Tom writes: > I can't speak for Jim, but I would > differentiate fundamentally between "short-time" work or work-sharing in > response to cyclical ups and downs and a long-term secular decline in the > optimal hours of labor as a key element of technological progress. It seems > to me that Jim assimilates all work time reduction to the former and Gene > leans strongly in the other direction.
Since my name is invoked, I must respond. To me, the actual, empirical, changes in paid and unpaid work-time per worker-year is partly a matter of cyclical _and_ secular forces (along with technical and social forces). I do _not_ "assimilate" (attribute?) them totally to cyclical changes. (I don't know where Tom got the impression that I thought otherwise. I try not to represent his opinions without quoting him and I wish he would do the same. I do appreciate the fact that he says he can't speak for me, however.) The exception is the big change in paid work-hours in recent memory, which was almost entirely cyclical, i.e., the big recession (falling aggregate demand) and its aftermath between 2007 and the present.[*] I always like to connect theory to the real world, so such recent events play a big role for me (and, I would guess, the vast majority of working people in the US).[**] Moving to the normative question of "optimal" work time, it depends who is optimizing. On the class level, the capitalist perspective on optimal work-hours (getting more of them, especially the unpaid ones) is quite different from the working-class one (which would involve cutting work hours, especially the unpaid ones). Tom would agree with this, I'd guess. Of course, I can't speak for him. In the current juncture (the aftermath of a big recession) and on the individual level, there's been a role-reversal. Everyone's trying to survive, so that most individual workers would like to have _more_ rather than fewer paid work hours. Of course, individual capitalists aren't providing more hours in hiring, since they don't see enough of that aggregate demand abstraction coming their way and most of them, especially the smaller ones, are having a hard time getting credit (either abstract or concrete). (Both the class level and the individual level are important. The trick is how to help individual workers see their class interests and create their own organizations to push to achieve them. Mere slogans and programs don't seem to be very useful here.) -- Jim Devine / "In an ugly and unhappy world the richest man can purchase nothing but ugliness and unhappiness." -- George Bernard Shaw [*] BTW, that is not to ignore the secular forces behind the cyclical fall. [**] My empirical references are to the US, unless stated otherwise, because I can't claim to know enough about other countries. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
