In the wake of the Great Recession, my full-time education job was reduced to .8. I was given the choice to work reduced hours every day or take a full day off. I chose to take Mondays off, and it was life-changing. The pay cut necessitated difficult changes, but the additional day to take care of the business of our lives woke me up to how unreasonable and unmanageable my job had become. I eventually went back to full-time work, but I was not the same full-time worker I had previously been. Our current wealth imbalance affects all work, not just for-profit industries. The only thing that trickles down is hardship for those expected to do more and more for less.
Where I live in northern thailand with my family in my wife’s village, people generally only work for two hours a day. They live well. Simply, but well. They value family, food and leisure. We all could live this way if we remembered how to live in community and with land. It’s not a pipe dream. I live this way now and have for ten years (I write about it on my substack). We have forgotten how to do this so we don’t know what to do but there is a very very different way to live. Life can be much more easy and enjoyable.
Joshua, thank you for this! The 4-day work week and a $20 minimum wage is too little, too late. They successfully stalled long enough to make these seemingly 'amazing' changes obsolete.
Thanks for these insights. There was a book that I read back in the 2010s about living slower (the title escapes me). It named several corporations in the U.S. that used to have a four-day work week, and recounted that the effects on both the workers and the corporations were overwhelmingly positive and beneficial. If I come across the title, I'll re-post.
Agreed that "...to change the world we need more time. We need time to organize, to learn, to teach, and simply to be with one another." However from my experiences after decades in the workplace and this culture, we only want to be with certain types of people....our people. In order to get to the level of organization we need in order to circumvent the outrageous price-gouging of rents and everyday costs of living (I will not call it inflation when it's simply greed), we are going to have to interact closely with people we normally think of as "those people." We would have to be willing to cut back on things that we think of as rightfully ours to have...our personal space, our things, our "believies". And that's a very tall order right now for people in the U.S.
When I was in highschool we were told the 4-day workweek was just around the corner. That was the mid 70s, such optimistic times! Let us hope this time is the charm 🤞🍀
Sorry. If they cut your hours and paid you more, then you would have more time to cook your own food and buy less fast food crap. Then you would have more time to walk, bike, exercise in general, getting you into shape where you are more food conscious and eat less. That doesn’t help profits and this country is built on profits.
Because you work hard, when you come home with your fast food hamburger, you have more time to watch TV as you eat, hardly noticing the food because you are watching more and more commercials on TV, interspersed with some programming,keeping you in your seat. Commercials about great hamburgers with tasteless tomatoes but still tasty because of sauces loaded with corn fructose. You get to slurp your 24 lunch slurpy with Joe corn slurp to wash down that hamburger loaded with antibiotics.
It’s the good life all want where you can eat as much non-nutritious food as you want and blissfully watch your belly get bigger and bigger allowing you to justify buying more and more great clothes, made in China that you get to replace every year.
Your life is enhanced because you do not itch as the thousands of ticks from pharmaceuticals, gas companies, self help gurus, insurance companies, medical plans, hospitals and all the tick companies only take just a little of your blood. Of course, that is little per tick.
You have the good life as you worship at your church of profits. You are solaced by this great god that wants your love and your money and protects you burning in hell for eternity.
Yes, the good life. Ignore those captains of capitalism who make money off money so they do not need to work. You need them to keep this wonderful economy going. And they need you to keep working so you can pay your fair taxes, building this country so that they can keep up your pride for being a member of this great country. They provide great sports to help you enjoy your beer. They allow you the thrill of enjoying hating the teams your team is playing. These wonderful captains or gods of capitalism could not provide you this good life if they paid taxes and reduced their profits even more from the little amounts of blood they suck from your body daily. Just remember, they and Jesus love you. Enjoy your life.
An excellent post. Sadly we cannot have a grown up conversation about work, not in the US, not in the UK, because frankly, our politicians are not grown ups. Plenty of companies are trialling the four-day week and they are not going back to five days. Why would you?
I may be a dummy, but there's something fundamental that I can't seem to grok. According to Economics 101, the free market should fix situations like an owner not willing to give up profit. In that case, someone else should come around, open a bunch of new fast food restaurants, take a smaller profit, this way being able to sell burgers for a lower price and/or use better ingredients and/or pay higher salaries and therefore hire the best workers, and ultimately take all the customers. But it's not only what we're taught in school, it also seems to make perfect sense. Yet, in the real world things don't really work this way. Why? Why do we keep having to fall back to politicians passing policies (so instead of owner's money greed, we're now subjected to politician's power greed)? Is it really impossible to "fix" the market, or to invent some other kind of decentralized, self-regulatory system that actually works?
Also, how much of capitalism's problems are actually problems with the free markets and competition, as opposed to being related to a _lack_ of competition? I mean, ownership is actually kind of the opposite of competition: as soon as you own something, you no longer have to compete for it, you are now free to abuse it, or let it rot, or whatever. (And no, I don't think state ownership would be the solution, that's even worse, by a huge margin. Something like the Harberger tax though...)
"the working class deserves all we create" -- well, no, I think this is not strictly true. Investors / owners do indeed risk part of their wealth in launching these companies, and getting _some_ compensation for that is fair. We don't actually want them to stop doing that, we want to incentivize them to do more. But yeah, the proportions are way messed up these days. And (apart from monopolies) I don't see why the market is so unable to fix that.
Because it’s not a free market. In the article’s Burger King example, the franchise locations, prices and menus are set by corporate. There is no true competition: obviously none between franchises of the same chain, and virtually none between them and other independent burger-sellers because the advantages of scale put the big chains in such a competitive advantage that others don’t bother competing directly. Instead, they have to produce a far-superior product and present it as a different experience worth paying more for. How many independent fast-food drive-thru restaurants do you see? I can’t think of one near me. The free market can no longer function once the stranglehold is established because the cost-barriers of entry are too steep and the cost-reality of competing vs massive scale are effectively impossible. This Burger King example seems (to my uneducated mind) to be the same eventual flaw you get with all unregulated markets, like we got in the first Gilded Age. Market dynamics cease to function when one entity gets too big.
I completely agree your point about the investors/owners being compensated—even we’ll compensated—for taking the financial risks. The proportions are where the problem always is.
'We’ve been taught that all this worker empowerment and “having a better life” stuff is unrealistic, but somehow 10 guys having as much money as four billion people is realistic and reasonable'.
So true. The amount of -I'm going to say it- gaslighting is disgusting, and every day more of us are disillusioned. Yet capitalism doesn't stop for anyone so we don't ever stop going to work. It's a well oiled machine.
..an all-important topic to keep on discussing and working towards. Along with the issue of productivity and lagging wages, the related issue of inequality and uneven distribution of wealth in society needs constant attention and action, in my view
...an all-important topic to keep on discussing and working towards. Along with the issue of productivity and lagging wages, the related issue of inequality and uneven distribution of wealth in society needs constant attention and action, in my view
In the wake of the Great Recession, my full-time education job was reduced to .8. I was given the choice to work reduced hours every day or take a full day off. I chose to take Mondays off, and it was life-changing. The pay cut necessitated difficult changes, but the additional day to take care of the business of our lives woke me up to how unreasonable and unmanageable my job had become. I eventually went back to full-time work, but I was not the same full-time worker I had previously been. Our current wealth imbalance affects all work, not just for-profit industries. The only thing that trickles down is hardship for those expected to do more and more for less.
A shorter work week is better for workers, better for families, better for communities, and better for the Earth.
https://www.jphilll.com/p/a-four-day-workweek-is-more-than/
@newmeans
Where I live in northern thailand with my family in my wife’s village, people generally only work for two hours a day. They live well. Simply, but well. They value family, food and leisure. We all could live this way if we remembered how to live in community and with land. It’s not a pipe dream. I live this way now and have for ten years (I write about it on my substack). We have forgotten how to do this so we don’t know what to do but there is a very very different way to live. Life can be much more easy and enjoyable.
Joshua, thank you for this! The 4-day work week and a $20 minimum wage is too little, too late. They successfully stalled long enough to make these seemingly 'amazing' changes obsolete.
With the increase in productivity from advances in technology it’s about time we demanded a 32 hour work week and overtime for anything more.
Thanks for these insights. There was a book that I read back in the 2010s about living slower (the title escapes me). It named several corporations in the U.S. that used to have a four-day work week, and recounted that the effects on both the workers and the corporations were overwhelmingly positive and beneficial. If I come across the title, I'll re-post.
Agreed that "...to change the world we need more time. We need time to organize, to learn, to teach, and simply to be with one another." However from my experiences after decades in the workplace and this culture, we only want to be with certain types of people....our people. In order to get to the level of organization we need in order to circumvent the outrageous price-gouging of rents and everyday costs of living (I will not call it inflation when it's simply greed), we are going to have to interact closely with people we normally think of as "those people." We would have to be willing to cut back on things that we think of as rightfully ours to have...our personal space, our things, our "believies". And that's a very tall order right now for people in the U.S.
Every Friday I think about how we shouldn’t be working on Fridays. Two days to recoup, after working five days straight, is just not enough.
When I was in highschool we were told the 4-day workweek was just around the corner. That was the mid 70s, such optimistic times! Let us hope this time is the charm 🤞🍀
If folks are interested in getting involved, join us at workfour.org, where we’re fighting to make the four day workweek happen in the US
Sorry. If they cut your hours and paid you more, then you would have more time to cook your own food and buy less fast food crap. Then you would have more time to walk, bike, exercise in general, getting you into shape where you are more food conscious and eat less. That doesn’t help profits and this country is built on profits.
Because you work hard, when you come home with your fast food hamburger, you have more time to watch TV as you eat, hardly noticing the food because you are watching more and more commercials on TV, interspersed with some programming,keeping you in your seat. Commercials about great hamburgers with tasteless tomatoes but still tasty because of sauces loaded with corn fructose. You get to slurp your 24 lunch slurpy with Joe corn slurp to wash down that hamburger loaded with antibiotics.
It’s the good life all want where you can eat as much non-nutritious food as you want and blissfully watch your belly get bigger and bigger allowing you to justify buying more and more great clothes, made in China that you get to replace every year.
Your life is enhanced because you do not itch as the thousands of ticks from pharmaceuticals, gas companies, self help gurus, insurance companies, medical plans, hospitals and all the tick companies only take just a little of your blood. Of course, that is little per tick.
You have the good life as you worship at your church of profits. You are solaced by this great god that wants your love and your money and protects you burning in hell for eternity.
Yes, the good life. Ignore those captains of capitalism who make money off money so they do not need to work. You need them to keep this wonderful economy going. And they need you to keep working so you can pay your fair taxes, building this country so that they can keep up your pride for being a member of this great country. They provide great sports to help you enjoy your beer. They allow you the thrill of enjoying hating the teams your team is playing. These wonderful captains or gods of capitalism could not provide you this good life if they paid taxes and reduced their profits even more from the little amounts of blood they suck from your body daily. Just remember, they and Jesus love you. Enjoy your life.
An excellent post. Sadly we cannot have a grown up conversation about work, not in the US, not in the UK, because frankly, our politicians are not grown ups. Plenty of companies are trialling the four-day week and they are not going back to five days. Why would you?
I’ve been waiting for this since the 90s. Hurry up world, catch up.
The four-day, 32-hour, less-than-full-time-with-benefits work week. Corporations will love it.
I may be a dummy, but there's something fundamental that I can't seem to grok. According to Economics 101, the free market should fix situations like an owner not willing to give up profit. In that case, someone else should come around, open a bunch of new fast food restaurants, take a smaller profit, this way being able to sell burgers for a lower price and/or use better ingredients and/or pay higher salaries and therefore hire the best workers, and ultimately take all the customers. But it's not only what we're taught in school, it also seems to make perfect sense. Yet, in the real world things don't really work this way. Why? Why do we keep having to fall back to politicians passing policies (so instead of owner's money greed, we're now subjected to politician's power greed)? Is it really impossible to "fix" the market, or to invent some other kind of decentralized, self-regulatory system that actually works?
Also, how much of capitalism's problems are actually problems with the free markets and competition, as opposed to being related to a _lack_ of competition? I mean, ownership is actually kind of the opposite of competition: as soon as you own something, you no longer have to compete for it, you are now free to abuse it, or let it rot, or whatever. (And no, I don't think state ownership would be the solution, that's even worse, by a huge margin. Something like the Harberger tax though...)
"the working class deserves all we create" -- well, no, I think this is not strictly true. Investors / owners do indeed risk part of their wealth in launching these companies, and getting _some_ compensation for that is fair. We don't actually want them to stop doing that, we want to incentivize them to do more. But yeah, the proportions are way messed up these days. And (apart from monopolies) I don't see why the market is so unable to fix that.
Because it’s not a free market. In the article’s Burger King example, the franchise locations, prices and menus are set by corporate. There is no true competition: obviously none between franchises of the same chain, and virtually none between them and other independent burger-sellers because the advantages of scale put the big chains in such a competitive advantage that others don’t bother competing directly. Instead, they have to produce a far-superior product and present it as a different experience worth paying more for. How many independent fast-food drive-thru restaurants do you see? I can’t think of one near me. The free market can no longer function once the stranglehold is established because the cost-barriers of entry are too steep and the cost-reality of competing vs massive scale are effectively impossible. This Burger King example seems (to my uneducated mind) to be the same eventual flaw you get with all unregulated markets, like we got in the first Gilded Age. Market dynamics cease to function when one entity gets too big.
I completely agree your point about the investors/owners being compensated—even we’ll compensated—for taking the financial risks. The proportions are where the problem always is.
'We’ve been taught that all this worker empowerment and “having a better life” stuff is unrealistic, but somehow 10 guys having as much money as four billion people is realistic and reasonable'.
So true. The amount of -I'm going to say it- gaslighting is disgusting, and every day more of us are disillusioned. Yet capitalism doesn't stop for anyone so we don't ever stop going to work. It's a well oiled machine.
..an all-important topic to keep on discussing and working towards. Along with the issue of productivity and lagging wages, the related issue of inequality and uneven distribution of wealth in society needs constant attention and action, in my view
...an all-important topic to keep on discussing and working towards. Along with the issue of productivity and lagging wages, the related issue of inequality and uneven distribution of wealth in society needs constant attention and action, in my view