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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.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 30 2019, @04:12AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 30 2019, @04:12AM (#913592)

    "Because their air and water has toxins in it, duh."

    You didn't score too well on the reading comprehension portion of the exam, did you? TMB's comment was that we're spending all this extra work (beyond what is simply necessary for survival) on "human advancement". The counterpoint is that we're not advancing all that much when simply taking a breath or a drink of water causes people to become ill, even in one of the most "advanced" countries. The counterpoint is doubly made if you read between the lines to realize that WE (you know, the advanced humans) are the ones dumping those SYNTHETIC toxins into the air & water in the first place.

    "Notice the complete absence of any relevance to our discussion here."

    Nope, seems completely relevant to me. Here, I'll summarize for you, using smaller words: TMB said we're using the time to advance civilization. Counterpoint: poisoning our own air & water is not advancement.

    "Look at some actual statistics sometime."

    Show me some sometime. Otherwise it's just your OWN perception/bias/narrative against mine. I've studied enough math (and lived long enough) to know that statistics can be used to (sometimes falsely) demonstrate any point (and counterpoint) someone wishes to make. You complain about tiresome "repeated assertions" with nothing concrete to back them up, yet all you did was spew your own unsubstantiated personal assertions in response. Oh, you try to sound intelligent/informed, but all you're really doing is standing in the schoolyard shouting, "Nuh-uh!"

  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 30 2019, @10:44AM

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday October 30 2019, @10:44AM (#913653) Homepage Journal

    Progress doesn't require wisdom, only motion in the direction humanity has chosen. Much like progressives are attempting to take us in a directions that're bat-shit crazy but still get to keep the label.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 31 2019, @01:05AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 31 2019, @01:05AM (#913963) Journal

    You didn't score too well on the reading comprehension portion of the exam, did you?

    I quoted the AC who wrote that. Reading comprehension will never be better than what information was provided in the writing. Nor do I see any evidence in your bluster indicating that my reading comprehension was somehow in error.

    The AC simply doesn't see it. That's all.

    There are many things being missed here. For example, complaining about pollution (the part where you emptily accuse me of reading comprehension deficits) while ignoring that it's gotten much better. If it doesn't matter to you whether pollution gets better or not, then does it really matter to you whether there is pollution in the first place? Yet all we have is the usual, vague pearl clutching about nebulous people getting hurt by nebulous pollution. No matter what you claim you think or know, that lack of detail about the harm of pollution shows you're way too ignorant about pollution to have an opinion worth listening too. The problem here is that humans will no matter how perfectly they are environmentally, pollute. At that point, it boils down to harm caused, not whether there is pollution or not. A community of a few hundred environmentally perfect souls pollute. So does 1.4 billion Indians. Make a wild guess who pollutes more.

    TMB said we're using the time to advance civilization. Counterpoint: poisoning our own air & water is not advancement.

    We're "poisoning" our own air and water less. That is advancement no matter what you think of it.

    Show me some sometime. Otherwise it's just your OWN perception/bias/narrative against mine. I've studied enough math (and lived long enough) to know that statistics can be used to (sometimes falsely) demonstrate any point (and counterpoint) someone wishes to make. You complain about tiresome "repeated assertions" with nothing concrete to back them up, yet all you did was spew your own unsubstantiated personal assertions in response. Oh, you try to sound intelligent/informed, but all you're really doing is standing in the schoolyard shouting, "Nuh-uh!"

    I wrote about that here [soylentnews.org]. You'll see somewhere in excess of a dozen links to statistics you should consider.