Dear Futureworkers, After a hiatus of -- what? -- seven years or so I've resubscribed. I came across an article by Sally in Alternatives Journal and, since I've just written a book that addresses the futurework theme, I thought I would drop by and say hello.
The idea for the book evolved from a question someone asked me about what was "the case for shorter work time". It seems like a straightforward question but there have been so many good cases made for reducing the hours of work (over the last 240 years!), they are not all the same and they can't necessarily all be whittled down to a single case -- "the" case. Instead what I've come up with is nine cases with three or four variations for each and a common thread that runs through them all outlining an alter ego to the rational economic man of conventional analysis. I also examine a raft of cases argued *against* shorter working time that when examined closely turn out to be rather revealing attempts at evading the implications of this haunting doppelganger. An institutional infrastructure has been built up, particularly in North America, that makes any simple case for working less somewhat obsolete. Mainly the cultural context that in the past supported mass movements for the eight-hour day, the five-day week and work-sharing during the depression has been systematically dismantled in the service of a growth-imperative economy. There is a way forward, I believe, but it doesn't involve proposing "rational policies" and submitting them for evaluation by a highly resistant policy framework. That way forward involves a thorough-going reform of political economic thought, from the ground up, which I won't embark on in an email message. -- Sandwichman _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
