The American Dream — The Four Hour Day
We want to work less. We have to work less. We should work less. Let’s work less?
May 2, 2017 ·
The idea of shortening the workweek has gone mainstream: Forbes ran a piece advocating a 4-day workweek, The New Yorker, a 3-day week. Though it was anarchists and socialists who originally fought for the 8-hour day, it became mainstream, too. The vision for a four hour day is quite old itself — the economist John Maynard Keynes predicted in 1930, that in 100 years, we’d be working 15 hour weeks thanks to technology.
Yet, the utopian reduction in working hours is not playing out how Keynes foresaw. Instead of working less, we’re working more! “Nearly 86% of American men and 67% of women work more than 40 hours in any given week,” reports Forbes. Yet, the unemployment rate stood at 9.4% in January 2017(using the U-6 measure, which includes discouraged workers and involuntary part-time workers).
It’s a pretty sensible idea. Productivity has increased by 80.4% between 1973 and 2011 — shouldn’t our wages and working hours reflect that? Along with the rise of productivity, work has been disappearing and is doing so ever more rapidly. A study at Oxford University found that 47% of US jobs are at risk of being automated in the next 20 years. Machines are already replacing 90% of workers at some factories in China, and the iPhone manufacturing giant Foxconn plans to automate at least 30% of its jobs by 2020. Touchscreens are replacing cashiers; artificial intelligence is replacing translators, analysts, and actuaries; even managerial tasks are being automated. And this doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
4 Hour Day/Day Week — And no wage cuts!
“Automation and other innovations result in our productivity (output per work hour) doubling every 25 years or so,” writes Jon Bekken in his essay, “Arguments for a Four Hour Day,” published by the IWW. “We now [in 2000] produce about three times as much in an hour of work as we did in 1947, but are we living three times as well or working a third as much? Far from living better, average wages (adjusted for inflation) are only slightly higher than they were 25 years ago. And we’re not putting any fewer hours in on the job either, in fact we’re working longer and harder — somebody’s benefiting from the fact that our work is producing more; but it’s not us.”
In case you need convincing, Bekken goes on to provide rationale for the four hour day/four day week he proposes:
“The most important reason to fight for shorter hours is quite simple: Our time is our life. The time we spend at work is not our own, and far too much of it is squandered on useless production, the support of parasites (bosses, supervisors, investment bankers, marketers and the like), the construction of the means of our annihilation, and so forth.”
“Automation and other innovations result in our productivity (output per work hour) doubling every 25 years or so,” writes Jon Bekken in his essay, “Arguments for a Four Hour Day,” published by the IWW. “We now [in 2000] produce about three times as much in an hour of work as we did in 1947, but are we living three times as well or working a third as much? Far from living better, average wages (adjusted for inflation) are only slightly higher than they were 25 years ago. And we’re not putting any fewer hours in on the job either, in fact we’re working longer and harder — somebody’s benefiting from the fact that our work is producing more; but it’s not us.”
In case you need convincing, Bekken goes on to provide rationale for the four hour day/four day week he proposes:
“The most important reason to fight for shorter hours is quite simple: Our time is our life. The time we spend at work is not our own, and far too much of it is squandered on useless production, the support of parasites (bosses, supervisors, investment bankers, marketers and the like), the construction of the means of our annihilation, and so forth.”
Make unemployment a thing of the past
“We could use that time to nurture our families and rebuild our communities, to make art or music or to study subjects that interest us. We could socialize, party, reflect, relax. We could use some of the free time we so richly deserve to get together with our fellow workers to discuss the kind of society we would like to live in, and to begin a campaign to create it. More free time (for too many of us, any free time at all) would provide us the means to lead more fulfilling, truly human lives.”
The philosopher Bertrand Russell joins the club of advocates. In “In Praise of Idleness”, he not only advocates the four-hour-day but gives many a reason why. Russell envisions that freedom from work will free us to pursue science, art, and writing, without the pressure to make a living from it.
“In a world where no one is compelled to work more than four hours a day, every person possessed of scientific curiosity will be able to indulge it, and every painter will be able to paint without starving, however excellent his pictures may be. Young writers will not be obliged to draw attention to themselves by sensational pot-boilers, with a view to acquiring the economic independence needed for monumental works, for which, when the time at last comes, they will have lost the taste and capacity.”
“ Above all, there will be happiness and joy of life, instead of frayed nerves, weariness, and dyspepsia.”
Bekken cites several examples of economists who have already found that a shortened workweek is feasible. A study by engineers at Columbia University in 1932 demonstrated that workers could live comfortably on four-hours per day if industry were arranged differently. In her book The Overworked American Harvard economist Juliet Schor argued that a four-hour day could have been implemented in the 1990s without any decline in living standards.
In 2010, the New Economics Foundation published a report, “21 Hours: The Case for a Shorter Workweek”. Their rationale:
“Overwork, unemployment, over-consumption, high carbon emissions, low well-being, entrenched inequalities, and the lack of time to live sustainably, to care for each other, and simply to enjoy life.”
Why work pointless jobs?
Not only are we working too much, but our work has become meaningless. In “Why Capitalism Creates Pointless Jobs,” David Graeber lists off the administrative and managerial positions that dominate the US workforce.
From personal experience, Graeber claims that even those who work these jobs often find them pointless, to the point where they harbor jealousy towards those that hold meaningful jobs, such as in teaching or medicine.
“Huge swathes of people, in Europe and North America in particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed,” he writes.
This hunch is supported by several studies.
“In a 2013 survey of 12,000 professionals by the Harvard Business Review, half said they felt their job had no ‘meaning and significance,’” reported Rutger Bregman in a recent article in Wired. “Another poll among 230,000 employees in 142 countries showed that only 13 per cent of workers actually like their job. A recent poll among Brits revealed that as many as 37 per cent think they have a job that doesn’t even need to exist.”
“We could use that time to nurture our families and rebuild our communities, to make art or music or to study subjects that interest us. We could socialize, party, reflect, relax. We could use some of the free time we so richly deserve to get together with our fellow workers to discuss the kind of society we would like to live in, and to begin a campaign to create it. More free time (for too many of us, any free time at all) would provide us the means to lead more fulfilling, truly human lives.”
The philosopher Bertrand Russell joins the club of advocates. In “In Praise of Idleness”, he not only advocates the four-hour-day but gives many a reason why. Russell envisions that freedom from work will free us to pursue science, art, and writing, without the pressure to make a living from it.
“In a world where no one is compelled to work more than four hours a day, every person possessed of scientific curiosity will be able to indulge it, and every painter will be able to paint without starving, however excellent his pictures may be. Young writers will not be obliged to draw attention to themselves by sensational pot-boilers, with a view to acquiring the economic independence needed for monumental works, for which, when the time at last comes, they will have lost the taste and capacity.”
“ Above all, there will be happiness and joy of life, instead of frayed nerves, weariness, and dyspepsia.”
Bekken cites several examples of economists who have already found that a shortened workweek is feasible. A study by engineers at Columbia University in 1932 demonstrated that workers could live comfortably on four-hours per day if industry were arranged differently. In her book The Overworked American Harvard economist Juliet Schor argued that a four-hour day could have been implemented in the 1990s without any decline in living standards.
In 2010, the New Economics Foundation published a report, “21 Hours: The Case for a Shorter Workweek”. Their rationale:
“Overwork, unemployment, over-consumption, high carbon emissions, low well-being, entrenched inequalities, and the lack of time to live sustainably, to care for each other, and simply to enjoy life.”
Why work pointless jobs?
Not only are we working too much, but our work has become meaningless. In “Why Capitalism Creates Pointless Jobs,” David Graeber lists off the administrative and managerial positions that dominate the US workforce.
From personal experience, Graeber claims that even those who work these jobs often find them pointless, to the point where they harbor jealousy towards those that hold meaningful jobs, such as in teaching or medicine.
“Huge swathes of people, in Europe and North America in particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed,” he writes.
This hunch is supported by several studies.
“In a 2013 survey of 12,000 professionals by the Harvard Business Review, half said they felt their job had no ‘meaning and significance,’” reported Rutger Bregman in a recent article in Wired. “Another poll among 230,000 employees in 142 countries showed that only 13 per cent of workers actually like their job. A recent poll among Brits revealed that as many as 37 per cent think they have a job that doesn’t even need to exist.”
We’re tired of working. Put on your party hats.
Aside from meaninglessness, we have to question the notion of “productivity” as a positive thing. What is the point of productivity if it has no benefits for the working classes, no benefits for the world at large outside of profit for the ruling class? Moreover, greater productivity means productivity in creating not only that which is unnecessary, but in that which is harmful. Building oil pipelines that will endanger our water supply, or cars instead of public transit. Aside from stayin’ alive, what incentive is there to participate if our economic activity is ultimately harmful? And does that not make those absent from the job market somehow ethically superior?
Russell, the liberal philosopher, nails it again, almost 100 years ago:
“Owing to the absence of any central control over production, we produce hosts of things that are not wanted. We keep a large percentage of the working population idle, because we can dispense with their labor by making the others overwork. When all these methods prove inadequate, we have a war: we cause a number of people to manufacture high explosives, and a number of others to explode them, as if we were children who had just discovered fireworks. By a combination of all these devices we manage, though with difficulty, to keep alive the notion that a great deal of severe manual work must be the lot of the average man.”
Think of all the pointless or redundant jobs that exist under capitalism but wouldn’t be necessary in a socialist one. For example, while socialism may still require banking services, perhaps in the form of credit unions or nationalized banks, we certainly don’t need so many bankers. And twenty different phone and Internet companies? Why? Fifty multinational toy manufacturers making cheap plastic crap? Unnecessary.
Yet getting rid of unnecessary work isn’t even necessary to reduce the workweek dramatically. The future is here, automated.
Aside from meaninglessness, we have to question the notion of “productivity” as a positive thing. What is the point of productivity if it has no benefits for the working classes, no benefits for the world at large outside of profit for the ruling class? Moreover, greater productivity means productivity in creating not only that which is unnecessary, but in that which is harmful. Building oil pipelines that will endanger our water supply, or cars instead of public transit. Aside from stayin’ alive, what incentive is there to participate if our economic activity is ultimately harmful? And does that not make those absent from the job market somehow ethically superior?
Russell, the liberal philosopher, nails it again, almost 100 years ago:
“Owing to the absence of any central control over production, we produce hosts of things that are not wanted. We keep a large percentage of the working population idle, because we can dispense with their labor by making the others overwork. When all these methods prove inadequate, we have a war: we cause a number of people to manufacture high explosives, and a number of others to explode them, as if we were children who had just discovered fireworks. By a combination of all these devices we manage, though with difficulty, to keep alive the notion that a great deal of severe manual work must be the lot of the average man.”
Think of all the pointless or redundant jobs that exist under capitalism but wouldn’t be necessary in a socialist one. For example, while socialism may still require banking services, perhaps in the form of credit unions or nationalized banks, we certainly don’t need so many bankers. And twenty different phone and Internet companies? Why? Fifty multinational toy manufacturers making cheap plastic crap? Unnecessary.
Yet getting rid of unnecessary work isn’t even necessary to reduce the workweek dramatically. The future is here, automated.
21 Hours: The Case for a Shorter Working Week
Of the necessary, non-automated work that sticks around, we can divvy it up evenly, solving unemployment immediately.
Of the necessary, non-automated work that sticks around, we can divvy it up evenly, solving unemployment immediately.
How can a shorter workweek be achieved?
The “21 Hours” report suggests that a number of conditions would be necessary to realize this goal. They propose “reducing hours gradually over a number of years in line with annual wage increments,” along with policies that encourage employers to shorten hours, training programs for the previously unemployed, and regulations that would standardize a shorter workweek and discourage overtime.
These conditions seem reasonable. From my point of view, the most direct way to achieve a shorter workweek would be to 1) legislate a 21 (or whatever other magic number) hour work week (discouraging overtime by legislating that it be paid extra), as FDR mandated the 40-hour-week in the Fair Labor Standards Act, and 2) to double or triple the minimum wage so that fewer hours would not have an effect on income.
We can expect that employers would scoff at such a wage increase. Recently, when American Airlines raised employee wages (certainly not doubling them), investors protested. “This is frustrating,” Citi analyst Kevin Crissey wrote in a note to clients, as reported by the LA Times. “Labor is being paid first again. Shareholders get leftovers.”
While it makes technological, economic, environmental, and social sense, implementing the shortened workweek would likely prove challenging politically. Wage increases at this level may require unrest, revolts, or even revolution and a total overhaul of the economic system.
Though, while corporations may pay more per hour, they will not have to pay the robots with which they have replaced most of these hours, thus profiting from an increase in productivity, and so some concession on their part would be reasonable, if not easy. Yet we should still expect protest on their behalf, for they are profit-addicts. If we are to take the movement for a four-hour-day seriously, this should be our main concern.
With automation doing rote tasks and the elimination of unnecessary work, there is space to nevertheless increase employment in the necessary work that we’ve been slacking on: teaching, developing renewable energy, environmental restoration, mass-scale recycling projects, R&D, public transit, etc. Even with work disappearing, we still have a lot of work to do to save the planet, which is why we still need a green jobs program.
What if we don’t organize for a 15 or 20 hour work week?
There won’t be work for all of us — so will we mostly be unemployed, and fighting over freelance scraps?
“Workers of the future will need to be highly adaptable and juggle three or more different roles at a time,” said Anand Chopra-McGowan, head of enterprise new markets for General Assembly, as reported by The Guardian in its article, “Will Jobs Exist in 2050?”.
The “21 Hours” report suggests that a number of conditions would be necessary to realize this goal. They propose “reducing hours gradually over a number of years in line with annual wage increments,” along with policies that encourage employers to shorten hours, training programs for the previously unemployed, and regulations that would standardize a shorter workweek and discourage overtime.
These conditions seem reasonable. From my point of view, the most direct way to achieve a shorter workweek would be to 1) legislate a 21 (or whatever other magic number) hour work week (discouraging overtime by legislating that it be paid extra), as FDR mandated the 40-hour-week in the Fair Labor Standards Act, and 2) to double or triple the minimum wage so that fewer hours would not have an effect on income.
We can expect that employers would scoff at such a wage increase. Recently, when American Airlines raised employee wages (certainly not doubling them), investors protested. “This is frustrating,” Citi analyst Kevin Crissey wrote in a note to clients, as reported by the LA Times. “Labor is being paid first again. Shareholders get leftovers.”
While it makes technological, economic, environmental, and social sense, implementing the shortened workweek would likely prove challenging politically. Wage increases at this level may require unrest, revolts, or even revolution and a total overhaul of the economic system.
Though, while corporations may pay more per hour, they will not have to pay the robots with which they have replaced most of these hours, thus profiting from an increase in productivity, and so some concession on their part would be reasonable, if not easy. Yet we should still expect protest on their behalf, for they are profit-addicts. If we are to take the movement for a four-hour-day seriously, this should be our main concern.
With automation doing rote tasks and the elimination of unnecessary work, there is space to nevertheless increase employment in the necessary work that we’ve been slacking on: teaching, developing renewable energy, environmental restoration, mass-scale recycling projects, R&D, public transit, etc. Even with work disappearing, we still have a lot of work to do to save the planet, which is why we still need a green jobs program.
What if we don’t organize for a 15 or 20 hour work week?
There won’t be work for all of us — so will we mostly be unemployed, and fighting over freelance scraps?
“Workers of the future will need to be highly adaptable and juggle three or more different roles at a time,” said Anand Chopra-McGowan, head of enterprise new markets for General Assembly, as reported by The Guardian in its article, “Will Jobs Exist in 2050?”.
Time for a four hour day!!!
“This is either going to be very good or very bad — and either way there’s not going to be much in the way of work,” added author Richard Newton in the same article.
Certainly, no matter how you slice it, if we don’t restructure jobs and the economy to fit the times, we are heading towards a future of unemployment.
My proposal? A tripartite economic program
Creating and destroying jobs. While we destroy pointless jobs and they destroy themselves through automation, we’ll create green and socially beneficial jobs through a green jobs program. This is not just a feel-good idea but must be taken seriously as a real and urgent priority and policy point if we are to save the planet — or rather the human race from the environmental havoc we have wreaked under 150 years of capitalism.
Drastic reduction in the workweek. Perhaps we could start with 20 hours, with an eventual goal of 10.
How would these hours be remunerated? Would we all be poorer? The reduction in work hours must be met by some increase in the minimum wage. Alternatively, or additionally, these hours could be traded in exchange for basic goods and services: food, housing, energy, education, health care, and transport, and/or a universal basic income.
WRITTEN BY Mary Lorax
Some reveries, memories, and tonterias
“This is either going to be very good or very bad — and either way there’s not going to be much in the way of work,” added author Richard Newton in the same article.
Certainly, no matter how you slice it, if we don’t restructure jobs and the economy to fit the times, we are heading towards a future of unemployment.
My proposal? A tripartite economic program
Creating and destroying jobs. While we destroy pointless jobs and they destroy themselves through automation, we’ll create green and socially beneficial jobs through a green jobs program. This is not just a feel-good idea but must be taken seriously as a real and urgent priority and policy point if we are to save the planet — or rather the human race from the environmental havoc we have wreaked under 150 years of capitalism.
Drastic reduction in the workweek. Perhaps we could start with 20 hours, with an eventual goal of 10.
How would these hours be remunerated? Would we all be poorer? The reduction in work hours must be met by some increase in the minimum wage. Alternatively, or additionally, these hours could be traded in exchange for basic goods and services: food, housing, energy, education, health care, and transport, and/or a universal basic income.
WRITTEN BY Mary Lorax
Some reveries, memories, and tonterias
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