But you do have that option, right? Work 20 hours a week instead of 40. You just aren't paid for the hours that you don't work. In a world where workers are exchanging their labor for wages, that's how it's supposed to work.
For there to be a "better option" (as in, you're paid money for not working more hours) what are you actually being paid to do?
For all the thoughts that come to mind when I say "work 20 hours a week instead of 40" -- that's where the individual's preference comes in. I work more hours because I want the money. Nobody pays me to not work.
Not really. Lots of kinds of work don’t hire part timers in any volume period. There are very limited jobs where the only tradeoff if you want to work fewer hours is a reduction in compensation proportional to the reduction in hours worked, or even just a reduction in compensation even if disproportionate to the reduction in hours worked.
>But you do have that option, right? Work 20 hours a week instead of 40. You just aren't paid for the hours that you don't work. In a world where workers are exchanging their labor for wages, that's how it's supposed to work.
Look the core of your opinion is the belief that market dynamics naturally lead to desirable outcomes always. I simply don’t believe that, and I think interference to push for desirable outcomes which violate principles of a free market is often good. We probably won’t be able to agree on this.
No.. if society wants to disincentive over working by introducing overtime, that's fine by me. I'm not making any moral judgement. You just seem to live in a fantasy world where people aren't exchanging their labor for money.
> Look the core of your opinion is the belief that market dynamics naturally lead to desirable outcomes always.
I didn't say that, and I don't believe that. If you're just going to hallucinate what I think, what's the point in replying?
Where did you get that? My entire contention centers around a lack of good options for workers seeking to work fewer hours. A logical assumption, then, would be that I want policies which would give said workers more options. Examples include stronger protections for unions, higher minimum wages, etc. Since I saw these as the logical extrapolations from what I'd said originally, I figured your issue was gov interference in the labor market itself, since you said things like
>In a world where workers are exchanging their labor for wages, that's how it's supposed to work.
>(as in, you're paid money for not working more hours)
You took issue with more money for the same hours, did you not? Why wouldn't overtime be an obvious example? The reason I assumed you were just a libertarian or something was because it doesn't seem like there's an obvious logical juncture to draw a line at. If you're fine with society altering the behavior of the labor market to achieve certain desirable results, then why would this be any different fundamentally?
However, while we live in the world where we're exchanging labor for money, it's not as simple as what you originally wrote: "I think it’s just the result of disproportionate political influence held by the wealthy, who are heavily incentivized to maximize working hours."
You're not considering the choices being made by the people actually doing the work. People work for a significant amount of their life because they're paid to do it. There's no council of wealthy people conspiring to achieve this conclusion: they have work that needs to be done, and they're willing to pay for people to do it.
My thesis was just this: while people are exchanging labor for money, people will work. If you introduce a policy where people are given some UBI regardless of employment, they will still work. They want the money. They will buy more televisions, better food, more vacations. If I'm paid my current salary to work for 5 hours a week, I will start interviewing for more jobs. And yes, inflation may soon render the UBI you've introduced to be not so great.
You could outlaw or heavily disincentivize working over a certain number of hours (overtime is a step in this direction), although my concern would be that artificially limiting productivity like that would be detrimental. We still need people doing productive things, so slashing their hours might be a Chinese "backyard furnaces" sort of situation. That said, some people think half of our jobs are bullshit anyway.
To your credit though, we shouldn't let perfect be the enemy of good. Maybe 36 hours is better than 40, and so on.
For my relatives in Germany going part time seems easier and more accepted by companies.
Is that true? Most trades can work fewer hours, medical workers like nurses can, hairdressers, plenty of writers are freelance, the entire gig economy.
It seems like big companies don't provide the option, for software at least. I always chocked that up to more bureaucratic processes which add some fixed cost for each employed person.