On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 1:27 PM, Eugene Coyle <[email protected]> wrote: > http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/books/review/how-much-is-enough-by-robert-skidelsky-and-edward-skidelsky.html?pagewanted=1&nl=books&emc=edit_bk_20120817&pagewanted=all > > Posner, like many, if not almost all, free market idealogues is terrified of > the idea of cutting working time, not for reasons that they express but > rather because it strikes at the god they worship. I thought, until now, > that Posner had more integrity than to publish something like this. >
I agree that the article is basically incoherent and betrays a primal fear of the very idea of more leisure for the masses than a reasoned critique. Nevertheless, he does raise a couple of points that may be worth rebutting in detail. The core of his argument is the following: BEGIN QUOTE------------- Most people would quickly get bored without the resources for varied and exciting leisure activities like foreign travel, movies and television, casinos, restaurants, watching sporting events, engaging in challenging athletic activities, playing video games, eating out, dieting, having cosmetic surgery, and improving health and longevity. But with everyone working just 20 hours a week (on the way down to 15 in 2030), few of these opportunities would materialize, because people who worked so little would be unable to afford them. Nor could leisure-activity services be staffed adequately. -------------END QUOTE Translated, his argument is basically that people's preferred leisure activities all involve labor-intensive services, which do not track the productivity increases in the overall economy, and therefore cannot be provided with reduced labor time. Translated still further, what he is *really* saying is that when people get richer what they really want to do with their leisure are invariably activities that involve bossing other people around. If everyone had enough money and enough leisure, then who is going to be left to boss around? -raghu. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
