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The real reason for the forty-hour workweek


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2021 Aug 1, 11:14am   264 views  6 comments

by Patrick   ➕follow (55)   💰tip   ignore  

https://www.raptitude.com/2010/07/your-lifestyle-has-already-been-designed/

The ultimate tool for corporations to sustain a culture of this sort is to develop the 40-hour workweek as the normal lifestyle. Under these working conditions people have to build a life in the evenings and on weekends. This arrangement makes us naturally more inclined to spend heavily on entertainment and conveniences because our free time is so scarce.

I’ve only been back at work for a few days, but already I’m noticing that the more wholesome activities are quickly dropping out of my life: walking, exercising, reading, meditating, and extra writing.

The one conspicuous similarity between these activities is that they cost little or no money, but they take time.

Suddenly I have a lot more money and a lot less time, which means I have a lot more in common with the typical working North American than I did a few months ago. While I was abroad I wouldn’t have thought twice about spending the day wandering through a national park or reading my book on the beach for a few hours. Now that kind of stuff feels like it’s out of the question. Doing either one would take most of one of my precious weekend days!

The last thing I want to do when I get home from work is exercise. It’s also the last thing I want to do after dinner or before bed or as soon as I wake, and that’s really all the time I have on a weekday.

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1   HeadSet   2021 Aug 1, 1:17pm  

Do not over think this. People must work for a living, and in the past that meant 60 hours per week. When technology allowed greater productivity, we got the 40 hour week. People's off-work and leisure activity has adapted to this typical 5 day work week with free weekends.

The reason ongoing productivity improvement has not led to an even shorter workweek is DEBT. The lower prices from increased productivity should mean people could maintain their lifestyles with less income. However, people cannot afford lower pay since they still have the inflated house and car payments caused by easy credit.
2   Patrick   2021 Aug 1, 1:37pm  

HeadSet says
The reason ongoing productivity improvement has not led to an even shorter workweek is DEBT.


Edward Gibbon pointed out in 1776 that a primary reason for the ridiculous disparities in wealth in the late Roman Empire was usury, where the upper classes got everyone in debt to them and gradually took almost all assets for themselves.

"Cartoon History of the Universe" also points this out, especially that Roman soldiers away at wars resulted in the need to borrow to keep the family farm going. So a lot of the soldiers' families ended up in debt as well. On the other hand, if you survived a successful career in the Roman army, you'd usually get a new farm in some newly conquered territory.
3   AmericanKulak   2021 Aug 1, 1:54pm  

Marx calculated that it was 8 hours to pay their wages and 4 more hours to turn the profit.

Of course, he neglected technological expansion and org efficiency.

Hours should be reduced each year, if there is actual real growth in the economy. In fact, we should have a law taking an hour off the work week every decade, not subject to any negotiation. If the economy is truly growing, it will be growing a lot faster than the lost hour. It forces the big institutions to pass along the benefits of growth.

Also, set the base tariff to the Constitutional, Early Republic 20%+ on finished goods from radios to laptops to cars.
4   Patrick   2021 Aug 1, 2:46pm  

MisdemeanorRebellionNoCoupForYou says
Hours should be reduced each year, if there is actual real growth in the economy.


The problem is that all increases in production go to shareholders, and none to workers.

There is a good graph I could dig up showing that workers wages stopped growing at about the time that Democrat "leaders" started prostituting themselves to capital. All profits from productivity increases went to capital alone since about 1974.
5   FortwayeAsFuckJoeBiden   2021 Aug 1, 5:01pm  

Reason you don’t work on Sundays is because we follow Bible still… god rested sundays abd hence it’s day of worship.
6   Onvacation   2021 Aug 1, 5:02pm  

I read somewhere that the 40 hour work week was established for maximum productivity. After 40 hours mistakes started being made and the workers actually became counterproductive.

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