Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday October 29 2019, @04:28PM   Printer-friendly
from the 15-hour-work-week dept.

In 1930, a year into the Great Depression, John Maynard Keynes sat down to write about the economic possibilities of his grandchildren. Despite widespread gloom as the global economic order fell to its knees, the British economist remained upbeat, saying that the ‘prevailing world depression … blind[s] us to what is going on under the surface’. In his essay, he predicted that in 100 years’ time, ie 2030, society would have advanced so far that we would barely need to work. The main problem confronting countries such as Britain and the United States would be boredom, and people might need to ration out work in ‘three-hour shifts or a 15-hour week [to] put off the problem’. At first glance, Keynes seems to have done a woeful job of predicting the future. In 1930, the average worker in the US, the UK, Australia and Japan spent 45 to 48 hours at work. Today, that is still up around 38 hours.

Keynes has a legendary stature as one of the fathers of modern economics – responsible for much of how we think about monetary and fiscal policy. He is also famous for his quip at economists who deal only in long-term predictions: ‘In the long run, we are all dead.’ And his 15-hour working week prediction might have been more on the mark than it first appears.

If we wanted to produce as much as Keynes’s countrymen did in the 1930s, we wouldn’t need everyone to work even 15 hours per week. If you adjust for increases in labour productivity, it could be done in seven or eight hours, 10 in Japan (see graph below). These increases in productivity come from a century of automation and technological advances: allowing us to produce more stuff with less labour. In this sense, modern developed countries have way overshot Keynes prediction – we need to work only half the hours he predicted to match his lifestyle.

The progress over the past 90 years is not only apparent when considering workplace efficiency, but also when taking into account how much leisure time we enjoy. First consider retirement: a deal with yourself to work hard while you’re young and enjoy leisure time when you’re older. In 1930, most people never reached retirement age, simply labouring until they died. Today, people live well past retirement, living a third of their life work-free. If you take the work we do while we’re young and spread it across a total adult lifetime, it works out to less than 25 hours per week. There’s a second factor that boosts the amount of leisure time we enjoy: a reduction in housework. The ubiquity of washing machines, vacuum cleaners and microwave ovens means that the average US household does almost 30 hours less housework per week than in the 1930s. This 30 hours isn’t all converted into pure leisure. Indeed, some of it has been converted into regular work, as more women – who shoulder the major share of unpaid domestic labour – have moved into the paid labour force. The important thing is that, thanks to progress in productivity and efficiency, we all have more control over how we spend our time.

So if today’s advanced economies have reached (or even exceeded) the point of productivity that Keynes predicted, why are 30- to 40-hour weeks still standard in the workplace? And why doesn’t it feel like much has changed? This is a question about both human nature – our ever-increasing expectations of a good life – as well as how work is structured across societies.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 29 2019, @05:12PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 29 2019, @05:12PM (#913337)

    The issue is that less work is required than there used to be, so why should management pay you for time they don't need you? If the average US worker works for 38 hours on average, is that because he couldn't find a job that would employ him full time?
    Having less work to do does also not translating into rent and food getting any cheaper.
    No, people don't need to work less due to progress. We need less people to do the work remaining due to progress.

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +2  
       Insightful=2, Total=2
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 29 2019, @05:33PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 29 2019, @05:33PM (#913350)

    And less you will get!
    population declines coming right on schedule ...
    Mostly because those people underemployed can’t afford a family
    https://www.businessinsider.com/the-fastest-shrinking-countries-in-the-world-declining-populations [businessinsider.com]

  • (Score: 4, Funny) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 29 2019, @05:35PM

    by Gaaark (41) on Tuesday October 29 2019, @05:35PM (#913351) Journal

    If nobody has a job, who will buy 'managements' products?

    "We need less people to do the work remaining due to progress."

    We need less work due to nobody can afford to buy anything.

    --
    --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday October 29 2019, @10:22PM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 29 2019, @10:22PM (#913466) Journal

    so why should management pay you for time they don't need you?

    Oh, oh... Do tell, is now management your master?
    (don't mind the 0.1 percenters behind the curtain, they are just a player in the game as you are).

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford