On Sat, Jan 9, 2016 at 2:23 PM, Eugene Coyle <[email protected]> wrote: > The first type of response, from the hipster element, has been a sneer. > > The second type of response, from Carrol Cox mainly, has been to support > the idea but dismiss it because the political campaign to achieve it has > not been described or specified. >
Oh you forgot the third and most common type of response: it is impossible to make any advance towards short working hours as long as the capitalist system is in place. Until the working class recognizes this great truth, no politics along these lines is even possible. So we all need to go back and start organizing (:-). But seriously, I don't think your criticism is entirely fair. Can you point to one example of a "hipster" type on PEN-L who "sneered" at the idea of reduced work hours? (Are there hipsters on PEN-L?) It IS fair on your part to feel that the idea of reduced work hours does not get the attention it perhaps deserves in terms of discussion time on PEN-L. My own instinctive response to previous discussions of that topic can be described as a "shrug" (as distinct from a "sneer"): after years of observing the terms of this argument, I find that I wholeheartedly agree with it in principle. Ok, but what then? The second type of response you refer to above is not without merit and I submit it shows a certain lack of imagination on the part of the promoters of this idea i.e. yourself, Tom Walker et al. You are also being unfair in another way: a campaign for a "30 hour work week" is not the only way to achieve shorter work hours. Reforming and tightening overtime policies would be a modest but important step in this same direction. Legally mandated *regularization* of work hours for e.g. retail and fast food employees would make the lives of lots of people much better even without a shortening of the work week. An earlier retirement age for soc sec and medicare eligibility would help too. Mandated vacation time, sick leave can all help towards this same goal. Etc. These things do get a fair amount of attention on PEN-L, but because they are not explicitly stated as being about "shorter work hours", you don't seem to credit those.. -raghu. > Pen-l seems more interested in opining on the nice distinctions of policy > on Syria, Turkey, Gaza, Israel, etc., without including much, if any, > economic analysis. > > Gene > > > > On Jan 9, 2016, at 10:27 AM, raghu <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > On Fri, Jan 8, 2016 at 4:21 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > > David W Terrell says: > > > > In place of Clinton’s 200 economists, who is it that Sanders listens to? > He mentions several. Paul Krugman, he says, would make a good secretary of > the Treasury. Krugman won a Nobel Prize in economics, teaches at Princeton > and writes for The New York Times. Sanders uses the advice of Joseph > Stiglitz, who also won a Nobel in economics, teaches at Columbia and writes > the most lucid and compelling popular books on the economy one can find. > > > > Can't Bernie find some better economists? > > > > > > Is there any concrete political or policy issue on which the advice of > Paul Krugman or Joseph Stiglitz would differ materially from the advice of > Michael Perelman? > > > > I can't think of any. > > > > That leaves us with the main complaint that PEN-L purists have with > Krugman and Stiglitz: that they are not writing columns and giving speeches > calling for the abolition of private property. > > > > Words and rhetoric in other words, not any concrete ideas or policy > differences. > > > > -raghu. > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > pen-l mailing list > > [email protected] > > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l >
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