Sandwichman,
In the abstract, I agree with YOU! And I am the last person anyone
would want to plan strategy for a campaign for shorter hours. I've
learned that my skills/instincts on that front are below minimal.
But first let me turn back to the consumption issue I was taking up
with Ken Hanly. I was trying to emphasize that we each have to learn
how to want something. I also noted that giving up some consumer
pleasure that we've already come to like is difficult, referencing
Steve Marglin on that point.
My thrust was to call attention to the learning involved in consuming
and in aspirations for consuming. This has a long history rivaling
your work on the lump-of-labor. We have Veblen, then, with a Harvard
imprumater, Duesenberry. We have Marris in The Theory of Managerial
Economics, and Pasinetti in Structural Change and Economic Growth.
And more. We have Houthakker & Taylor stressing habits of consumption
in Consumer Demand in the United States, though Taylor's later work
seems to make him an apostate, perhaps like Duesenberry overwhelmed by
convention.
So, how do we learn to prefer less work? There's nothing out there
pressing on us to prefer less work, and enourmous pressure to prefer
more stuff.
I guess my point is that any step toward less work is VERY important,
particularly as a learning device to have us take a follow up step
toward less work.
So the four day week, even at ten hours, even at the same pay is much
to be desired by me. That would take 20% of the cars off the road,
the favorite metric for using flourescent lightbulbs. And at $4.00 a
gallon people won't be driving around on the extra day off.
I realize I am addressing Ken Hanly's point, not yours, but ...
And here's the big question: Why do the Chinese buy cars? And the
answer: Because we in the USA do.
Gene Coyle
On Jun 3, 2008, at 3:08 PM, Sandwichman wrote:
On 6/3/08, Eugene Coyle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
First, my view is that a reduction in working time should be with
no loss
in pay. The income distribution in the US, at least, must be (for
reasons I
won't get to here) corrected. One step toward that would be a
simple one --
shorter hours with the same pay.
In the abstract, Gene, I agree with you. But practically, for this to
happen, enough people have to really want it to happen even without
"no loss in pay". Historically, the *slogan* of shorter hours with no
loss in pay became the death knell of the union demand for shorter
hours. Why? Because it was negotiable for a wage hike with no
reduction in hours. Given a choice between more money without a fight
and fighting for shorter hours, union members took the money.
"With no loss in pay" is a no brainer. Would you like a hot fudge
sundae with that, no extra charge? It's all too easy to dismiss the
seriousness of people when they are asking for "something for
nothing". (Even if that something was rightfully theirs and was taken
away from them).
What I want to see instead is shorter hours with a
productivity-adjusted wage increase. Not on a case-by-case basis. The
calculations would be too cumbersome and controversial. But on the
basis of broad estimates. Let's say half of an eight-hour weekly
reduction in working time would be compensated for in total output by
increased hourly productivity. Then the formula would result in a 20%
cut in hours and a 12.5% wage increase. That would be, metaphorically
speaking, a "revenue neutral" change.
Why would I prefer a "complicated" (read unfamiliar) formula to a
"simple" slogan? Because its necessary for people to understand what
are the underlying economics of the hours of labor and the only way
they're going to learn that is by doing the real world calculations.
The formula isn't really all that complicated once you understand the
principles behind it. For that matter, the slogan of no loss in pay is
not as simple as it seems. It actually incorporates the assumption of
a 100% productivity offset into its implicit calculation. You don't
have to take my word for it. That's the *explicit* rationale given for
the standard contract-costing model used by unions to estimate the
cost of increased vacation benefits.
--
Sandwichman
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