Reducing the work week is not the answer to unemployment.
It evades the question about the concept of our earning our livings.
Is life a gift, or do we earn our livings?
It buys into bad assumptions about exclusive wage respectability.
In the U.S.S.R. constitution they had, "If you don't work, you
don't eat." With capitalism profit is a good form of income.
Unearned income will rise as the need for human labor is cut.
It ignores the needs of people who are too young, too old, or too sick
too work.
It accepts the false assumption that we have a shortage of human labor.
If rich people can live on unearned income why not let others have the
choice
of not working? Finally, we must share the unearned income.
While lots of work goes undone, it is only because the most important
work is,
and should be, unpaid. If people had secure income they could do that
neglected
unpaid work. (Day care/paid replaces motherhood/unpaid)
Making subsistence dependent on work is barbaric! The worship of work
has gone too far.
Respectability should be based on something that is not destructive.
Ethics for slaves will not find much useful application in an automated
world.
Barry Brooks
http://home.earthlink.net/~durable
