I agree fundamentally with the direction of David Rosnick's argument. I think it is useful to point out a few optimistic assumptions and an ambiguity. I'm not saying these ambiguities and optimistic assumptions are necessarily "defects" in the study. The purpose is to ask "what if?" not to draw out a precise road map.
First, David's analysis assumes that "productivity" continues to grow. Inasmuch as productivity is calculated as a ratio between GDP and hours of work the whole critique of GDP comes into play here. Is there going to be real productivity growth to reallocate? Second, David acknowledges the difficulty of reducing working time in the context of extreme and increasing inequality. His work time reduction scenario depends on somehow moving toward greater equality. But he doesn't explain how this political sea change will be achieved. Finally, there is the ambiguity about what kind of a regulatory or market mechanism would enforce the work time reduction. Would it be a cultural shift? A resurgence of class-struggle unionism? An amendment to the (fatally flawed) Fair Labor Standards Act? As I said, these ambiguities should not be considered as defects. They are part of the context that frames the story. They provide handles for further elaboration and variation. It seems to me that there is a more profound, unstated framing assumption that the connection between hours of work and greenhouse gas emissions is (more or less) contingent rather than substantial. I would argue that, historically, the use of machines in industry (and I would extend that to include the Lewis Mumford concept of "megamachine") imposes the imperative that the employment of machines -- and thus the consumption of fuel -- expands concomitantly with the employment of humans. In other words, the reduction of working time is not merely an attractive option for mitigating climate change but is a *preliminary condition.* It's a requirement not an option. Given that shift in perspective, a much more comprehensive and mandatory policy scheme would be appropriate. In my blog post "The Moon Belongs to Everyone" I outline a Utopian policy idea along those lines. I say it is Utopian because it outlines a policy that would be utterly rejected by conventional political regimes. The point, though, is that as a policy ideal -- an implementation of the concept of labour power as a common-pool resource -- it corresponds with a practice of social accounting that can readily be adopted at a small community level. To appropriate the jargon of mainstream economics, it conceives a ideal macro-model with realistic microfoundations. "The Moon Belongs to Everyone": http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-moon-belongs-to-everyone.html On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 6:42 AM, Jim Devine <[email protected]> wrote: > real-world economics review, issue no. 63 > > Reduced work hours as a means of slowing climate change > David Rosnick1 [Center for Economic and Policy Research, USA] > Copyright: David Rosnick, 2013 > > You may post comments on this paper at > http://rwer.wordpress.com/2013/03/25/rwer-issue-63/ > > Abstract > > The choice between fewer work hours versus increased consumption has > significant implications for the rate of climate change. A number of > studies (e.g. Knight et al. 2012, Rosnick and Weisbrot 2006) have > found that shorter work hours are associated with lower greenhouse gas > emissions and therefore less global climate change. This paper > estimates the impact on climate change of reducing work hours over the > rest of the century by an annual average of 0.5 percent. It finds that > such a change in work hours would eliminate about one-quarter to > one-half of the global warming that is not already locked in (i.e. > warming that would be caused by 1990 levels of greenhouse gas > concentrations already in the atmosphere). The analysis uses four > “illustrative scenarios” from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate > Change (IPCC), and software from the Model for the Assessment of > Greenhouse-gas Induced Climate Change to estimate the impact of a > reduction in work hours. > > -- > Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your > own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- Cheers, Tom Walker (Sandwichman)
_______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
