This unnamed correspondent thinks we, the workers, are expressing preferences for long hours? Gene Coyle Tom Walker wrote: > Rob Schaap wrote: > > >For what it's worth, Tom, I think your essay on neo-classical assumptions, > >measures and prescriptions as the miserable multiplication of misery > >(iatrogenic) is bloody wonderful. > > - snip, snip - > > >Thanks, Tom! > > And thank you, Rob. I hope your kind words will encourage others on pen-l to > have a look at http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/satanic.htm and, if they find > the narrative there interesting, to recommend it to others. For my part, I > have been systematically notifying the economics faculties of the English > speaking world of the URL of my -- dare I say irritant? -- essay. I've > started with MIT, Harvard, Chicago, Stanford, Princeton, Cambridge and LSE. > Here is one reply from a Stanford recipient: > > "Please discontinue sending me rubbish." > > In a more serious vein, here is another reply I received that is sincere, > amiable and yet eerily impervious to the implication of the peculiar > narrative that I recounted in my essay: > > >Dear Mr. Walker, > > > >I think there is indeed a misunderstanding about the lump-of-labor > >fallacy. > > > >A perfect statement of the fallacious argument is in the "Iowa City > >Declaration" I found in your "Timework" website: > > > >> Increased labor productivity, unless accompanied by shorter hours, > >> tends to displace workers from employment in productive enterprise. > >> The result is higher unemployment or increasing employment in low-wage > >> occupations. > > > >This is perhaps better called "the lump-of-output fallacy" because it > >assumes that that there is only so much to produce and that if > >productivity increases, total hours worked decrease. But there is an > >obvious alternative: production may increase and total hours stay > >unchanged (and, of course, anything in beetween). What actually happens > >is an empirical matter, to be judged on a case by case basis. > > > >I remember reading somewhere (I think it was in a book by Prof. > >Pasinetti) that the social function of technological progress is to > >create unemployment. It is the function of economic progress to put > >those unemployed factors of production to work and produce those goods > >that we were too poor to afford before. Of course, one of these "luxury" > >goods could (and in many case should) be leisure. > > > >I fully agree with you that it would be wise for society (especially US > >society; the EU is in better shape on this regard - though in much worse > >shape about unemployment) to move towards fewer working hours. I believe > >that in many cases there would be efficiency losses in having fewer > >working hours per week, but I do not believe that fewer working hours > >per year would be a technical problem. > > > >Alas, this problem seems unlikely to be solved - paradoxically, for the > >same reasons why the opposite problem of motivating couch potatoes to do > >something useful with their lives will be unsolved. It is just too hard > >to change people's preferences - though, on the other front, Madison > >Avenue seems pretty good at that. > > > >Sincerely, > > [Name withheld] > > regards, > > Tom Walker > http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/covenant.htm
