A 3 day work week maintains the same level of productivity and makes people happier.
What’s the argument for a 2 day work week?
Comment on Bernie Sanders says that if AI makes us so productive, we should get a 4-day work week
Gorilladrums@lemmy.world 16 hours agoThe argument for a 4 day work week is that studies have shown it maintains the same level of productivity as a 5 day workweek, but it makes people happier, so it doesn’t slow down the economy, but actually improves it. What’s the argument for a 3 day work week?
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
It means if you want more labor than can be accommodated within a 2 day work week, you should hire more people.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 11 hours ago
studiespilot projects, and successful ones.WarlordSdocy@lemmy.zip 12 hours ago
I think the argument would be that the productivity gains that have happened since the 5 day work week was implemented means that if we want that same level of productivity then a 3 day work week would get that. It would be less productive then currently but the argument would be that a lot of that productivity is just going towards the profits of the companies through having to hire less people. Instead of you wanted to maintain current productivity with a 3 day work week you’d have to hire more people which is good with the amount of wealth transfer and inequality that’s been happening.
SabinStargem@lemmy.today 7 hours ago
I would argue that having more hired staff on rotation would be more productive. By having more people who have experience with a given task, should any one of them become unable to work, someone else can pick up the slack until things have returned to normal.
When a company relies on linchpin personnel, the loss of a person could be devastating, since the company will have to find a capable replacement to hire. That means interviews, introductory payment packages, hoping that delays don’t cause further damage, establishing the new hire in the workplace, and so on.
JackbyDev@programming.dev 15 hours ago
My reading of their argument is that when the 5 day a week, 40 hour work week began there was a specific level of productivity. As technology increased the output increased. If we believe that recent increases make it so that we only need to work 4 days to maintain our current output, we should be owed 3 days because by the same logic long ago we should’ve dropped to 4.
Gorilladrums@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
I would assume that there’s a balance to this. At some point the reduction of hours will result in a loss in productivity. You can do 5 days of work in 4 days if you’re better rested and more focused, but this might be less true in 3 days. I mean if studies show that there’s isn’t a dip productivity and that it improves well being, then sure, that would be great but I think it’s likely than a 4 day work week.
thebestaquaman@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
when the 5 day a week, 40 hour work week began there was a specific level of productivity. As technology increased the output increased.
Exactly, so following this argument, we can choose between living at our current (increased) productivity level (40 hour weeks), or trading off the technological advancements for more spare time at the cost of going back to the productivity level we had previously.
I won’t argue for which of these two is “correct”, I think the tradeoff between free time vs. more access to goods and services is considered very differently by different people. However, I do think that a major problem we’re facing today is that the increased productivity we’ve had the past 50 years due to technological advances has benefited the wealthy far too much, at the expense of everyone else.
I think it’s more fruitful to first try to take care of the wealth distribution, such that we can actually see the quality of life our current productivity level can give everyone. Then we can make an informed choice regarding whether we want to reduce the productivity in exchange for more free time.
Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
Because people deserve more time to be people. Not everything has to serve the Holy Economy.
thebestaquaman@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Sure, I agree with that. However, we also need to consider what a “net decrease in productivity” actually means for the population as a whole, and whether it’s something we want to accept as a trade-off for more free time. Briefly, we can collectively choose to work four, three, or even two days a week, despite seeing a decrease in overall productivity. However, a decrease in productivity means that stuff like clothes, transport, food, IT services, and pretty much everything you can think of that someone has to produce becomes more scarce.
You basically need to answer the question of “would you prefer two days off per week with current access to goods and services, or have more days off with reduced access to goods and services”. Of course, there may come along technological innovations that change this in some ways, and there are studies showing that a lot of people can be sufficiently productive on a four-day work week. On a society level, I still think the point stands as an overall tradeoff we need to consider when talking about whether we should reduce the work-week.
My point is that it’s not just a “capitalists are bad, and we’re owed more free time” thing. If we produce less, then goods and services become scarcer for everyone. I would say the distribution of wealth in society, and how it’s shifted the past 20-50 years is more concerning than the fact that we’re working the same hours as we were 20-50 years ago.
Saleh@feddit.org 12 hours ago
Would not having 30 dresses make you unhappier, if you have time to spend doing things you enjoy instead of consumption being the only thing you have to show for all the time you spend at work?
How much transportation is actually what we need for living and how much is induced by being forced to go to work?
Food has the amazing ability to just grow with limited human intervention, so there is no reason to assume a reduction in food availability. Also with more free time people could tend to a small garden for some of their food more easily.
IT services… You are on a platform run by volunteers in their free time. More free time would mean more of such services available.
Capitalism has outpaced “intrinsic” consumption since at least a hundred years in the industrialized nations. Most consumption is induced by advertisment and social pressure manipulating us to consume more, so we work more, so we consume more, so the rich can extract more wealth in every cycle for themselves. You cannot separate wealth distribution, scarcity and work time from each other.
For the average people i’d wager the available goods and services wouldn’t change much, as the people who make goods and services exclusive to the super rich like yachts would be producing other goods instead.
thebestaquaman@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
It feels like you’re attributing to me an opinion that a decrease in the availability of goods and services would be a universally bad thing. I never said that.
For my own part, I don’t own much excess stuff. I use whatever clothes I buy until they’re worn out, and the only furniture I own is a couch, a bed, a kitchen table and two chairs. However, I do enjoy climbing, hiking, and skiing, all of which require a bit of equipment to do. Lower productivity would likely imply that those things become less available/more expensive.
As for food: Saying that it “has the amazing ability to just grow without much human intervention” just makes you seem unaware of the fact that loads of people would literally starve if it weren’t for modern farming equipment, synthetic fertiliser, preservation methods, and transportation. For people to rely on “a small garden for some of their food” is not a practice that works at scale with the population density in the world today. There’s a reason the population on earth was relatively stable until the industrial revolution, and has grown exponentially since: Modern technology makes it possible for us to feed very many more people with a lot less land and resources.
IT services: Yes, I’m on a platform run by volunteers. I’m on it using hardware that was built by workers, with materials developed, extracted and refined by workers, on electricity produced and distributed by workers, over an internet that is possible because of workers. All these workers are reliant on their own corporate IT systems in order to be as efficient as they are today. You can’t just extract the last link in a huge web of dependencies, and act like it could work on its own.
Anyway, all these things are side-notes. My primary point (which I still believe stands) is that we cannot expect to reduce productivity across the board (i.e. everyone works significantly less), and expect that there will not be a price to pay. Whether that price is worth paying is an open discussion, which I haven’t really decided what I think about myself.
Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Or we can collectively choose to never shorten the work week while productivity continues to outpace wages forever. Which is what republicans and centrist democrats both want.
thebestaquaman@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
You seem to agree with my last point, which was that
That is: The major problem we have today is that the increase in production we’ve seen the past 20-50 years has primarily benefited the wealthy. This needs to change. Once we have decent wealth distribution, we can make an informed decision on whether we want to reduce our total productivity in order to have more free time.
skisnow@lemmy.ca 11 hours ago
Most jobs I’ve ever had haven’t been about creating anything used directly by a normal person, they’ve been about optimizing things in ways that squeeze maximum profit for billionaires. I don’t think I’m alone, especially in the developed world.