Cut working week to 21 hours?

Interesting idea and it's one that I've come across to stabilise the economy and to reduce environmental impact. It's discussed in depth in Prosperity Without Growth by Tim Jackson in an attempt to model a post-capitalist economy which doesn't boom and bust. It does teeter on the side of socialism, but then that isn't necessarily a bad thing once you have raised the average affluence level.
 
Tobywon said:
its a great idea, with the minimum wage at £5.80 an hour, who wouldn't want to live on £121.80 a week. These people have no idea. I'm a student and spend more than that a week to support myself and that's just food and rent. Oh wait i forgot tax and national insurance lol
Click to expand...

Students don't pay tax or NI?
 
Amp34 said:
Thing is i'm one of those wierdos that would rather do 12 hour days for a week and then have a reasonable number of days off in a row. This whole weekend thing is stupid as you never really get enough time to do what you want, just the personal stuff you haven't been able to do during the week (hence supermarkets being busiest on a saturday etc.).
Click to expand...

I do this, it's so much better than 5 day week working...

Plus I hate actual weekends as everywhere is really busy so it suits well :)

optitech-uk said:
These days people don't get time to spend with their families much with standard 37 hour working weeks. People are working more and more just to be able to live properly. I think it's sick.
Click to expand...

The definition of living properly has changed massively over the years...
 
Efour2 said:
hmm no the cost of most stuff is its manufacturing cost etc + 50% mark-up

The idea is easily achievable, but already in 8 replies you see how entrenched people are in their way of thinking about money and possessions.

Would need a major re education of people for this to work, maybe in a few generations time.
Click to expand...

What about the huge amount of imported goods? Are they all going to reduce in price because we're all earning less money?

It'd never work, the Government needs to get a grip and stop spunking god know how many millions on "think tanks"
 
What a stupid idea.
That would double the price of the workforce, or half most peoples pay.

35 hours a week is bad enough, as basic salary is low and so harder to get mortgages and the like and I still end up working over 45hours a week, to get the money.
 
Infam0us said:
Students don't pay tax or NI?
Click to expand...

No - it was a reference to the fact that the weekly wage calculation was gross. It's also less than the personal allowance for 2009/10 though, so that turns out to be mostly irrelevant.

Which brings me to another point - the Government is in enough debt already. This would surely bring the Government to its knees (as if it wasn't there already with ~£170bn deficits). You'd have thought they would have realised that given Labour's propensity for 'tax and spend' economics.

Then there's the globalisation angle to consider. We'd be destroying the country's productivity. I'm sure someone else (most likely from APAC) will gladly step in to fill that void - sending our trade balance spiralling out of control.

I think the last line of the article says it all about what they really think.
 
I've always thought we should be working less while having the same or better quality of life, people though are so stuck in their ways and belief systems that they can't see solutions in the bigger picture, yes of course this probably wouldn't work in the current system, thats why the system as a whole has to change.

I suggest minimal profits and true value based goods and services, work energy done, get rid of greedy profit motivated mentality from business, no more shares, houses cost a set amount based on work done and resources used etc.
 
Radiation said:
I suggest minimal profits and true value quantisation placed on goods and services, work energy done, get rid of greedy profit motivated mentality from business, no more shares, houses cost a set amount based on work done and resources used etc.
Click to expand...

Which just wont work. Not unless we were 100% self sufficient. But we aren't. While we rely on other economies and are intertwined with them. No such system could work what ever reform you had.
 
Amp34 said:
I disagree slightly there, places like the mining industry have huge overheads before you get to staff pay which is why they try and work 24 hours a day as to them time is money, they can't just shut down a mine for 12 hours without incurring huge expenses.
Click to expand...
But what are those overheads? Money doesn't just disappear from a company, it either goes to the employees, other companies or ends up as profit which goes to shareholders or back into the business. The money that goes to the other companies does the same thing and so on and so on. Inefficient shutdowns just means that more money is going out of the company or less money is coming into it, it's purely an efficiency thing.

Mining, oil and property (more specifically the land it's built on) are special cases though as they're dealing with a finite resource and the price they can charge is decoupled from the cost of production because of a lack of ability of other people entering the market to reduce prices again.

If peoples hours were forcibly reduced it would benefit no one, except those who are rich enough not to work and those who only work part time. Everyone else would see a substantial loss of living standard and those with mortgages would be totally screwed altogether with unheard of levels of negative equity.
 
Absurd, I start to get bored sitting at home for longer than 4 hours.

Money makes the world go around, they can't change that. Less hours doesn't mean more people will be employed, I bet a lot of those labeled as unemployed in the statistics are just on it to get Job Seeker's allowance and is happy not working. Some people just don't want to work.

Besides, I like the income from work, if I half it, the trains still cost as much, my rent is not going to go down. If they say to me, everything will be half price then sure, but until then.

Stupid idea.
 
16 hour week here (and no benefits before people ask), loving it, I'm only on my own so it's easy to support myself on low hours, I love the free time I have, I'm only going to live once and I don't won't to spend most of it working, I enjoy seeing more of my family, my hobbies, personal studying etc, I love it, I understand if you have to work to support a family, mortgage etc, or if you just want the extra cash, but some people seem to work becuase that's all they know, they can't handle having the extra free time, I think that's kind of sad in a way when you can be so easily bored in your personal time, I think 'if' you can comfortably afford it you and the people around you can benefit greatly from working less hours.

Bare In mind I don't agree that this should be brought into legislation in anyway.
 
Dolph said:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8446942.stm

Look at homes and transport for some simple lifestyle comparisons between 1963 and today.
Click to expand...

The problem is that eventually resources will run out if we keep on running the way we are. It will happen. What we should be doing is finding a new kind of usable energy. We as humans will end up evolving into something totally different to survive. It will happen.

Most people don't care because they will be dead anyway and then it will be too late.
 
lowrider007 said:
16 hour week here (and no benefits before people ask), loving it, I'm only on my own so it's easy to support myself on low hours.
Click to expand...

But how do you support yourself. I would love to do my contractual hours only. But I just could not afford to. Then with all that time of I would need more money again to do hobbies and basic living.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom