>I guess I should explore your web site more because I'm >not clear on what the politics of free time is about. >If it's 'thirty for forty,' then a raft of economic >doubts, or issues, at least, come into play. Work >sharing is a different, more plausible matter, though >I'm not persuaded that it is of such great importance >as to be a 'politics' all by itself. By all means explore my web site more, I'd also recommend the following for more comprehensive theoretical and historical discussion: - Andre Gorz, _Critique of Economic Reason_, Verso, 1989. - David Roediger and Philip Foner, _Our Own Time: A History of American Labor and the Working Day_, Greenwood Press, 1989. - Benjamin Hunnicutt, _Work Without End: Abandoning Shorter Hours for the Right to Work_, Temple University Press, 1988. Roediger and Foner argue "The length of the workdays... has historically been the central issue raised by the American labor movement during its most dynamic periods of organization". 'Thirty for forty' is a slogan, not a politics. As for 'economic doubts', I can't agree that political controversies -- even when posed as economic issues -- are typically resolved by feasibility studies or cost/benefit analyses. Again, I'll return to my argument that perhaps the long losing streak of the left stems from its virtual abandonment of the working time issue. May I add a footnote that could open a whole can of worms: In volume one of Capital, Marx, distinguishes between the extraction of absolute surplus value, achieved by the lengthening of the working day and relative surplus value, achieved by lowering the costs of reproducing labour power. These two methods of extracting surplus value correspond to two historically distinctive stages in the organization of the labour process, which Marx labels "Manufacture" and "Modern Industry" (or, in a previously unpublished chapter, included as an appendix to the Vintage translation: the Formal and Real Subsumption of Labour to Capital). To make a very long story short: I would argue that current changes in the organization of the labour process (flexible manufacture, contingent workforces, etc.) strive toward a unique combination of absolute and relative surplus value. So the length of the working day is not simply an important issue, it is the central issue for a progressive politics. Regards, Tom Walker, [EMAIL PROTECTED], (604) 669-3286 The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
