Marvin Gandall wrote:
> I guess I can't shake myself free of this subject,
> after all.
snip
> So let me play the devil's advocate:
Glad to have you as a skeptical sounding board.
1. Yes the Work Less Party advocates a legislated
32-hour week. I believe our actual goals are both more
modest and more ambitious than that. We want to first
of all initiate a dialogue about the hours of work,
about work and leisure, about consumption and
sociability. Second, we hope that dialogue will
eventually take us beyond the quantitative fiddling
about hours.
The Work Less Party is not a marxist party but I would
suggest that Marx similarly saw such a pedagogical
function as the major contribution of the struggle for
shorter hours. This interpretation of Marx's critical
theory -- admittedly a novel one -- can be found in
Moishe Postone's "Time, Labor, and Social Domination."
2. I most definitely DO NOT support a reduction of
hours with a CORRESPONDING loss of pay. That is a
question, by the way that Stats Canada asked on a
survey eight to ten years ago and got about a 6% take
up rate. In most cases there will be a productivity
gain from reducing the hours. All of any such gains
should go to the workers in increased wages. Here,
though, you run into arguments about how to measure
and/or how to predict such gains. That's no different
than any collective bargaining argument. A lot depends
on the relative strength of the parties.
Although people may not be eager to take even a small
reduction in income, that changes if it means
preventing layoffs or creating more jobs. The thing is
you've got to keep all those balls up in the air:
employment, income, leisure, culture, environment,
etc. Any time you get down to arguing just about more
income for more hours or less income for less hours,
you've oversimplified the question.
3. Frankly, I'm not interested in telling anyone that
doesn't already know it that they don't need crap.
What I'm more interested in is telling people who
already know that that they're not alone and they're
not crazy.
You realize a tremendous amount of resources are spent
telling people that they're shit if they don't think
they need to buy all sorts of crap. The advertising
industry alone amounts to 2% of US GDP and that
doesn't count the part of the advertising budget spent
internally in non-ad-industry companies or the extent
to which the editorial policies of the infotainment
industry supports their function as a vehicle for
commercial promotion. What, everybody's got something
to hype expect me and my monkey?
> I don't see much
> evidence of a "broad popular
> desire...to turn away from a commercially-driven,
> consumerist lifestyle to a
> simpler, more social and more conservationist way of
> life" - and certainly
> not if it promises to make people poorer.
No, no, no, no, no. We promise to make people richer.
Richer in relationships. Richer in creative pursuits.
Richer in experiences. Richer in democratic
involvement. Richer in spiritual contentment. Happier!
Even Lord Richard Layard says that beyond a certain
point more money doesn't bring happiness. There's a
whole "economics of happiness" schtick out there in
the literature. But hey, if people want to BELIEVE
that money is the only thing that makes their life
worthwhile who am I to waste my breath trying to
convince them otherwise?
> My
> impression is that most people
> right now have barely enough to meet their basic
> necessities - food,
> shelter, clothing, and medical care.
Yeah, I suppose things are a lot tougher back in
Ottawa. Especially among people with government jobs.
Us free-lance social policy researchers just don't
know how easy we have it. Seriously, though, it's hard
to make ends meet when you _need_ a car, when you
_need_ to send your kids to college, when you _need_
to live in a good neighbourhood that's close to the
good schools, when you _need_ to save for retirement.
And you know why everybody needs those things? Because
everybody else needs them, too. The concept is called
relational goods, which is a fancy phrase for keeping
up with the Joneses. And it's real. I'm not denying
it's real. All I'm saying is that it is possible to do
something about it. It is possible to make personal
changes and it is possible to find social affirmation
for those changes and it's possible that the way
things are won't last forever. Well, it's actually
inevitable that things won't last forever like this
because they can't. The choices, though, are between
something better and something worse. If you bet on
something worse, you lose even if you win your bet. If
you bet things aren't going to change, kiss your money
goodbye.
> What "crap", in particular, do you
> think people can do
> without - and should be compelled to do without?
First off, the crap that people themselves think is
crap as soon as they buy it or even as they're buying
it. You don't think people buy stuff they think is
crap? Ask them.
> 5) It seems to me the logic of "reduced hours with a
> corresponding reduction
> in pay" is consistent with the increasing trend of
> employers to move away
> from full-time towards part-time and casual
> employment.
If I was a cantankerous sort, I might think that you
were deliberately trying to put my position in the
worst possible light. I have never, repeat, never said
a word in support of "a corresponding reduction in
pay." There are not two polar opposite options here --
one no pay cut and the other a reduction that
corresponds to the reduction in hours. Neither are
there two polar opposite productivity and/or
employment outcomes. In fact, the extremes are the
most unlikely of all the possibilities. Most of the
actual possibilities fall between the extremes. That
is why I oppose the extremes.
> I don't think the left
> should be campaigning to extend this principle to
> the working population as
> a whole - especially when there are more pressing
> matters like Iraq and
> other foreign policy issues, the erosion of social
> benefits and rights, and
> the steady encroachment on scientific and other
> forms of free inquiry which
> deserve more energy and attention, and are have some
> reasonable hope of
> success. I think you are mistaken when you situate
> your campaign within the
> traditions of the labour movement. The campaigns for
> the 10 and 8 hour days,
> 30 for 40, etc. were based on "no loss in pay".
I'll start off by returning to my favorite refrain,
"The limitation of the working day is a preliminary
condition without which all further attempts at
improvement and emancipation must prove abortive..."
That was what the Congress of the International
Working Men's Association declared in 1866. Actually,
though, we know that Karl Marx drafted the resolution.
The same Marx also wrote a book called Capital that
revolved around the analysis of how the product of the
working day was divided up between the capitalist and
the workers.
I could mention the relationship between time
discipline and the formation of the industrial working
class, citing E.P.Thompson. I could also mention the
role of the Ten Hour movement in raising the issue of
universal suffarage (in the early 19th century only
for men but the movement for women's suffarage was
also intimately connected with shorter hours
struggles). I could talk about what role the struggle
for the eight-hour day played in the growth of unions
in the US.
Or I could mention that I signed off an earlier
message, "Bread and roses. Bread AND roses." I suppose
my allusion merits some elaboration.
Bread and roses was, as some of you will know, the
celebrated slogan raised during the Lawrence textile
strike of 1912. That strike was over the demand for no
cut in pay following implementation of the
Massachusetts state law reducing the maximum workweek
from 56 hours to 54. Wages and conditions in the mills
were Dickensian and the conduct of the strike was
truly heroic.
But I want to caution against the temptation to suffer
by proxy and to aggrandize institutions through
mythical identifications. We are not entitled to bask
vicariously in the glorious martyrdom of previous
generations or take credit for their struggles as if
they were our own. Nor are we entitled to even utter
their slogans without the most profound humility and
respect.
It's not courageous and radical to simply hold a
position that used to be courageous and radical. One
must be intimately aware of why the position was
courageous and why it was radical then. That awareness
may well reveal to us what _different_ position will
perform the same function today.
The campaigns for the ten-hour day and the eight-hour
day were not victorious because people adhered to the
slogan of no loss in pay. Those campaigns were
successful because people struggled against tremendous
odds and persisted beyond any reasonable duration.
They braved violence, intimidation and ridicule. And
they suffered imprisonment, defamation, and legal
murder. People lost plenty of pay in the strikes and
they lost blood and loved ones in the streets. And a
lot of people who struggled never lived to enjoy the
fruits of their struggle.
If only they knew that what they were struggling for
was cheap DVDs and expensive running shoes from
Walmart. If only they knew the tremendous hardships
people have to endure today because they can't afford
to do without things like cars and big houses and
higher education. I'm sure they would be perplexed. I
wonder if they might feel betrayed.
As for the "more pressing matters" like Iraq, the Work
Less Party was founded by one of the organizers of a
group called Artists Against War. He was tired of
protesting against wars after they had already started
and wanted to do something about preventing them in
the first place. Myself, I'm a "draft dodger" from the
Vietnam War. I've spent the last 40 years trying to
figure out how to stop war and shorter hours is what
I've come up with.
I could support my analysis with quotations from Marx,
quotations from Keynes, quotations from the bible and
quotations from obscure literary critics like Walter
Benjamin and Charles Wentworth Dilke. But it's not my
job to convince you of anything. That's your job. You
either do it or you don't. It's an encouraging sign,
Marvin, that you've taken the effort to challenge me
and have done it so articulately.
The Sandwichman
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