Given the benefits of a shorter work week accrue primarily to workers, why do we not advocate for giving them the flexibility to work fewer hours if they want to?
It's harder to make this argument in software, but in shift-based employment this should almost be a no brainer.
In the US at least they already do, but probably not for the reasons you'd expect. US companies only have to pay benefits for employees to work >= 40 hours/week. So 2 employees working 20 hours/week costs less than 1 employee working 40 hours/week. (Of course this is not beneficial to the employees.)
Because it's the only way to keep the ongoing and increasingly shaky fiction that "we need everybody to work" hanging together? Foolish patches on the status quo, like "pay people more for less work", are the only way forward until we adult up and realize that the welfare state is both inevitable and beneficial (even to the self-anointed "makers" so busily hoisting themselves up on their crosses).
Getting past this fiction is only the beginning. Many, many people find meaning in their lives through performing a task that others deem necessary. When nobody is necessary, the economy decouples from the people. We actually have examples of societies that operate like this right now: Eritrea [0] for one. The government of that country has decided it has no real use for most of its people. It makes business deals with foreign resource extraction companies directly. Many people live in abject poverty while the government enriches itself and does little/nothing to help them.
Assuming we do reach a state where we no longer sustain the fiction that we need people to work, the question becomes "How do the unnecessariat [1] justify their own existance to those who control capital?"
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eritrea
[1] https://morecrows.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/unnecessariat/
Going from 5k€ to 4k€ per month after tax is not the same thing as going from 2.5k€ to 2k€...
Monaco is a small rock < 1 sq mile that is a fiscal paradise and a home for billionaires.
I just read a short story called Manna about where U.S. workers were displaced by robots and automation, and the 10% lived in luxury, the rest were put in styrofoam living areas, given meals, but weren't allowed to leave the compound, much like a concentration camp, or prison.
Some people though through inheritance, etc were given 'tickets' to go live in the Australia project, which was where everyone got 1000 credits to spend as they like weekly in a catalog of things like clothes, etc.. They got housing and food provided at no cost. They could do whatever money wasn't really a thing, people worked if they wanted, did scientific research, etc...
This thinking on here that we are doing humanity this huge service by automating all their pesky little maniacal jobs away is insane, and it needs to stop. There is more than one world view out there.
Related, interesting read: https://aeon.co/essays/what-if-jobs-are-not-the-solution-but...
I am making myself familiar with Mr. James Livingston -- it's an argument that has been made many times before -- that there aren't enough jobs to go around, that the private sector doesn't really create all the jobs, and ends with some form of UBI. I have heard it a thousand times. I still remain unconvinced.
People working less because they do not need to work so long to finance their desires is one way to achieve that.
> What did we come up with all this automation for?
To drive down the cost of goods and services that no longer need a human component.
Because the "standard" work week is an artificial construct that has arbitrary definition. Also because this is a way to bridge the gap between accepting universal income and re-evaluating what is the role and importance of work/job in the society.
Countries can legislate this, but they will not be able to prevent their economies from stagnating like some of the european countries. (Flight of capital, companies moving their workforce to other places etc.)
The only way (as I see it) is if we, as a society accept lesser returns on our investments (via our 401Ks and pension plans) and allow that to be reflected in the compensation and productivity of the workforce. With the increasing life expectancy, even that can turn out to be a problem in the long run, but we cross that bridge when we reach it.....
We may be further from the jobs drying out than we think we are, and humans may have an ability to generate "work" for themselves greater than is generally thought. Among possible explanations anyway, there are surely many more :)
And it hasn't been a massive success, except that employees mostly like it. But the unemployment level is roughly the same 10 % as it was before 2000, and the last time French government did not have budget deficit is still 1974.
That doesn't check out.
Either working shorter hours will produce the same result. This is true in knowledge workers etc., being more rested and well-being, and cutting on jabbering in the kitchen, you can produce the same net result easily in 5-6 hours a day instead of being overworked, sitting like a zombie for 10 hours. Then, while you pay the same for shorter hours, there will be no incentive to employ new workers, you pay the same, you get the same results, it is only done in shorter hours and pay-per-hour increased, but you don't need more workforce.
Or working shorter hours will produce less results. This is true in "mechanical" jobs - e.g., car production lines, or in "overwatch" jobs - e.g., power plant control rooms. Then you will need more workers and have no incentive to pay the same for less results and then pay the same for new workers to make up the results. Yes, you can pay the same numerically for less hours (i.e. when forced by law), but now producing a unit of car, flour, bread, delivering a package from e-shop, programming a feature in software system costs more and the currency will be devalued. So you will work less hours, get the same pay (numerically), but for the same number, you will be able to buy less hours from others (whether it is a product or a service).
(I.e. the theory is that people are so much happier with shorter working hours that they come up with the same productivity. However, with a drop from 8 to 6 hours this doesn't really happen, although the productivity does not drop 25 % as it would without any dynamic effects).
The market distinguishes between the users (eg - people using MS Excel or Google search) and the initiators (in this case Microsoft or Google).
Put in another way - would people be as efficient if we remove the tool they are using for the increased technological efficiency?