

Why you and I will never have a 15 hour work week - jtwaleson
http://blog.waleson.com/2015/06/why-you-and-i-will-never-have-15-hour.html

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dgreensp
The productivity benefits of technology don't go to the workers. I'm not an
economist, so I may have missed something, but isn't that obvious?

If your job is to operate the copy machine at an office, and they buy a new
machine that goes twice as fast, do they double your salary? No, they pay you
the same. If you run a company and a tractor or a computer lets you fire 100
workers and hire one, do you pay him 100 times as much? No, you might pay him
more, but not that many times more. If you sit at a desk and a new computer
system makes your job so easy that anyone could do it, will you be paid more
on the basis of your increased productivity? No, you will be paid less,
because there is more competition for your job.

In this economy, most people are worried about making enough to live on from a
40-hour-a-week job.

Paying people more or working fewer hours has to come from a cultural value.
For example, a software start-up could try instituting a 15-hour work week, or
a highly profitable company could try paying its employees way over market
salaries instead of hoarding the cash or investing it in expansion. The
article is correct in that respect; a company culture of getting to market as
fast as absolutely possible will not result in any 15-hour work weeks.

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dummy7953
The owners of America don't want people with a lot of time on their hands and
extra money in their pockets. That leads to cultural upheaval, which must have
been horrifying to certain people in the 1960's.

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MatthewWilkes
I've had 2 day work weeks before, when doing consulting projects. Granted, it
was never for long periods of time, only a few months, but that was mainly
because I eventually filled my time with other work out of boredom.

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fsk
Don't forget taxes. If your total taxation rate is more than 50%, then you're
spending half your working hours for yourself, and the other half working as a
slave for the government.

Add up income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, payroll taxes, etc, and it
goes over 50% pretty quickly.

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toomuchtodo
I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.

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dummy7953
Unless you get a government that blows a hole in the budget with stupid,
wasteful spending.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Eternal vigilance is required to ensure the government the citizens demand
exists.

