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There are pretty severe network effects in place, though, as well as obvious imbalance of power (the wage worker is, almost by definition, relatively poor, indebted, etc). Working hours have always been a big part of labor politics. The individual contractual perspective is not the whole story.

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I don't know what network effects you mean.

But I agree with the imbalance of power, at least in the common case. However, the more specific and difficult your job is, the more the power leans towards the employee.

Still, I believe any kind of power inequality will manifest itself somewhere whether you fix working hours or not.

Almost every time I've talked to someone about reducing their working hours, the most serious reason not to has been something like "but everyone else is working 8 hours."

It's not like the "invisible hand" simply discovered the optimum life arrangement for all workers everywhere.

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