
Why We Should Demand a Shorter Workweek - Tsiolkovsky
http://www.dsausa.org/shorter_work_weeks
======
nshepperd
A much less awful non-marxist take on the subject:
[http://www.psmag.com/business-economics/will-ever-able-
enjoy...](http://www.psmag.com/business-economics/will-ever-able-enjoy-
shorter-work-week-78891)

IIRC, a related issue that came up on HN a while ago is unpaid overtime. As
any employee programmers surely know, giving employers unpaid overtime when
projects are behind schedule is especially bad, because it creates moral
hazard (incentives to set excessively tight schedules). But everyone does it,
because it's expected (if you won't do it, they'll hire someone who will,
right?).

Regulation -- punishing employers who accept unpaid overtime, and somehow
_widely enforcing_ these rules -- is one of very few approaches that seem
theoretically able to make any difference to this situation.

~~~
themartorana
_"...this experiment owes its intellectual roots to the industrial
organization of cereal baron W.K. Kellogg, who replaced the rotating eight-
hour shift schedule at his plant in Michigan with six-hours periods, resulting
in an explosion in hiring and lowered production costs."_

In Sweden, this is a no-brainer. In the US, for salaried workers, it's an
interesting possibility. For factory workers? They were probably only _paid_
for 6 hours, given a 36 hour work week to avoid "full time" status so paying
for benefits could be avoided, etc.

I wouldn't be so fast to praise US businesses for lowering hours in the work
week - there was an explosion of this practice after the ACA passed, so
employers could avoid paying for healthcare.

~~~
Gifford
Full time "benefits" (vs part-time hours) didn't exist in 19th Century USA wen
Kellog practice changed.

------
beejiu
Where I work there a few people who arrive an hour early, leave an hour late
and work through lunch. I think it's fair to say they are the least productive
members of the team in terms of the work they do. I doubt management sees it
in the same way.

~~~
sombremesa
Strangely even technically competent managers seem to favor presence and
subservience over actual results, at least for lower-level engineers at bigger
companies. Thankfully at least the senior engineers will be in your corner if
you know what you're doing.

It's also common to see brilliant engineers "broken" after going through job
after job with the same ridiculous politics and the meaninglessness of
exerting anything but the minimal effort.

~~~
themartorana
I would argue that many managers may not trust that every employee would be
more productive remotely. I can tell you from my personal experience that many
people are less productive from home - whether there are more distractions,
it's easier to be lazy, etc... I don't know.

If I'm paying for a person's productive power, working from home even part
time is ok only if that person is equally or more productive at home as they
are at work (on average). If their remote productivity is weak, then I would
most certainly value their physical presence.

(Not everyone who fits this bill needs to be fired, either. It takes a certain
amount of personal discipline to work remotely, and not everyone has that
ability. That doesn't always mean the person isn't a valuable team member.)

~~~
VLM
With the obvious correction factor that remote lifestyle is inherently far
superior and financially rewarding, so you'll get better employees cheaper, on
average.

I took a $5K paycut (at a new job) to get flex time and limited work at home,
but I ended up saving something ridiculous like $10K after tax, on child care
and commute related costs by being able to swing shift start and end times and
avoid rush hour whenever possible. My kids are grown-ish now and I've been
thinking about going back to 9-5 M-F but it just sounds like a nightmare, a
living hell, after having a superior lifestyle for so long.

------
littletimmy
I don't think we will, and that is because no one cares.

People don't seem to realize that working extremely long hours was the norm in
the early 20th century. It was a long sustained effort by labor unions to
those hours down from 100 a week to 40 a week.

We're regressing fast, but there will be no change in the US because everyone
in this country believes they'll be the capitalists one day.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>I don't think we will, and that is because no one cares.

Correction: no one who is currently in power cares. But there are plenty of
young people who absolutely despise working even 40 hours a week and would do
anything to change it.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
"Anything", of course, that doesn't involve turning out to vote.

~~~
FatalBaboon
In France, at least, I don't know anybody that thinks voting would change
anything.

You need a good option to vote well.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
That's a common mantra, but it's not true. The voter base, especially the
voter base for primary elections, has a significant effect on the options that
are available. If 100% of young people, or even 100% of all people voted in
every election, the available options would be vastly different.

------
mparramon
"Today, proletarianized white-collar workers are required to work 50-60 hours
a week."

This sounds barbaric to the ears of an European salaryman.

~~~
dijit
definitely, I work 45 hours a week an I'm already drained, I can't imagine
working more..

work to live, don't live to work.

~~~
robhack
European here, 35 hours and I'm drained.

I'm thinking about negotiating fewer hours when I have more seniority.

~~~
67726e
I wonder though how many of those increased hours go into actual work. I'm
sure some amount does, but how much time do you think the typical European
office workers spends on a Reddit or Facebook as opposed to an American one.

As an American, I've worked at a "good" company in terms of expectations of
hours and "bad" where one would want to come early and stay late (and make it
known on the team chat) if only for appearances. I can say anecdotally that my
amount of time slacking off increased with my time spent in-office at the
second company, and from walking by, it seemed the case with others as well.

Honestly, what with software being salaried and exempted from any overtime,
what incentive do I really have to kick out an extra couple hours a day?

------
rdlecler1
The author blames the capatalists but the consumer and competition for goods
and services are the culprit. If everyone could live where they wanted to, put
their kids through good schools, did not have to pay student loans, save for
retirement, and could afford vacations all with 30% less money than they make
now then they you would see people seeking jobs that allow them to work less
hours. When I take a Lyfy and a driver tells me that she has another job and
is making extra money for any number of reasons she is not complaining that
she is being overworked by Lyft, but that she doesn't make enough money
(except for the occasional driver, like the one driving the landrover, that
was driving for fun). Similarly, many engineers could pick up and move to
Thailand and live like kinds doing some remote work (our designer does this),
yet most would do anything to work at places like Google or Apple.

~~~
loup-vaillant
You are assuming that working less hours means earning less money. An obvious
enough assumption.

Well, that's false.

First, the actual mean work-week is not that high, once you take unemployment
into account: some people are working their ass off, but many others either
have precarious part-time jobs (fewer hours, but often no reliable schedule),
or don't work at all. Reducing the official "full time" work-week would merely
force the capitalists to re-allocate work a bit more equally. This will mean
less unemployment, and less expensive unemployment insurance —which plays a
big role in compensating for the loss of _gross_ revenue.

Second, we could consider allocating less money to capitalists, and more to
workers. The ratio used to be 60/40 in the 70s. Now it is more like 70/30, if
not worse. Taking that ratio back can easily compensate for 20% cut in our
working time.

Of course, such a change is impossible to initiate through individual action
alone. You _did_ capture the current conundrum of the isolated proletarian:
work one's ass off, or don't earn enough. But there is a third alternative:
_rise up and change this rotten world_.

Not easy. But as history has proven to us time and again, the world _can_
change.

~~~
whichfawkes
What exactly do you mean by: > allocating less money to capitalists, and more
to workers ?

Where are those ratios coming from, who's allocating this money, and how would
you change the ratio?

~~~
hnnewguy
People are always more than willing to redistribute "other people's money".

It always makes me laugh when I see this sort of talk in places like Hacker
News. This is a very privileged subculture. If the proletariat rises up, the
"intelligentsia" of Silicon Valley will likely be on the chopping block.

~~~
Gifford
Not really. SV employees pay 40-50+% income in tax. The founders, maybe, are
at threat.

------
marcusgarvey
>We are usually so overworked, or constantly worrying about when we will work
next, that we really have very little time to fight back or even to enjoy
ourselves.

Bug or feature?

~~~
chillingeffect
Strange attractor.

It's not the we can't enjoy ourselves, it's that the exhaustion of work
affects the kind of enjoyment we seek. Instead of going for a nice, long empty
walk for free, we feel we have to spend $30 at the movies. Or we don't have
enough time to cook, so we spend $50 on a restaurant. Both of these activities
keep the "economy" flowing, by constantly moving money out of our hands.

I don't believe us working hard enough to ensure that we can only entertain
ourselves by spending money is a diabolical plan. But I think the evil part is
when we're influenced to think that we need to spend all that money on
ourselves...

~~~
Roboprog
The tone in the article that your employer _wants_ you exhausted is a bit
weird. Sure, there are probably a few megalomaniacs that want unchallenged
world domination, but most employers are simply ordinary people who want more
money by you doing more work.

Exhaustion might be a very real effect, but I don't think it is usually a goal
of an employer.

------
unimportant
You can demand all you want, but if there are no unions or legislations to
back your demands, nothing is ever going to happen.

Unions, which are most widely found in western Europe accomplish little these
days (the negotiated wages for call center workers are barely livable for
example).

If you're a skilled developer, you can work your way to freelancer / self
employed consultant or join one of the companies that offers part time work /
4 day work week (there was a recent article about one in Portland that only
does 4 day work weeks).

If you're unskilled, you'll always be fucked to varying degrees, as such is
life unfortunately.

Also it's hard to take an article seriously when it cites Marx, whose theories
obviously don't work in the real world, as humans are competitive to varying
degrees by nature.

~~~
aaronlevin
> Also it's hard to take an article seriously when it cites Marx, whose
> theories obviously don't work in the real world, as humans are competitive
> to varying degrees by nature.

Marx's "theory" was a method of analyzing history by focusing on class
conflict as the main driver for history. By applying that analysis to
capitalism, he predicted that the proletariat would inevitably come into
conflict with the bourgeoisie. Das Kapital was a deep dive into how and why
this conflict comes about (both economically and philosophically).

As for what happened next, those are "implementation details" which Marx
didn't write too much about. We've seen a few implementations (Bolshevism,
Stalinism, Cuba, Maoism) and a few modern contradictions (current China, North
Korea, etc.) and most have been flawed.

However, not every implementation of capitalism has been successful, either.
There are plenty of fascist and repressive states that are capitalist. Nazi
Germany and Italy during WWII, Argentina during Pinochet, hell, you might even
say ISIS is capitalist.

So, I'd argue that many implementations of communism have failed in the same
way that several implementations of capitalism have failed, but there is a
large space for experimentation as there has been with capitalism. For
example, democratically planned economies with analytical input is a space
that hasn't been explored too well beyond very tiny experiments in sectors
within Latin America.

~~~
jswinghammer
Even if you concede all those points (which I won't) the entire Marxist system
relies on the labor theory of value which was smashed by Eugen Böhm von Bawerk
in his book "Karl Marx and the Close of His System". No one has really
bothered to follow up on it since it was so definitive.

That his theory lives on is a testament to the degree to which people a.)
never learn anything ever and b.) the intoxicating nature of what he proposes.

~~~
vidarh
(EDIT: Perhaps the downvoter would care to give a counter-argument for why the
LTV is a pre-requisite for Marx political ideology?)

I don't see what it is you believe relies on the labor theory of value.

Marx theories span a wide range, but certainly his political ideology did not
in any way rely on the labor theory of value to underpin it, and it is
something most people advocating Marxism don't even know or understand very
well.

What it _does_ rely on is whether Marx hypothesis that capitalism will
necessarily self destruct as it reaches the limits of market expansion is
correct (no more people living out of reach of capitalist competition). Marx
expected this to happen by forcing capitalists into ever harsher competition
and automation at the cost of starting to throw workers back into poverty and
as a result pulling the rug out under their own markets, eventually leading to
sufficient social upheaval to drive the working classes to revolution.

It further relies on Marx hypothesis that upon the self destruction of
capitalism, that the working classes can end the class struggle by seizing
control and redistributing wealth and the control of the means of production.

The LTV is used by Marx as justification for why some of this is "right", but
at the same time Marx theories on the political and economic development of
society does not rest on right and wrong, but on how the self-interests of the
members of the various classes affects society as the economic development
alters the relative powers of these classes.

There are plenty things that can be wrong in these theories, but whether or
not the LTV is right or not is an entirely orthogonal issue.

~~~
jswinghammer
I'll try to summarize why the LTV is so intrinsic to Marxist analysis. Marx's
basic argument in Capital is that labor is what creates value in capital
goods. The argument goes like this: if no labor is added to capital goods they
eventually rot and become worthless and cease to be a capital good at all.
Thus labor is at the heart of what drives value because what gives something
value is labor time stored within it. This is at the heart of the exploitation
of the workers because the capitalist gets this return without having spent
any of their own time to build and develop the capital and they pay less than
the value of the capital goods to the workers who made the goods in the first
place.

Understanding the employee/employer relationship is at heart of understanding
capital and the returns capital receive over time. The employee is paid in
advance of sales (most of the time) and thus the employer shoulders the risk
of those sales never materializing in the first place. To compensate employers
for that risk, employees are paid less than the full output of their labor. As
we know wages are not taken back if the product or service they were
developing was never sold. It's a mutually beneficial relationship that
explains profits in a way that does not involve exploitation but rather
mutually beneficial exchange.

If there is no exploitation you don't have Marxism in the first place. This is
a very basic summary of "Karl Marx and the Close of His System".

~~~
vidarh
> Marx's basic argument in Capital is that labor is what creates value in
> capital goods.

Capital is an economic work which is of minor relevance to his political
ideologies. It tries to explain and provide theories that certainly would
support some of his political views if true, but Capital is not a pre-
requisite for the political ideology (in as much as there's a large number of
other possible theories that could equally provide justifications for the
political ideology).

> If there is no exploitation you don't have Marxism in the first place

That's simply not true at all. For the political ideology, the concept of
exploitation is merely one of many arguments used to justify why the working
class should consider it morally acceptable to overthrow the capitalist
regime. It was realpolitik.

It's worth noting that Marx' philosophical works are far more "capitalist
friendly" than most modern day socialists, for example. Marx may have talked
about exploitation, but he also talked about these structures as equally
binding the capitalist into a role he could not escape, and spoke with
admiration about the development the growth of capitalism was creating. After
all, according to Marx, the growth of capitalism is what will make socialism
possible. But _those bits_ don't get people out in the streets. Talk of
exploitation does. And so Marx-the-politician was far more aggressive in terms
of language than Marx-the-economist or Marx-the-philosopher.

The _subjective view_ of the working classes on whether or not there is
exploitation is the only thing that ultimately matters in the context of his
political ideology, and even then only because it has historically been an
effective recruitment factor.

Other than that, the presence or absence of exploitation is relatively
irrelevant to Marxism. Marx ideas about the structural development of social
and economic systems and inevitability of socialism, for example, does not
rest on exploitation, but on whether or not capitalism eventually will develop
to a state where it causes sufficient social upheaval to be a catalyst for new
revolutionary movements amongst the working classes, and whether or not the
structure of this will lead to a socialist system.

------
mc32
Has it only been capitalists who follow this trend, or have more or less all
systems followed these patterns? Are there large economies which follow other
systems, be they communist, socialist, kleptolists, or any other types able to
bring forth a workers' paradise?

The one thing I sympathize with is the steamrolling of the low wage worker
where some of those jobs are such that they don't have regular hours and can't
get a full forty hours in order to skirt some labor laws and in order to
maximize flexibility for the commercial concerns.

On the other hand I'd totally welcome the dsausa and any other parties to set
up companies based on their philosophy and show others how things are done.
Bring on that 32hour workweek without virtually being on call and somehow make
it viable to keep on the worker who tends to be workshy, and the one who tends
to make poor decisions, etc. Show me how it's done.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
>somehow make it viable to keep on the worker who tends to be workshy, and the
one who tends to make poor decisions, etc. Show me how it's done.

The work week would be shorter for everyone. The more productive workers are
already carrying a couple of their workshy colleagues. For those dangerous
idiots with negative productivity, they'd individually have less time to screw
things up. Why would a shorter work week make the sum of those things any
different? Everything should be about the same with a slightly higher overhead
for HR.

------
Jemaclus
I recently went to Peru for a trip. We stayed at what a really, really nice
hotel. It was kind of jarring, because in the Sacred Valley, you could look
across the street and see the hovels where the locals lived -- brick houses
with no windows or insulation, no heat or air conditioning, and sometimes even
no doors. But my hotel had nice sheets, windows, heat, air conditioning, Wi-
fi, and really, really nice food.

We got to the hotel after sundown, and it's so remote that you can't really
leave. Fortunately, they had a restaurant. The waitress there was a young
woman, mid-twenties. She was extremely nice and helpful, though her grasp on
English was tenuous. By the time we finished our meal at approximately
10:30pm, we were ready to go to bed. She waved goodbye and say "See you in the
morning!"

We were up bright and early at 7:30am, and we went to get breakfast. Sure
enough, the waitress was there. Needless to say, after an extremely long day
of sight-seeing, we returned to the hotel and the girl was still there and
served us dinner.

Long story short, this woman was working 16 hour days, and she was happy to do
it. The job she had was one of the nicest, cushiest jobs you could get in her
region -- by far. I didn't ask, but if I had to guess, I'd say she sends most
of that money home to her family so that their extreme poverty won't be
_quite_ so bad.

I spend a lot of my time reading Hacker News and other non-work related
websites. I can justify it -- my happiness is important -- but I'm loathe to
say that I work too much at 40 hours a week, especially when I know what
conditions are like in Peru and other third-world countries.

I get it. I understand the argument for shorter work weeks, and I agree
wholeheartedly. But my sympathies go out to this nice waitress in Peru before
they go out to Joe Brogrammer who "works" 50 hour weeks or Sarah
Hedgefundmanager who has 6 minutes of bathroom time a day.

Then again, maybe I'm just a monster with no grasp on how hard life really is.
:)

------
archiceo
1\. For the knowledge worker, employment should be measured in results (not
time).

I have achieved work-life balance by predetermining what I will deliver and
when. My manager has buy off and he consequently doesn't care what hours I
work.

2\. I fundamentally reject the principals of this article. If you feel
oppressed by trading your products or services for a wage then please feel
free to never take in a wage.

In America you are responsible for how much you work and how much you earn.

------
lmg643
life would be awesome with a 3-day weekend, every weekend. time to make it
happen.

~~~
ryan90
Personally I'd be bored out of my mind. I already can't wait to get back to
work every monday.

~~~
gress
What do you do at the weekend?

------
chucksmart
Workers should be given an hour or so to sit and listen to some rhetoric about
a heavenly next life; it might stimulate their opioid receptors and reduce
these pesky demands.

------
lettergram
Honestly, the author seems to be somewhat delusional about what America is
like. People choose to work a lot because that enables them to have greater
purchasing power. When I read phrases such as:

"As technology has boosted productivity into astronomic levels, we have not
seen any shortening of the workweek or even a relaxing of the lunch break in
fact we have seen just the opposite."

Of course not, the technology enables our work to be magnified. The company
wants us to continue working to the same extent because they get more "bang-
for-their-buck"

I would also like to say, I recently accepted a job paying about 20% less
simply because I would be able to work slightly more relaxed. Ironically, it
was a bank, as opposed to Google, Apple, Twitter, etc. As my friends all went
and worked at those places, I noticed they had to work 50 - 60 hours a week
pretty regularly.

Instead I chose to take a job where the work would have a larger impact on the
company (i.e. I had more weight because I was more technical), and I could
work less because I could out perform their expectations. Selecting my job in
such a way is me selling my skill set for less money, but more time.

Usually people want to always maximize income, and because I am working on
side projects I indeed feel I am maximizing income. However, the author seems
to ignore this simple fact of life. Working less might be better for some
people, it may even be better for the company... but there is no way in hell
people are going to EVER want less in life. If this seems to be the case, then
you likely don't see the full picture (i.e. perhaps they value freedom over
money).

~~~
enraged_camel
>>Honestly, the author seems to be somewhat delusional about what America is
like. People choose to work a lot because that enables them to have greater
purchasing power.

I'm not sure this is true, at least for the millennial generation and later.
Most people I know who work a lot do so because they don't have any other
choice, except maybe "move back in with parents and become a waiter at some
diner."

~~~
lettergram
That's almost 100% because they want a particular life style.

For example, my friend has a nearly perfect credit score, he lives with his
parents still, works 30 hours a week (making about $35k a year), and his
expenses are about $12k yearly. Clearly he has to work, but not all that
crazy.

However, if he wanted to move out, get a car, etc. it would be pretty hard.

I should note, he's a millennial, didn't go to college, is 23, and has about
50k in savings because he's invested all of his money, lives at home, and
works remotely. He plans to buy a house in his mid to late 20's (28 is his
goal). This is common all over the world, and was common pretty much
throughout all history except the 50's - 70's.

~~~
Roboprog
Your friend is pretty lucky to make over $20/hr without going to college. Does
he do some kind of skilled construction work???

Otherwise, that sounds like a good plan if your parents can support you while
you pull it off. (you = him, or somebody like him)

~~~
lettergram
Definitely not me (and my ~$100,000 in student loans)...

He does quality assurance for a small business and handles other IT stuff. He
loves digging around and finding bugs, and will also contributes to Gentoo. A
fair number of the blogs he writes end up on the front page of HN, so you've
probably read stuff by him.

------
jqm
I'm guessing the company in the article that limited bathroom breaks to 6
minutes probably did so not out of desire for control, but because there had
been abuse, and so in typical bureaucratic fashion, they made an unreasonable
policy.

Corporations in the US are generally not great places to spend the day. That
being said, US workers are in my experience, quite often spoiled, self
entitled and lazy. So that is two problems, both of which prevent us from
realizing maximum benefit as a society.

But I think the big gains for corporations right now may not be in squeezing
the last percent from their workforce but in the simple elimination of
nonsense work, nonwork, useless meetings, job making, resume padding and all
the other counterproductive junk that makes up much of the business day.
That's the low hanging fruit right now.

------
diydsp
I just read the article on In College and Hiding From Scary Ideas and made a
connection to this one. It led me to wonder if a working population with more
time on its hands would look like these college campuses...

------
ocelot51
Work had, keep advancing your skills and get to the job where you will have
more decisions to manage your own time. We are in the Internet Revolution, no
one said it was going to be easy.

------
happyscrappy
It is always surprising that HN falls for this Marxist claptrap.
Globalization, and the consequent lifting from poverty of hundreds of
millions, is responsible for the slight flattening of wages in the West. Not
that we shouldn't always strive for better but has there ever been a
successful implementation of Marxist ideals no matter how small? Brook Farm?

~~~
littletimmy
The world is not split into Stalinistan and Reaganland.

There is a happy middleground that is currently in place in Western Europe, a
place which coincidentally has the highest quality of life in the world.

~~~
happyscrappy
Yes and they are Capitalists. The US has a better quality of life when
compared to all of Europe which is why a tiny Nordic country is usually used.

~~~
noir_lord
> The US has a better quality of life when compared to all of Europe which is
> why a tiny Nordic country is usually used.

Perhaps if you average _all_ of Europe which is a couple of dozen countries
however against specific large countries (say the UK, France, Germany) then
I'd say it's not that clear cut.

Indeed look at the US, the disparity between the poorest state and wealthiest
state is as great as the disparity between European countries.

The US is materially more wealthy (largely by want of having the worlds
largest currency and the PPP boost that gets you) however the UK (for example)
has shorter working hours, better social welfare system, free at the point of
access socialised healthcare, 28 guaranteed vacation days a year, maternity
and paternity leave and we are the nearest politically to the US.

All things been equal I'd prefer to live in France or Germany than the US
quite frankly.

~~~
Dewie
There are 50 sovereign countries in Europe.

------
mohamedattahri
15 years ago, a french socialist government passed a law that shortened work
weeks from 40h to 35h. The result was a giant mess, the institutionalization
of extra-hours, and absolutely no effect on unemployment.

I don't see how working less solves the real problem here: how to improve
wealth distribution.

~~~
conradfr
False, it's estimated to have effectively created around 400/500k jobs from a
target of 700k, and is credited to a boom for the tourism industry (three days
week-end).

Of course there have been short and long term, good and bad side effects.

~~~
mohamedattahri
Numbers of jobs created range from 100k to 500k depending on the source. You
can see how this subject remains controversial to this day.

The other important thing to factor in, is the general evolution of the
unemployment rate in France since the introduction of the law. It makes it
really easy to see that it the effect was limited, both in influence and over
time.

------
dreamdu5t
And if I want to work 60 hours a week, who are you to tell me I cannot?
Capitalists don't force anyone to work 40 hours per week. The fact that I will
and you won't is what pressures you into working to compete for the resources
we both want. This article is devoid of economics (no surprise it's Marxist)

~~~
asgard1024
You can, but then your employer will be forced to pay extra by law (at least
that's how the labor code in my, small European country, is). Or you can be
self-employed and then the labor code won't apply.

(If you still don't like it, you must be from Mars or something. I don't know
anyone who would hate to get the extra money, and in fact, I don't know anyone
here who would want to work longer hours than 40.)

~~~
MichaelGG
And are there more laws to force you to not simply self-incorporate and
contract to your real employer? In the US, that's not _supposed_ to happen,
but it does and going against it later means filling against your ex-employer
when talking to the IRS.

------
err4nt
"Fast-forward 77 years and we are still appalled by capital’s insistence on
limiting the free time of workers"

WTF does this even mean? Are they lumping all 'business endeavours' into one
personified beast that has desires, and is in oppositon to the very parts
which make up the whole?

If I tell a worker: "Ill give you $300 to update this website" and he does a
good job, and then I say: "I will give you $2000/week if you can keep the
updates coming" isn't he free to say 'No'?

Work can't limit your free time, you ALWAYS have the power to pick who you
sell your time to, how on earth could a business ever limit the time you don't
sell to them?

~~~
cauterized
Because unemployment is high, finding a new job is tough, living without one
while you look eats your savings if you have any, and it's extremely unlikely
that the next employer would be any better. If your boss frowns and accuses
you of not being a team player because you leave the office before 7, if you
have a family to support, and you're not in a high-demand profession, well, do
you have that much of a choice? Even if you're not risking a firing, you're
probably risking your next raise or promotion. The incentives aren't nearly as
well balanced as you suggest.

~~~
err4nt
Finding a new job is a simple as creating one! Find something you do that
provides value to others and market it.

No boss, no hours, no office. Who is holding you back (but you?)

~~~
cauterized
And yet, just like the guy looking for a new job and unable to find one, you
have to find someone to pay you for the work. Except now you have to do it
constantly instead of once every few years. For most people, that's not an
improvement.

Even if all skills were suitable for freelancing (which they're not), not
everyone is cut out to freelance. It's high risk, the income is uneven, you
have to pay unemployment insurance but are ineligible to receive it, and you
have to market yourself (which is difficult and eats up your time) and do
collections (which also eats up a lot of time and is too often unsuccessful).
You also take a hit on self-employment taxes. In the US you're also screwed on
healthcare, which is a big deal if you have a family. It's very easy to end up
working longer days as a freelancer and taking home significantly less pay
than a full time employee would for the same type of work.

