Isn't this what we already have?

20 hours work. 20 hours pretending to work.

Yes, underemploy everyone. Spread the misery equally.

um, that would lead to my unemployment....I'm salary

I thought unemployment went away

AbbeySomeone: Who decided that everyone should have a 40 hour work week

I think it was largely decided by people being made to work way more than 40 hours.

AbbeySomeone: Who decided that everyone should have a 40 hour work week

It was a method of liming the amount of time you could be forced to work when people then often worked 12 hours a day 5 days a week and another 6 on Saturdays. I assume the arguments then that limiting people to 40 hours a week would be ruinous are roughly the same that would be used to limit people to 20.

And for what it's worth, France has a 30 hour work week.

Set the retirement age at 48 and it's a deal. Vive la France.

By "top economists" do they mean all the ones that don't know what the fark they are talking about? My wife's cousin in a "top economist" for the UN. Aside from generally being an idiot that wears red Ho Chi Minh t-shirts and thinking Hugo Chavez is some sort of hero, he comes up with brilliant ideas like this, saying if it "worked for France, it will work everywhere"

This sort of idiocy has already been tried - it does not work.

I work a 20 hour week on Monday.

And since I'm sure someone in here is already derping out some anti-French/socialism arguments, feel free to prove that 30 hour work weeks increase unemployment, when the 40 hour week didn't. The same arguments were made then when unions forced companies to treat people as people.

They're being made again.

If you use the word "derp" the other side is automatically wrong.

flucto: If you use the word "derp" the other side is automatically wrong.

Find me one single coherent argument EVER from either EnviroDude or LordZorch. You won't.

GAT_00: Find me one single coherent argument EVER from either EnviroDude or LordZorch. You won't.

Who?

Please don't make me show posts from ignored users. Please?

flucto: GAT_00: Find me one single coherent argument EVER from either EnviroDude or LordZorch. You won't.

Who?

flucto: Please don't make me show posts from ignored users. Please?

Sorry, those are the two people the derp comment addressed. I leave the headers in because I don't like seeing the post count not match, but I leave the text ignored.

LordZorch: By "top economists" do they mean all the ones that don't know what the fark they are talking about? My wife's cousin in a "top economist" for the UN. Aside from generally being an idiot that wears red Ho Chi Minh t-shirts and thinking Hugo Chavez is some sort of hero, he comes up with brilliant ideas like this, saying if it "worked for France, it will work everywhere"

This sort of idiocy has already been tried - it does not work.


It does work in France.

Why couldn't it work here?
When was it tried here?

I know you are gonna tell me you put in 60 hours of work, never take a lunch or break, and are always on task; but the truth is the majority of American workers don't do that. However because we've been conditioned to work 9 to 5, we are in the office day in on those hours even when we finished everything we could possibly do.

This is the kind of idea that comes from people who are so overpaid that they could get by on half salary. Out here in the real world, the 20 hour work week would mean we all have to get a second job just to make ends meet.

bingethinker: This is the kind of idea that comes from people who are so overpaid that they could get by on half salary. Out here in the real world, the 20 hour work week would mean we all have to get a second job just to make ends meet.

I'd ask how France enforced the change.

Well, as automation improves, we will need shorter and shorter work weeks. Not because we're lazy, but because there isn't enough damn work for everyone to work 40 hours. Methinks 20 hours work weeks is too little, but I wouldn't mind Congress batting around a number in the mid-30's range.

Gunther: People have been predicting this ever since it became apparent that increased automation was leading to massive productivity increases.

The 20 hour work week was predicted by the 1950s as an inevitable result of automation and a desire to focus more on our families and less on being corporate slaves.

My boss has already had to rearrange hours on one timesheet where I legitimately wound up with more than 24 hours in a single day, so this sounds like it'd make life easier for both of us.

Gunther: video man: Well, as automation improves, we will need shorter and shorter work weeks. Not because we're lazy, but because there isn't enough damn work for everyone to work 40 hours

People have been predicting this ever since it became apparent that increased automation was leading to massive productivity increases. The problem is, the profit from those productivity increases don't go to the workers, but the company they work for, so what should theoretically lead to increased quality-of-life for everyone instead leads to massive wealth inequality and unemployment.

Ahh, capitalism. Ain't it a biatch?

That's why I'm a Communist Futurist. The idea isn't flawed, it's just that the tech isn't there. Yet.

GAT_00: It was a method of liming the amount of time you could be forced to work when people then often worked 12 hours a day 5 days a week and another 6 on Saturdays.

So basically the hours that most upper management, business owners, and white collar workers work in most jobs now?

Knight of the Woeful Countenance: If the middle class is gonna get squeezed on wages, benefits and see no other real gains due to unprecedented increases in productivity over the last ten years, then yeah, I'd say a twenty hour work week sounds like a decent tradeoff. Quality of life is important.

The productivity increases aren't directly coming from humans. It's almost entirely coming from automation, and since you can't pay a machine, whoever owns the machine gets paid. Human labor is being rendered obsolete by machines, and since we all can't hold creative jobs, we get boned under the current system.

Ed Willy: video man: Knight of the Woeful Countenance: If the middle class is gonna get squeezed on wages, benefits and see no other real gains due to unprecedented increases in productivity over the last ten years, then yeah, I'd say a twenty hour work week sounds like a decent tradeoff. Quality of life is important.

The productivity increases aren't directly coming from humans. It's almost entirely coming from automation, and since you can't pay a machine, whoever owns the machine gets paid. Human labor is being rendered obsolete by machines, and since we all can't hold creative jobs, we get boned under the current system.

But someone runs the machines and that person should be paid more because their productivity yields more.

It's a break from traditional capitalism, but not unprecedented. Walter Reuther, the long serving UAW president, established that as the basis for postwar bargaining with GM. After seeing the power of automation created during the war he understood that automation would be a thing of the future. Rather than go Luddite, try to share the increased productivity gains between workers, management, shareholders and customers. If he hadn't died in a plane crash it would be interesting to see if the car companies would have made some steps.

Reuther vision was widely praised once, even by noted pinko-Commie Ronald Reagan (new window)

Well, as time progresses, you need less and less men to maintain the same production levels. While companies COULD scale these processes and output a shiat-ton, there isn't a demand for it. So even if those who run the machines gets paid more, those who were cut don't get that same benefit. There would need to be a world wide effort to cut hours and raise pay, and that's not going to happen on its own, sadly.


Example:
If there's demand for 100 widgets a day, and the current manufacturing process allows for 10 widgets to be made per day by one worker, I'd need 10 workers at x pay per day. Then, let's say a new process is developed, and one man can produce 100 widgets a day. Assuming the demand stays the same, I only need one worker. Even if I pay him 10x, there's 9 other guys who get paid jack-squat. I could make 1000 widgets, but I'd flood the market and then I wouldn't get ANY profit. Which is no bueno.

Hydra: GAT_00: It was a method of liming the amount of time you could be forced to work when people then often worked 12 hours a day 5 days a week and another 6 on Saturdays.

So basically the hours that most upper management, business owners, and white collar workers work in most jobs now?

I'm sorry you're not competent enough to get a union or create one to fight for you so you can have a 40 hour work week and instead must sell yourself to a company and be proud of that.

The sane people will go on without you.

GAT_00: Hydra: GAT_00: It was a method of liming the amount of time you could be forced to work when people then often worked 12 hours a day 5 days a week and another 6 on Saturdays.

So basically the hours that most upper management, business owners, and white collar workers work in most jobs now?

I'm sorry you're not competent enough to get a union or create one to fight for you so you can have a 40 hour work week and instead must sell yourself to a company and be proud of that.

The sane people will go on without you.

It's corporate work. Desk work. You know, the easy life.

/40 hours of manual labor != 40 hours of desk labor
//And I work a desk job.

People were predicting the 20 hour work week 50 years ago. Guess what, it's not what happened. Instead of having two guys work 20 hours a week, companies just fired one of them, made the other work 40 hours, and cut his pay because "the computer does all the work".

GAT_00: I'm sorry you're not competent enough to get a union or create one to fight for you so you can have a 40 hour work week and instead must sell yourself to a company and be proud of that.

The sane people will go on without you.

Who does a business owner organize a union against? His customers? The world? There are millions of small business owners, from the shop owner down the street to the hot dog guy on the street, who sometimes need to work long hours to get the job done/meet a deadline/earn enough to make the rent payment.

Have you ever worked in the private sector before or even have an inkling of how it farking works?