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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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 Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2010 12:27 am Post subject: |
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| Rusty Shackleford wrote: |
| How do you propose to fix it? There is literally no intervention you can make that won't make the situation worse. |
Tell me how a limited 35 hour workweek would make the situation worse on a national scale? You yourself assert that most work hours are all ready wasted; national productivity can't decrease all that much as a result. Further, fields that suddenly find themselves short-staffed by a 35 hour workweek would simply experience job growth, which is positive.
More time for family, more time for self-improvement, less stress, less exhaustion. No real drop in productivity due to your 80/20 rule. Where's the bad?
| Rusty Shackleford wrote: |
| The biggest problem I see is that it is a colossally stupid idea. If it were so easy and worked so well, businesses would do it anyway. They could pay their workers less but get the same output. |
Businesses are exactly the reason this hasn't occured. It's in the interest of corporations to constantly demand more of their workers, not less. It's government that restrains business in this regard (for example, through overtime laws). This is the weakest point in the Libertarian Philosophy: it completely misunderstands the nature of business owners. Businesses would much rather collaborate with one another than compete, both for employees and for customers. And they do, massively. And because almost every business has a substantial cost of entry, there's not an unlimited supply of other businesses that can force them to play fair; as individual new businesses slowly enter the market, it's generally more profitable for them to play ball than to try to shake up the system. And as a result, all the things you think you know about how businesses should behave simply aren't true.
With regards to your axiom of "Central planning fails 100% of the time," what am I supposed to say? It's just flat out a lie. Public education successfully educated students, public road systems successfully build and maintain roads, public sanitation departments successfully sanitize our water, public law enforcement successfully responds to crime, and so forth. Central planning has many successes under it's belt. Libertarians simply decide to define these successes as failures, under a strange definition of failure that the vast majority of people don't utilize. Of course central planning doesn't fail 100% of the time, or anywhere near that. It's just another outright lie Libertarians tell while selling their snake oil. |
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postfundie
Joined: 28 May 2004
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| Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2010 3:41 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
Tell me how a limited 35 hour workweek would make the situation worse on a national scale? You yourself assert that most work hours are all ready wasted; national productivity can't decrease all that much as a result. Further, fields that suddenly find themselves short-staffed by a 35 hour workweek would simply experience job growth, which is positive.
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Every lived in Spain?? There they have some of these nice rules to limit big department stores from being open on Sundays ( I think they are 'allowed' to be open one Sunday a month). In their mind this lets little mom and pop shops stay open which is nice for mom and pop but it sucks behind everybody but mom and pop.
They will love to tell you about how they enjoy "the life" while you Americans work too hard. Now they have over 19% unemployment. If they keep at it I'm sure they can hit 22%. Congrats you 've reached Great Depression levels!
If you want to work, you should be allowed to. Those who don't want to work the extra time don't have to. They will have to -oh gasp- do with less in life! Maybe they can have only one Sam Seung TV. Sorry. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2010 3:45 am Post subject: |
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| postfundie wrote: |
| Every lived in Spain?? There they have some of these nice rules to limit big department stores from being open on Sundays ( I think they are 'allowed' to be open one Sunday a month). In their mind this lets little mom and pop shops stay open which is nice for mom and pop but it sucks behind everybody but mom and pop. |
That's totally unrelated to what's being discussed in this thread. When businesses can be open, and the number of hours in a standard work week are different things.
| postfundie wrote: |
| They will love to tell you about how they enjoy "the life" while you Americans work too hard. Now they have over 19% unemployment. |
America's actual unemployment isn't actually all that far from this, and even if it were, it's a totally different policy. Limiting working hours of individuals increases the number of jobs; limiting when businesses can be open decreases the number of jobs. |
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postfundie
Joined: 28 May 2004
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| Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2010 5:07 am Post subject: |
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When businesses can be open, and the number of hours in a standard work week are different things.
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How right you are! Everybody knows that if the business aren't open then number of hours in a standard work week remains unchanged. Great.
Anyway it's a nice theory that you have about unemployment but socialist countries that try to reduce the number of work hours end up hurting their companies who provide the jobs. These companies then loose their competitive edge and uemployment goes up. Just try looking at the unemployment numbers before the crisis in France, Spain, the U.S. and S. Korea. Guess who had lower numbers and guess who worked more hours. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2010 5:17 am Post subject: |
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| postfundie wrote: |
| Quote: |
When businesses can be open, and the number of hours in a standard work week are different things.
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How right you are! Everybody knows that if the business aren't open then number of hours in a standard work week remains unchanged. Great. |
1) You can reduce the number of hours in a standard work week while not altering the hours businesses are open.
2) You can reduce the number of hours businesses are open while keeping the same number of hours in a standard work week.
It's not directly related. I don't know why you keep talking about it. You misspoke, it's no big deal.
| postfundie wrote: |
| Anyway it's a nice theory that you have about unemployment but socialist countries that try to reduce the number of work hours end up hurting their companies who provide the jobs. |
If Rusty's theory about 80% of productivity occuring in 20% of the effort is true, this isn't true at all; work hours can be reduced without total productivity going down. And frankly, I think he's probably correct in his view on the matter. If you disagree, take it up with him. If you don't disagree, then I don't see the basis of your claim. |
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Tiger Beer
Joined: 07 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2010 8:07 am Post subject: |
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| bucheon bum wrote: |
| So my question is: how many people actually "work" over those 40 hours? And how many are pretending to work to look good for their supervisor and management? |
So true.
What companies SHOULD do, is have some policy of 'once you get your work done', however it'll never fly, because there is always more work to be done.
That being said...I think working 'remotely' works well for the more efficient at getting work done. What others would idle away an entire afternoon doing, an efficient person could knock out right away, and just 'pretend' to still be 'knocking it out' and enjoy a bit of his afternoon elsewhere beyond 'pretending to be busy'. |
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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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| Posted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 6:40 pm Post subject: |
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I was working 80 hours a week as a newspaper journalist. It was madness. A year after working my way up to head editor of the paper, with a staff and total editorial control, I quit it to go work 30 hours a week teaching English in South Korea. No one understood it except me. It made perfect sense.
I now protect my mornings and weekends as my own. And I take a month or two off between yearly contracts.
Life is better. |
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Juregen
Joined: 30 May 2006
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| Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2010 11:40 pm Post subject: |
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| VanIslander wrote: |
I was working 80 hours a week as a newspaper journalist. It was madness. A year after working my way up to head editor of the paper, with a staff and total editorial control, I quit it to go work 30 hours a week teaching English in South Korea. No one understood it except me. It made perfect sense.
I now protect my mornings and weekends as my own. And I take a month or two off between yearly contracts.
Life is better. |
Choice is a beautiful thing. |
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UknowsI
Joined: 16 Apr 2009
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| Posted: Thu Jan 14, 2010 7:39 am Post subject: |
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| Tiger Beer wrote: |
That being said...I think working 'remotely' works well for the more efficient at getting work done. What others would idle away an entire afternoon doing, an efficient person could knock out right away, and just 'pretend' to still be 'knocking it out' and enjoy a bit of his afternoon elsewhere beyond 'pretending to be busy'. |
That's the beauty of being a consultant. If you are good at what you're doing you can charge $200 an hour and the employer will be happy paying because they have no idea how much work is required to do the job. So finding a stable consultant job can be very lucrative. Working for a consultant firm or changing client every other months on the other hand is less lucrative... better to have your own business and have a governmental contract or something like that.
The importance of the number of hour changes a lot from job to job. As a researching 2 hours of effective work a day is probably plenty, but for an English teacher the number of hours you spend in the class room matters. |
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Dixon
Joined: 30 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Thu Jan 14, 2010 8:02 am Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| I think the study is right that most people would probably be happier and healthier limiting their work week to 35 hours. |
Irrelevent what "most people" would be happier with, "most people" don't have a right to legislate how another minority should live their life.
| Quote: |
| While Libertarians might point out this would be a restriction for someone who wants to work more than 35 hours a week at their job, the people said Libertarians neglect are the individuals who don't want to work more hours than that, but are forced to when others do. |
Force is when you are forced, by the point of a gun (under penalties of fines, jail, etc) to not do something. If you are going in to work because you want to earn more money and compete with others, that is not force. That is called free will, or choice.
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| As a result, even people who would be happier working less are forced to keep up with the curve, and we do become slaves to our jobs. |
No, nobody is *forced* to do anything. Ambitious people *choose* to work more hours to stand out or keep up with the curve. Force is what you want to do--tie people up and refuse them the right of going to work.
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| Certain people here talk a lot about freedom, but they think only of freedom from the government. At least at times, freedom from the negative consequences of one another's actions needs to be considered as well; if the actions of others have potential to harm me in some way -- as they do here, by forcing me to work myself to an unhealthy degree if I want to retain my job or be promoted -- there's at least a good case for limiting them. |
That is simply not freedom. And those actions do not harm you--you seeking gainful employment is a benefit-benefit situation. You cannot possibly say you are harmed from living in a productive workfrorce. The only possible thing you could say is that you are harmed from not being productive enough. Anyway, the onus is on you to either become more productive and skilled per hour if you want to work less hours, work more, or accept a lower wage. Nobody has a right to what they believe is a "great wage" for a limited amount of work. Lastly, if you were concerned about "harm," then drastically reducing the total productivity of the nation by chaining up the most ambitious people who carry the entire society would be an important thing for you to avoid. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Thu Jan 14, 2010 9:04 am Post subject: |
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| Dixon wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| I think the study is right that most people would probably be happier and healthier limiting their work week to 35 hours. |
Irrelevent what "most people" would be happier with, "most people" don't have a right to legislate how another minority should live their life. |
Yes, they do. It's very clear that society is predicated upon the idea that, if our actions affect one another, said actions are open to societal limitation.
| Dixon wrote: |
| Quote: |
| While Libertarians might point out this would be a restriction for someone who wants to work more than 35 hours a week at their job, the people said Libertarians neglect are the individuals who don't want to work more hours than that, but are forced to when others do. |
Force is when you are forced, by the point of a gun (under penalties of fines, jail, etc) to not do something. If you are going in to work because you want to earn more money and compete with others, that is not force. That is called free will, or choice.
| Quote: |
| As a result, even people who would be happier working less are forced to keep up with the curve, and we do become slaves to our jobs. |
No, nobody is *forced* to do anything. Ambitious people *choose* to work more hours to stand out or keep up with the curve. Force is what you want to do--tie people up and refuse them the right of going to work. |
Yes, the Libertarian strategy of trying to debate the meanings of words is all ready quite familiar. You can talk about what you feel "to force" means all you want. Feel free to talk about the definitions of "Socialism", "Liberty", and "to fail", while you're at it.
| Dixon wrote: |
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| Certain people here talk a lot about freedom, but they think only of freedom from the government. At least at times, freedom from the negative consequences of one another's actions needs to be considered as well; if the actions of others have potential to harm me in some way -- as they do here, by forcing me to work myself to an unhealthy degree if I want to retain my job or be promoted -- there's at least a good case for limiting them. |
That is simply not freedom. And those actions do not harm you-- |
So now you're taking issue with the definitions of "freedom" and "harm" too. Perhaps it's time Libertarians simply had their own dictionary?
| Dixon wrote: |
| You cannot possibly say you are harmed from living in a productive workfrorce. The only possible thing you could say is that you are harmed from not being productive enough. Anyway, the onus is on you to either become more productive and skilled per hour if you want to work less hours, work more, or accept a lower wage. Nobody has a right to what they believe is a "great wage" for a limited amount of work. Lastly, if you were concerned about "harm," then drastically reducing the total productivity of the nation by chaining up the most ambitious people who carry the entire society would be an important thing for you to avoid. |
I've covered this all ready. Go back and read it if you want. If you don't want to, that's fine. |
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