Jim, When I read the discussion on Pen-l on the stimulus, frustration overwhelms me and I respond with a question asking why the left is not pushing a cut in the work week.
And generally the response is the way you did recently. On Jul 4, 2011, at 5:55 PM, Jim Devine wrote: > Eugene Coyle wrote: >> The left must think more deeply than simply aiming for "full employment" >> resulting from more public or private consumption. We can have full >> employment, i.e. a job for those that want a job, at the current level of >> public and private consumption. We can, and should, and must, reduce the >> work week to this end. With climate change, and run-away climate change at >> that, already looming as a human and environmental catastrophe, having as >> the left's goal the consumption of more stuff is pathetic.< > > Nice slogans! But one of the great things (from a capitalist point of > view) about secularly rising inequality and then a severe recession > with a horrible and persistent aftermath is that it (like the prospect > of being hanged) concentrates the minds of workers of all types on > surviving, i.e., getting a job, or keeping the one that they already > have, even if it's subject to speed-up, wage cuts, and stretch-out. > It's hard to be concerned with climate change if you can't feed your > family or pay your bills. It's hard to be in favor of reducing the > work week (even if this is promised to be done without a cut in weekly > pay) if organized labor is on the ropes or fighting defensive battles > against the Governor Walkers of the world. In fact, with the current > balance of political-economic power in the US, a cut in the work-week > almost automatically means that a cut in weekly pay, perhaps even a > cut in hourly pay. > < snip > With the grim unemployment report for June, let's see if we can to push this discussion little bit deeper. Contrary to any reasonable expectation, suppose a large stimulus and job program were instituted, so that unemployment were reduced to 5% or even 4% in the next couple of years. What happens then? Do unions become strong or at least stronger than they are now? And would then the labor unions undertake to reduce the workweek in United States? Would people feel secure in their jobs and so be willing to fight for shorter hours with no cut in pay? There’s no history for the past 50 years that supports such a conclusion. So first getting back to what most consider full employment is not the basis for introducing a discussion of reducing the workweek. We were at what most economists consider roughly the condition of full employment of a few years ago, and people's aspirations were for more shopping. Aspirations will be unchanged if we go back to a business as usual environment. In fact aspirations for “a better life for our children” will be strengthened, and that "better life" means more consumption. In other words overcoming the unemployment which the stimulus is aimed to do, is to ensure workers sharing with capitalists the goal of growth. Regardless of whether or not you accept that catastrophic global warming is very likely under a business as usual future, is the goal of growth, or to put it another way, is “accumulate, accumulate, ... “ the highest goal for the left? This question is not rhetorical: is working and consuming what you and the left in general believes to be the future of mankind? You, after mentioning the two sides considered respectable in the discussion of unemployment -- the stimulus camp and the "take the shackles off the market" camp -- conclude: > But I doubt that anyone will see cutting the work week as the > solution. > Your response to me, and that of "left" economists generally on cutting hours of work, ensures that cutting the work week will never become acceptable discourse. Gene Coyle
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