

The Labors of Leisure - benbreen
http://chronicle.com/article/Time-to-Imagine/149395

======
srs0001
I think that leisure, perhaps, has the wrong kind of connotation with it.

I spend much of my own free time designing, writing and tinkering with things
that I find interesting. To many of my coworkers, it appears that I am
working, but to me it's working on something I enjoy—and more importantly
things that other people may one day enjoy.

The challenge is to get more people to pick up an instrument, work on a new
project, learn something new in their free time instead of starting at a
television.

~~~
wsxcde
> _The challenge is to get more people ..._

Why do you think this is an important goal? If we really could have a world in
which machines could do all the work, would it really be that bad if some
people sat around and watched TV all day?

I certainly don't buy the argument that society would stagnate if this
happened. There are many people - you and me are probably in that group - who
probably _wouldn 't_ be able to sit around and do nothing all day. It just
seems so _boring_. And if you look back in history, for example imperial
England, a lot of the "idle rich" did take up the pursuit of art, science and
technology.

I also really don't care what other people do with their time. First, there's
a moral issue, it's not for me to decide how other people should be spending
their time. And if some people want to sit around and watch TV all day, well,
good for them. It's no skin off my nose.

I also know a lot of people who seem think that somehow "work" is noble and is
worth pursuing as an end in itself and I really don't like this idea. It seems
very analogous to management that values effort over results. And more
importantly, if we dislike the idea of people being idle as a sort of moral
hazard, then why isn't there a big backlash against the millionaires who've
inherited their wealth, the royalty, the sheikhs of the middle east, the
reality TV stars and so forth. A lot of these people seem to have money vastly
disproportionate to their net contribution to society and they're able to sit
around doing basically nothing. And yet it's only when the possibility of us
plebs being idle comes up that we start here these cliches about hard work and
dedication and so forth and everyone gets all worked up about it. Something to
think about, I'd say.

~~~
rfrey
>> The challenge is to get more people ... > Why do you think this is an
important goal?

The purpose of banding together in communities is to provide better lives for
those who join. At the most basic level, communities provide protection
against predators (and other communities!). A more sophisticated benefit comes
later with specialization of labor. Recently (the last 500 years or so)
significant economic advantages have been had by members of larger
communities.

So if physical needs are satisfied, why shouldn't a community concern itself
with other ways to make its members happier and live more fulfilled lives?
That might might include finding ways to encourage members to, as the OP says,
learn instruments, languages, etc.

That requires us to assert that some things (art, music, kayaking) are better
than others (reality TV, talk radio). I'm OK with that.

~~~
innguest
If you think that and other people you know think that, you should be free to
voluntarily form your own community, protect yourselves, work hard and do the
things you want.

But I'm not OK with your opinions of what activities are better than others
and so I don't think it's fair for you to force it on others.

I'll take talk radio and TV over kayaking any day. You'll never get people to
agree with all your thoughts. That's why we need to be free to form our own
communities.

------
jerf
I think the article missed a step here... it spends a lot of time wondering
why people would not want more leisure time, and spends time boggling at why
people would be upset about having their hours cut.

Well... you know, as a journalist-type piece, did you consider going out there
and, you know, _asking someone_?

Because all the answers that leap to mind based on what I've seen out in the
world in my circle of acquaintance, which (as I don't live in the valley) is
not full of computer programmers, pretty much make the piece an entire waste
of time because it fundamentally misses the mark. The people complaining about
not having jobs and getting their hours cut are not people who are all well-
to-do and just working because "what the heck else are they going to do?".

It also boggles my mind that one could write an article like this without
examining the question of marginal value of time... if one _is_ in the
"leisure class" and has a job that pays $200/hour, when examining how much the
person chooses to work one can't miss the fact that they have an option _to
make $200 /hour_. It shouldn't be _that_ surprising that one might choose to
work a bit more at that valuation.

~~~
bkirwi
> spends time boggling at why people would be upset about having their hours
> cut

I don't think this is fair. From the original article:

> [...] the Affordable Care Act might result in millions of workers’ scaling
> back from full-time to part-time jobs.

The implication is that millions of workers would be _voluntarily cutting
back_ their hours, since they no longer need to be employed full-time to get
health care -- not that these workers would be having their hours cut. It's
people like Rand Paul and talk-show hosts who are complaining complaining that
_other people_ might start choosing to work less hours overall ("adding insult
to injury").

If people who are currently fully employed choose to reduce their hours, that
means more work is available for those who are interested in working more --
there's no conflict of interest here.

~~~
troyastorino
The implication is that people who used to have a full time position would now
be forced to take a part time position. The ACA employer mandate only applies
to companies with more than 50 full-time employees, incentivizing employers to
have less than 50 full-time employees. The thought is that some companies
around this limit will avoid the mandate by making a greater percentage of
their employees be part-time.

That said, the employer mandate has been delayed until 2015 for companies with
>100 employees, and until 2016 for companies with 50-99 employees.

~~~
bkirwi
Following the link through to the Politico article:

> Never mind that, reading the fine print, it’s clear the CBO was talking
> about workers voluntarily reducing their hours in response to the law—not
> getting laid off or seeing their shifts scaled back. [0]

I don't mean to take a position on how the changes in health care law will
affect employment; but I think it's clear that the article is talking just
about the forecast of _voluntary_ reductions, along with the corresponding
press.

[0]: [http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/02/jobs-
leisure-...](http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/02/jobs-leisure-
republicans-want-us-to-work-all-the-time-103282.html)

~~~
troyastorino
Ah, didn't realize that there was this dimension to the debate. Sorry for the
hasty/inaccurate comment, and thanks for correcting me.

------
gregcrv
During the industrial revolution, the goal of progress in technology (and
machines to be more specific) was always to, one day, have no humans working
to survive, but living lives and do whatever they want.

Progress in technology is now fueled by capitalism and better productivity
rather that original goal and it's sad that people have forgotten that
goal.... Society needs to continue push the chnage and accept to progressively
give up their jobs to machines.

~~~
crpatino
> During the industrial revolution, the goal of progress in technology (and
> machines to be more specific) was always to, one day, have no humans working
> to survive, but living lives and do whatever they want.

No, that's actually propaganda.

The goal was always to show those pesky, skillful, artisans their true place
in society. The means was to embed as much as possible of their tacit
knowledge either in machines or in soft, human,
procedures/standards/rules/policies. Then, the owner class would go back to
control all the means of production and have the destinies of their faithful
serfs on their hands.

The fact that this process brought unprecedented prosperity was a happy side
effect that nobody gave much thought at the time. Then the whole process was
rationalized on those bases when the social sensitivities of the serfs became
too self conscious.

------
clarebear
"There is a bit of a contradiction, Hunnicutt admits, between the dream of
leisure and preparing students for new business opportunities, but he believes
that an experience industry might encourage a new paradigm. If better and
better experiences are out there, there will be more and more demand for free
time in which to enjoy them. "It’s the good old-fashioned free market," he
says. "I have no trouble with that. We are in the business of reawakening the
American dream.""

I find this argument to be false in that I don't think people work long hours
because they can't think of anything they would rather be doing.

I wonder if "work" hours are not shorter because culture dictates it, so many
people shift their habits to surf the web (i.e. leisure activities) while at
work. Not that they wouldn't rather meet with friends, paint a picture or
whatever, but they can surf facebook from their cube.

~~~
asgard1024
> I wonder if "work" hours are not shorter because culture dictates it, so
> many people shift their habits to surf the web (i.e. leisure activities)
> while at work.

I think you're right and this is similar to what David Graeber wrote
somewhere. In former communist countries, the working class people actually
had more leisure at work, except they had to pretend they don't. This was
probably part of the reason why these systems were so economically
inefficient, compared to first world countries.

------
msandford
"In February he published an article in Politico celebrating a projection that
the Affordable Care Act might result in millions of workers’ scaling back from
full-time to part-time jobs."

This would be great if it was voluntary! But if it's the result of employers
purposefully reducing hours for their employees with the goal of dodging
providing benefits, then it's a lot less awesome. Because that means that
people are going to both make less money (reduced hours) AND have to pay for
health insurance out of pocket (in the exchanges). It's a double-whammy that
might cause people to forego coverage; the exact opposite effect of what was
intended.

~~~
Kalium
As I recall, that was based on the number of people surveyed who say that they
work full-time solely because it gets them benefits.

------
michaelochurch
Here's what I've observed, as a software programmer. We were supposed to get
leisure with increasing economic growth. Instead we get waste and
mismanagement.

There's a saying that 90% of work exists to correct other work. In software,
that's certainly true. 90% of the work is maintenance, communication overhead,
political positioning, and just plain cleaning up messes. 90% of the work is
maintenance because almost none of the work is done right the first time.

We fill 8-10 hours, while little gets achieved, because we let The Business
dictate terms (you have to use this language in which I could hire 50 mediocre
developers tomorrow) and cause this arrangement in which most of the job is
cleaning up crap.

So how have we compensated for the increase in productivity? Not by working
less. Not by us workers being paid more more (which would, in the long term,
given them leverage). Instead, the ones in charge spend this surplus on
letting workplaces get monstrously inefficient. Perversely, this isn't great
for shareholders but it gives a lot of power to the executives (principal-
agent problem). By making work unnecessarily unpleasant, they get status and
power over people, which they can use to advance their own causes, and take
the lion's share of the profits from the past 35 years of technical growth.

~~~
Roboprog
That, sir, is OFFENSIVE. Not saying it's false, just that it's offensive.

I've enjoyed your rants, by the way :-)

