Comment by fullstackchris | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fullstackchris | Hacker News Reader

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Hearing stuff like this a lot recently, I always think about the often repeated vision that Keynes had, saying that we (his grandchildren) would be working 15 hour work weeks. I think our economy is so rich and efficient now, that scenario could actually exist, but everyone is still duped by the workaday culture infinitely persisting the 40 hour work week idea.

Before I'm barraged with "what about people in the service industry!?" I do confess, I'm not sure what the argument would be - indeed, some people are perhaps only working part time at those positions, perhaps maybe around that 15 hour figure. But for those who work full time in the service industry, I guess I'm not sure what there leverage could be - raising the minimum wage perhaps? But that argument is age old and I've heard pros and cons both for and against. Also, in a country like the US where are social programs are far behind most of places like the EU for example, it's especially hard to argue or expect anything to actually become a reality for some of those service jobs. I guess only time will tell.

> I think our economy is so rich and efficient now, that scenario could actually exist, but everyone is still duped by the workaday culture infinitely persisting the 40 hour work week idea.

Not sure we're duped by the 40 hr / week idea so much as we're slaves to our desire for consumer goods. That and housing is very expensive now which means more work to pay for it.

The issue is that pay hasn't kept up with productivity. As things become more efficient employers are having to pay far less for the same amount of work.

It has in tech - in fact I’d wager approximately 100% of productivity gains since the 80s have been in the tech sector which in turn has probably captured nearly all of those gains for itself.

People stopped borrowing money. Either because they became old or the financial crisis made them risk averse. This drops interest rates.

The few things that people buy with debt then rises in value. There is also no interest in building more housing because that would result in lower single family home property values.

You have to consider that it's the bank that is paying for the house. As the owner you only pay the mortgage, whose monthly payments are limited by how much people can afford in the first place.

There is interest in building housing by home builders, but it's at the expensive end of the market, not the much more affordable housing that we need.

Property value is the biggest component of home prices in many desirable areas. Increasing current low-density home building won't change that, but increasing density would help with affordability. Problem is that many in the US still have low density housing as their housing goal.

Job hour and insurance lack of fungibility also make it hard even if you were willing to accept lesser pay it would be harder to find an employer who accepts it. Self-employment doesn't lend itself to fixed smooth workweeks and leaves one uninsulated from all of the demands of running a business.

The 15 hour work week prediction seems to have been an oversimplification unfortunately. Just the introduction of varied scarcity of labor and scalability (you try getting enough doctors for them to work 15 hours a week), let alone lack of "baton passability" of tasks between people. On a personal level an obstacle is the labor market's demands for those who want uncommon arrangements.

As a current status quo most jobs which would accept 15 hour weeks and more employees are lower valued and lower productivity ones. More retirement hobby jobs as a model than even something to sustain a spartan lifestyle. Higher paying and higher productivity jobs tend to be scarcer.

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