[quote=spdrun]I don’t give a flying fuck about being able to shop till I drop on Sundays and late evenings. Sounds like you have some pretty shallow friends. Might be time to kick them to the curb and find new ones.
Your “if you want to work less blah-blah-blah” argument is tiresome and hackneyed. I bet that they told shipyard workers the same in 1950 — “if you don’t want to breathe asbestos, find another job.” Or “if you don’t want to get black lung, find another job.”
I consider working hours and vacation time a health and safety issue. tiredness reduces safety and lowers mental and physical health. In a tight job market like the US, employers will always exploit employees the most they can within the law.
Apparently, Americans only take 50% of their given vacation because they’re afraid of losing their jobs. This is wage theft and a hostile work environment, but no one does a damn thing about it. If time off and working hours were guaranteed by law, then there would be less of an incentive to bully employees into giving up what is rightfully theirs.[/quote]
I don’t think it’s really possible to control the economy in such a way allocate the number of hours worked and your social economic place in life at the same time. Those people could get different jobs working less hours but in exchange they’ll lose their place in the income allocation ladder. You go from solidly middle class to lower middle class in exchange for working less. Countries that try this have to erect multiple layers of rules to prevent the natural competition that exists in an economy. We see this in the public sector, we see this in countries like France and Italy.
Most of the people I know working for hourly rates like overtime. They hope they get overtime so they can get ahead of their peers. People individually are always looking for ways to get ahead of their peers whether it’s education, working longer, working 2 jobs, it doesn’t matter how you regulate it. People deciding to work less will likely fall behind in a capitalist system. Until you figure out a socialist/redestibutive system where there’s still a strong incentive to innovate and produce I don’t see how you overcome the competitive nature of an economy.
I don’t disagree about time off being beneficial I just don’t see how it works very well in a competitive economy. There’s going to be somebody that willing to work harder and longer so they can eat more steak than you.
