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Comment by mongol | Hacker News Reader

I think it makes sense to work less for many reasons. But some politicians propose it like it would cost nothing, or that the costs would be eaten by the employers. To the voters it is proposed as "work less and get paid the same". I think that is dishonest.

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It worked for the weekend. With increases in productivity, I don't see any reason why reducing hours couldn't work again today.

In 1940, when the weekend was implemented in the United States, the real GDP per capita was 10,027.46. Today, it is 58,024.99.

With a 5.8x increase in productivity, we should be able to work significantly less then we did in 1940.

https://www.multpl.com/us-real-gdp-per-capita/table/by-year

But people also demand far more from their lives. Nowadays people want to have a TV, a phone, a computer, lots of software and entrainment on these devices etc. Our cars are much safer, our food is safer, we have far better and more healthcare etc.

Yeah of course, it's a trade-off, but I'd argue that it's not actually what people _want_. If given the choice between having the time to cook for themselves or eat fast food, would most people choose the fast food? I'd argue most people would choose to cook for themselves [1]. The problem is, people don't have the time for that type of thing, so they instead opt for the convenient choice.

Giving people less time to do things for themselves actually increases the GDP, because it means they are paying others to do things they would rather do themselves. Then someone gets to make a profit on that, so this type of thing is encouraged by our economic system.

[1] https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2006/04/19/eating-more-enjoy...

> Nowadays people want to have a TV, a phone, a computer, lots of software and entrainment on these devices etc

That's not where the money goes. That stuff's nothing. You can get working TVs all day long for peanuts on Craigslist. I just last week grabbed a hell of a used business workstation PC on Ebay and threw in an SSD for funsies, under $200 total including the brand-new SSD. Thing screams for all normal tasks. Will probably last years. Basically nothing in the scheme of things. Can someone on a low income reasonably buy one on a whim? No. But having a TV, phone, and computer is not why people are poor.

Housing, medical care, child care. School (see also: housing costs). Those are expensive. Our modern conveniences are nothing in comparison.

If people are equally productive in less time, pay should stay the same for amount of work completed or contribution delivered, not hours worked.

I don't mind individual agreements between employer and employee of that nature. But as a politician, it is not possible to design legislation changes like that because different jobs varies a lot in how productivity is measured, and for some jobs, the hours matters in a way that an employee can not make up in a personal productivity. Think of a restaurant for example, or a hospital.

It's possible. It causes headaches for companies, but it's not different from adding a new tax or a new regulation.

They will just have to find a way to deal with it.

It could literally be that no one's pay is allowed to change to accommodate these new hours. If they are contact the DoL.

Yes, actually, it is possible as in so far that politicians can create whatever laws they can get majority for. But "the way to deal with it" will in many cases be bankruptcy, just like it would if the taxes were doubled.

Also, the effect on society is not to be taken lightly. A general decrease of working hours from 40 to 24 hours per week will decrease national GNP significantly. A hoped for advantage is probably that unemployed can make up some slack by becoming employable (to "share the work"), but if other countries keep a 40 hour work week it will be hard to maintain living standards

You don't need to do 40 to 24 mate. You can do a yearly decrease of 1 hour for the next 16 years.

What's the point of all this technology and innovation if we're always going to keep working the same amount.

Also if an industry can't keep up with this, oh well. That's why you do it slowly so you can handle the fallout.

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