Vishnu Ramachandran sent me this link to a BBC report on this new study.
Here’s an open letter to the study’s co-author, Anne Coote, who is quoted in the BBC report:
Ms Anna Coote
New Economics Foundation
London, UKDear Ms Coote:
The BBC reports on a newly released study in which you and your co-authors endorse a 21-hour workweek (“Cut working week to 21 hours, urges think tank,” Feb. 13). You’re quoted by the BBC: “So many of us live to work, work to earn, and earn to consume, and our consumption habits are squandering the earth’s natural resources…. [With a 21-hour workweek] We could even become better employees – less stressed, more in control, happier in our jobs and more productive.”
Intrigued, I read your study on line. I’ve many questions; here are four.
First, if a shorter workweek makes people more productive in their paid jobs, how do you know that they won’t the “squander the earth’s natural resources” at a faster pace than they’re doing now?
Second, even if a 21-hour work week results in less “squandering of the earth’s natural resources” while at paid jobs, why are you so sure that the total amount of resource “squandering” won’t rise as a result of all the “unpaid labour” that you are so keen that folks do with their time away from paid work? Driving Granny on Friday to a holiday in the Cotswolds might “squander” more resources than staying in London to work for pay that day.
Third, because much paid work is devoted to discovering new resources, new supplies of resources, and new ways to get more output from each unit of resource, how do you know that shortening the workweek won’t result in lower supplies of the earth’s natural resources? For example, BP’s recent discovery of a huge oil supply at its Tiber Prospect in the Gulf of Mexico increased the relevant supplies of the earth’s natural resources. After all, resources that remain unknown to humans are effectively non-existent: these ‘resources’ might not be “squandered,” but being unavailable for use as resources today and forever means that, economically, they don’t exist – they’re not resources in any meaningful sense.
Fourth, you choose 21 hours because it’s close to the average amount of time each week that working-age Brits (employed and unemployed) work for pay. So what? If I work 42 hours a week and my unemployed neighbor works zero hours, why does the average of 21 hours of paid work between us present itself as the ideal length of the workweek – especially given your goal of reducing the total number of hours that people spend “squandering the earth’s natural resources” while working for pay? Why not, say, a ten-hour workweek? Because you merely presume that most people will be happier with Britain’s workweek shortened from 35 to 21 hours, why not presume that they’d be downright euphoric by being allowed to work no more than ten hours weekly?
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
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There is probably an argument to be made for hiring more laborers at fewer hours (especially in countries with single payer government benefits) based on diminishing productivity to work hours. On the flipside it costs more to coordinate more people, it could lead to high turnover due to labor not getting enough compensation and hours, etc, etc.
But no I do have some evidence to point to that supports my claim. In fact my claim WAS founded on the evidence.
http://www.cbpp.org/archiveSite/3-27-08tax2-f2.jpg
http://www.project.org/images/graphs/Hours_Work...
You still haven't learned that Muir is a complete jackass, and a waste of everyone's time.
Yeah, I think I might have made that mistake
LMAO over your complete crap, my little teacup Chihuahua.
I can play your game also.
How about we pass a law that says everyone must make at least one million a year after age 20, and if they falter…instant retroactive birthcontrol for them. Get rid of the losers and loafers.
Shit my little puppy, my suggestion makes just as much moral and legal sense as does yours.
If we can force 'em, hell let's force em to produce more, not less.
Ha Ha Ha Ha, lord you're one broken brained pooch.
Good points made, I can't add a whole lot to it, but would make one small distinction. From my understanding a legal work week doesn't preclude working more than 21 hours, it just mandates a premium to be paid on any hours worked over the typical 21 (I'm not sure how it is applied to exempt staff that is salaried). This of course doesn't change the perverse effects you'd have with a more draconian cap on hours.
But yeah, lump of labor and lump of wealth fallacies are being committed with these spread the labor schemes.
In reply to several comments to think about.
1. All countries on this planet have “free market”, all governments, communist, socialist and all others with their degree of government control of every aspect of life allow it, but then at the end of the day their governments take it away from the earner and give or leave a pittance of what was sold. Is that really what you would like to see? Not to mention the corruption from that which is managed competition.
ONLY in America, no where else, but no longer found “Free Enterprise” where government did not have their hand in the earners pocket. Free Enterprise today is called “under the table” by government, meaning that some how you are the thief when government has all of their pay checks and holidays on the backs of some one else who did earn it. The welfare clause to the U.S. Constitution was a prohibition against taxation except for the welfare of those specefic jobs Constitutionally spelled out, ie, military(navy), post office and roads. We have been a constitutional dictatorship since March 6, 1933. What has happened is like taking an engine apart and trying to get it to run without replacing the camshaft upon re assembly-you'll spend fortunes in attempt and never get it to run correctly. And for those that do not believe it, I direct you to FDR's inaugural address. about 2/3ds the way into it you find the problem. What did he ask for and get??? Well, we people have suffered since. I direct you to the term “Banking Holiday” in the 5th and 6th edition Black's Law Dictionary…BTW why would that term need be defined in a law dictionary-want to get serious? follow the map it gives. Keep in mind too, West Pubishing is THE official publisher for law anything.
Want to put your doubt to the test? Be a “capitalist” and start your own business. 90% of the capitalist in America turned socialist to keep the up and coming competition away, and is why the term capitalism has been under attack since.
I maintain that most all these problems stem from a corrupt exchange system. To the degree the exchange is corrupt, society is equally corrupted trying to make up the difference.
Charles Brezina
Antifed@comcast.net
“The relationship also falls apart when the government gets involved with supporting certain firms over others…”
Name one industry or super rich person who has not benefited from government favoritism. One?
I think you mis-understand capitalism believing as you do that super wealthy became so by voluntary transactions.
I didn't volunteer to pay for the Gulf Wars for Exxon Mobile.
I didn't volunteer for the subsidies for ADM, for the patent protection of Microsoft, for Corporations to be protected by our legal system or for the trillions the Treasury has done donated to our banking system.
I'm not volunteering to give banks almost interest free money so they can turn around and gouge people with fees and huge interest rates.
I didn't volunteer for the subsidies for ADM
Make up your mind!
You have stated in the past that you believe subsidies to ADM, and GE are necessary and good, because the leader of your Church of AGW – His Holiness: The Divine Prophet Algore I, determined that the products those corporations make are necessary to the survival of Mother Gaia.
Typical of your hypocrisy, you probably only intended to volunteer other people for those subsidies.
GONG! The lump of labor fallacy is an urban myth. See “Why Economists Dislike a Lump of Labor” http://tinyurl.com/lumpoflabor
1. There is not a fixed amount of work to be done.
2. Work-sharing policies DO NOT “rely upon,” assume or imply a fixed amount of work. They DO NOT assume that either work or the labor force is homogeneous.
3. The ALLEGATION that work-sharing assumes, requires or implies a fixed amount of work to be done has been DISPROVED.
GONG! The lump of labor fallacy is an urban myth. See “Why Economists Dislike a Lump of Labor” http://tinyurl.com/lumpoflabor
1. There is not a fixed amount of work to be done.
2. Work-sharing policies DO NOT “rely upon,” assume or imply a fixed amount of work. They DO NOT assume that either work or the labor force is homogeneous.
3. The ALLEGATION that work-sharing assumes, requires or implies a fixed amount of work to be done has been DISPROVED.
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