Monday, September 02, 2002

Every Weekend Should be a Three Day Weekend Every Weekend Should be a Three Day Weekend Don't Laugh.  I have been a fan of Juliet Schor's writing for some time.  She is a sociology professor in Massachusetts who has studied working patterns, and in 1990 published the Overworked American.  Her basic point is that Americans work more hours than anyone else on earth. In her book, she says societies make a trade-off between material wealth and leisure time, and that choosing more leisure over acquiring more goods would be a popular choice, if social policies allowed Americans to make it. In her op-ed piece in the NY Times today she says Europeans get on average nine weeks more lesure time per year than Americans.  It is not an accident.  It is the result of social democratic political movements in Europe mandating reductions in work hours by law.  In the U.S., corporations benefit from having fewer workers, and working them longer hours.  In the last twenty years, corporate CEO salaries have surged from 20 to 40 times the average company worker to over 500 times that of the average worker.  A stronger political movement would prevent this type of abuse, and would channel more corporate resources towards socially beneficial ends--like distributing work more equally, and recognizing a right to leisure time. When confronted on this, most elected democrats throw up their hands in horror in fear of being accused of being mean to corporations.  But corporations and profits are social constructs.  Corporations exist today because the government has mandated which of their costs are borne by the public, and which are paid for out of their earnings.  There is nothing magic about changing the rules-- it is simply a matter of power. Juliet mentions a national "Take back your time day", which is just one of the efforts to put these changes on the political horizon. An 8 hour day and a minimum wage are two of the ideas widely credited with saving capitalism from itself during the industrial revolution.  A 35 hour week, with income protection, is not too much to for capitalism to bear in the 21st century. 3:36:49 PM   comment []

© Copyright 2002 Toby Sackton. Last update: 12/26/2002; 9:29:45 PM.