee-employer relationship for power to be distributed in. If the employer doesn't have more power then I don't think they can really be called an employer anymore.

    Personally I think the best way forward is to reject the employer-employee model entirely but I recognize that for most that isn't an option.

    For me, unions are an imperfect solution to an imperfect system.
     
    Last edited: Apr 20, 2014

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