A very nice essay by Keynes

[lavendersparkle]

Increasingly lately I've been thinking that what we really need to do is work less. What I mean by this is that, given that developed countries have reached a level of wealth where we can afford to fill our bellies many times over, and that climate change seems to be one of the greatest threats facing us, wouldn't it be better if we all worked a bit less on average. We can fit renewable light bulbs and turn our televisions of standby but the best way to reduce our carbon foot print is to reduce our consumption and if we're going to buy less stuff, surely it makes sense to earn less money and make less stuff. I know the protestant work ethics retort to this argument. It goes "How could you advocate a life of leisure when there are starving babies in Africa?" but we don't spend very much of our money of feeding the starving in Africa, we spend it on iPods and shoes and other shinies. Maybe if we got out of the cycle of earning more money to buy more shinies we'd take more seriously the idea of actually having a serious crack at alleviating poverty.

I've always felt a bit out of sink with the rest of the world for thinking this way. It always struck me as really odd that per capita GDP was so much higher than it had been in the past but people kept on claiming that we couldn't afford things. I always found it odd that during the 20th century hours of employment have increased even though hourly wages have increased. Last week I mentioned it to a fellow Cambridge economist and he mentioned a paper written by Keynes nearly 80 years ago about what the world would be like in 100 years time. Luckily some nice person put it on the internet.

Maybe it'll inspire you to take part in a very quiet revolution. Think about whether the shinies are really worth the hours of your life it takes to buy them. If they aren't, work less and enjoy life more.

Comments

[cathedral-life.livejournal.com]

I entirely agree and my thoughts have been similar recently. I've started to attend lots of free "swapping" events and hang out at squats, where the mentality is that people will nor work 40 hour weeks.

I'm trying to figure out how this translates into my current job :)

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Yes! This is what I think too, though my reasoning also goes along the lines of "I do not want to work myself to an early grave making somebody else richer and being bored for a third of my healthy adult life when the world is full of beautiful things I may only ever see once, because I am not owned". I have to do some more thinking.

[woodpijn.livejournal.com]

I completely agree. Unfortunately, most work, especially in certain industries, only comes in 40-hour packages. My answer to the question "How much of your time would you like to trade for money?" would probably be about 20 hours, but the realistically available options are 40 or zero.

The "revolution" needs to be bigger and less quiet; it needs to be a large-scale change in corporate culture and perhaps employment law.

[lavendersparkle.livejournal.com]

I wonder whether replacing most of the benefit and income tax system with a flat tax with negative income tax to ensure a survivable standard of living if one didn't work and abolition of the minimum wage would help. One of the things that might get in the way of firms employing people part-time in 'career' type jobs is that the amount of admin involved in employing someone depends more on whether you employ them than how many hours they work. It's also less faff to have everyone on the same contract. It could maybe improve the situation by giving employers less faff to cope with per employee, and also giving more bargaining power to employees because they could always live off their survival income if there aren't any suitably attractive jobs for them.

[atreic.livejournal.com]

Yes; this.

It seems to be the prisoners dilemma - people are perceived as good if they do a lot, so if you work half time in a culture that is primarily full time, no matter how accomodating and dedicated to diversity your employers are your peers and immediate superiors will get the subconcious idea you do half as much as everyone else and are never around when they need you.

[lavendersparkle.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that in white collar jobs there's also a terrible tendency for people who work part-time to be expected to produce as much as full-time staff and get paid less than half as much for it. It's hard to say to your boss that you won't do something because you've already worked your hours for that week, so you end up working really late or working from home to make it up. Line managers are much better at judging an appropriate amount of work for a full timer than for a part-timer.

I guess one way to get around this is more self-employment/piece rate type employment. If you were paid for some kind of output it would be easier to decide how much stuff you want to do given the rate it was paid for at. The problem with this is that it doesn't work with jobs where output is difficult to measure or collaborative.

[woodpijn.livejournal.com]

I guess one way to get around this is more self-employment/piece rate type employment. If you were paid for some kind of output it would be easier to decide how much stuff you want to do given the rate it was paid for at. The problem with this is that it doesn't work with jobs where output is difficult to measure or collaborative.
Very much agree with both halves of this and have thought the same myself.

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

Not necessarily. I know a few sets of job share partners who make it work well.

However, one reason I think I want to stay working in equalities is that people who think the way you describe have to be good at hiding it!

[cathedral-life.livejournal.com]

There are some jobs where job shares eg. a 20 week a year option are more acceptable. However, I think they're more common in jobs working for local councils etc. and not sure if you can get high skilled 20 hour jobs.

[hatam-soferet.livejournal.com]

I'm using this line of thinking to justify only working four or five hours a day. It feels morally outrageous, but I am pretty sure this is the result of a culture that says a 70-hour week is virtuous.

[lavendersparkle.livejournal.com]

When you think about it logically, it makes no sense for people to think that. Maybe if everyone else is working 70-hour weeks saving people's lives and caring for the elderly, but they're not. Most people are working long hours to buy shinies. If you prefer leisure to shinies why not choose leisure. It makes even less sense with climate change and the emissions produced b the consumption of the workaholics.

[hatam-soferet.livejournal.com]

Oh, agreed that it makes no sense at all. Even working hard to save for retirement or whatever doesn't make much sense right now, and I have all the shinies I want, and the thing I want most from life at present is time to enjoy stuff, so I'm taking it. And working on not feeling guilty about that.

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking a lot about this recently, and come to the same conclusion (though for selfish reasons as much as your unselfish ones.) I have plans for making this work (taking unpaid leave between placements while still on the fast stream, working part time once promoted, and making small amounts of money from the things I'd be doing anyway if I got to spend my time as I wished).

[cathedral-life.livejournal.com]

Oh, I forgot to say that the kind of lifestyle you describe would be very much easier if one were living in a self-sufficient farm-like community!

Consequently, I've been looking at some, but I don't yet have the capital to buy my way in!