Cut working week to 21 hours?
- Thread starter Eddie
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Soldato
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I live in a large cheap double room in a shared house and eat simple hearty meals, 61p box's of fruit and fibre, thick soups with French sticks etc, it's surprising how cheaply you can live and live well, normally what I'll do is when I get low on cash I'll up my hours and save up a few k and then go back to minimal hours again so I still have money in the bank for a few treats now and again and emergency cash if needed.
Soldato
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Its not a bad idea but it doesn't take into account the people that will want to work 60 hour weeks and in turn out price those on a shorter week. For it to work it would take everyone to work the shorter week, morgages would need to be restricted a single household wage. Whats wrong at the momment is that people are being forced to compete with two income 60 hour a week Jones. They push up house prices and inturn create a rat race in other words an over inflated system.
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Like you say though, the core of the problem is people just don't care. As an environmental scientist this is the main barrier against actually doing anything about these issues.
Interesting...and what was the line of work? One could argue that the world is one giant complex pyramid scheme in a way
In theory i'm in favour of reduced working hours but its pie in the sky fantasy land stuff unless a working economic model is put forward. (it basically gets laughed at by the status quo - who wouldnt want anything changed ofc )
At the moment we have organisational structures which prize money, the acquisition of wealth/power above all else... there is no cohesion, no community, no togetherness (unless it is ones "manufactured"
)...there are still distinct divisions in society. Yes There is more mobility and opportunity to move out of being exploited so you can "rescue" yourself via your own self-determination.But that doesnt change the fact of the equation (what i mean is the situation is still an unbalanced and unjust one though individuals can get themselves out of it) - destitution and suffering exist and will continue to exist in huge amounts for many years to come.
For there to be profit for one person there must also be loss for someone else. Thats the nature of the beast. The current solution offered is basically "dont be a loser".... dust yourself down and figure out a way to exploit-"play" the game better.
We are pawns anyway...used by corporations to continually finance and support the system.. we should be looking for a system which puts individuals at the centre of the vortex not greed......doubt it will happen.
I used to work 37 hours a week but I got so fed up with the whole Mon-Fri routine in the end and was getting depressed over my job. So I changed jobs and I now work 16 hours a week over 2 days. Money isn't that much of a problem as I saved quite a fair bit from working full time and my part time hours more then cover my monthly outgoings 
I don't have as much money coming in anymore but I much prefer having more time to do things, no TAX or NI too as I don't earn enough anymore!
I don't have as much money coming in anymore but I much prefer having more time to do things, no TAX or NI too as I don't earn enough anymore!
Presumably they have of course worked out how we will be able to afford an NHS with 40% more staff, because regardless of how long the working week in loony lefty land is people are not sick 21 hours a week.
So, we need to have more NHS staff, and raise taxes to pay for them, while working less.
Awesome thinking. Retards.
So, we need to have more NHS staff, and raise taxes to pay for them, while working less.
Awesome thinking. Retards.
I work in a commission based job and therefore am often in the office to 9pm or so. Working about 50 hours a week is the only way I can build up a good relationship with clients, meet them after they have finished work and make sales.
Cutting the working week would double the people needed to do the job, half the quality of the job done and double the pay required, crippling poor old Britain even more than it is already.
I used to come out with comments like "I wish we only had to go to school 1 day a week" etc when I was a child. EVen then I didn't expect it to become real :s
Cutting the working week would double the people needed to do the job, half the quality of the job done and double the pay required, crippling poor old Britain even more than it is already.
I used to come out with comments like "I wish we only had to go to school 1 day a week" etc when I was a child. EVen then I didn't expect it to become real :s
Srsly?
I do ~20 hours a week 6 months of the year and ~60hours a week the other 6 months (i.e. run upto christmas, etc.) which balances out. Its unbelievable how much of a difference it makes to your life during the times only doing 20 hours.
We do need to break the current system imo - society has become entrenched in out moded ideas, set in thought patterns that don't actually make sense any more, etc. its like watching rats in a maze at times.
We do need to break the current system imo - society has become entrenched in out moded ideas, set in thought patterns that don't actually make sense any more, etc. its like watching rats in a maze at times.
I'd like to work 20 hours a week. I have more important things to do than work, like playing games.
But it isn't workable. Either my rate of pay would have to be doubled so I would maintain the same income or the cost of living would have to be halved so I could live with half as much money. How could either be done? My employer would still need the same staff coverage, so they would have to employ twice as many people. If everyone went to a 21 hour week, there wouldn't be enough people to do the work even if some way of paying for it was worked out.
Yeah theres no way to make it work with the current financial situation...
Unfortunatly greed would make it so that we could never have a situation where 21 hours a week was enough to cover a moderate level of living and you could choose to work extra hours if you wanted to be able to afford more stuff... the prices of stuff would just rise slowly til everyone had to work more hours again.
Kinda ironic really humanities corruption is its own prison bars. We visit our sins back on ourselves and are too blind to see it.
Unfortunatly greed would make it so that we could never have a situation where 21 hours a week was enough to cover a moderate level of living and you could choose to work extra hours if you wanted to be able to afford more stuff... the prices of stuff would just rise slowly til everyone had to work more hours again.
Kinda ironic really humanities corruption is its own prison bars. We visit our sins back on ourselves and are too blind to see it.
Caporegime
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Meh, really we need society to change, massively, worldwide and it won't happen.
Half the jobs, more than half the jobs that are done, are simply not required whatsoever. We generate needless work to be done, to occupy most peoples times. Its nuts, we mostly live to work, and when its done have very little time for other things.
Imagine how much work there would be if, we only had a couple brands of cereal and pasta, and they weren't competing with loads of other brands. One company making all the biscuits.
Thing is, in a perfect society, a "star trek" esque future, people would share the workload of those jobs that are REQUIRED, building homes, maintaining heating, power and so on. Other industries would be massively simplified with the goal to make the most money removed, as competition would be pointless, the best designers get together and make the best tv's, chairs, sofa's, etc, etc and people get what they need.
Everyone puts in a short shift every day, job sharing most jobs and have the rest of our time free to enjoy and live.
Unfortunately in reality you see what happens with people with idle hands, boredom is what leads so many less nice people into trouble.
When you really think about how many jobs exist purely because of the money involved. The NHS employs 10k's of paper pushers simply to balance the books and send out bills, receive payments, every company has people doing that. If you abolished money, you'd wipe out a quite insane amount of jobs, with only actual manufacturing jobs left over, which could be shared easily over more people and everything that gets built/made/run now and all public services could be run without people working silly hours.
In a society based on amassing wealth, and material things, a reduction in the working week is a stupid idea as people aren't willing to share jobs and make less money.
Whats insane is the level the population is growing at, with the increase in efficiency of everything else, we're already running into trouble with unemployment and losing jobs everywhere.
50 years ago you had less people who needed less jobs, and things like, say farming, would taken dozens of people to run a huge farm to make food for say, lets call it 5000 people a year. Now we have far more people who require jobs as the population increases, and that same farm now only requires 5 people working machines and hydroponic warehouses, to make food for 20,000 people a year.
Its the same in most industries, less jobs with a growing population is always going to lead to huge trouble down the road.
Half the jobs, more than half the jobs that are done, are simply not required whatsoever. We generate needless work to be done, to occupy most peoples times. Its nuts, we mostly live to work, and when its done have very little time for other things.
Imagine how much work there would be if, we only had a couple brands of cereal and pasta, and they weren't competing with loads of other brands. One company making all the biscuits.
Thing is, in a perfect society, a "star trek" esque future, people would share the workload of those jobs that are REQUIRED, building homes, maintaining heating, power and so on. Other industries would be massively simplified with the goal to make the most money removed, as competition would be pointless, the best designers get together and make the best tv's, chairs, sofa's, etc, etc and people get what they need.
Everyone puts in a short shift every day, job sharing most jobs and have the rest of our time free to enjoy and live.
Unfortunately in reality you see what happens with people with idle hands, boredom is what leads so many less nice people into trouble.
When you really think about how many jobs exist purely because of the money involved. The NHS employs 10k's of paper pushers simply to balance the books and send out bills, receive payments, every company has people doing that. If you abolished money, you'd wipe out a quite insane amount of jobs, with only actual manufacturing jobs left over, which could be shared easily over more people and everything that gets built/made/run now and all public services could be run without people working silly hours.
In a society based on amassing wealth, and material things, a reduction in the working week is a stupid idea as people aren't willing to share jobs and make less money.
Whats insane is the level the population is growing at, with the increase in efficiency of everything else, we're already running into trouble with unemployment and losing jobs everywhere.
50 years ago you had less people who needed less jobs, and things like, say farming, would taken dozens of people to run a huge farm to make food for say, lets call it 5000 people a year. Now we have far more people who require jobs as the population increases, and that same farm now only requires 5 people working machines and hydroponic warehouses, to make food for 20,000 people a year.
Its the same in most industries, less jobs with a growing population is always going to lead to huge trouble down the road.
Associate
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This is rather silly for two main reasons:
1) If I end up being restricted to 21 hour shift per week(which isnt much), Im gonna most probably end up spending at least another 21 figuring out how to earn more money via other means.
2) There is a concept called "division of labour" which Britain applied at the dawn of the industrial revolution, implying that people should specialise into certain areas of expertise and therefore be as efficient as possible. From my experience this also applies to full-time workers because when they do doing many hours,they get more used to do their job. Part-timers on the other hand may often have this problem that, because they work less often, they end up being "rusty" after some time and need some time for re-adjusting. This way I often end up being more sharp and concentrated at my work than employees that have been way longer than me in the company but work only 2-3 days per week.
1) If I end up being restricted to 21 hour shift per week(which isnt much), Im gonna most probably end up spending at least another 21 figuring out how to earn more money via other means.
2) There is a concept called "division of labour" which Britain applied at the dawn of the industrial revolution, implying that people should specialise into certain areas of expertise and therefore be as efficient as possible. From my experience this also applies to full-time workers because when they do doing many hours,they get more used to do their job. Part-timers on the other hand may often have this problem that, because they work less often, they end up being "rusty" after some time and need some time for re-adjusting. This way I often end up being more sharp and concentrated at my work than employees that have been way longer than me in the company but work only 2-3 days per week.
What a world that would be!
Oh well humans will end up getting what they will won't they, its a shame and i wish for a better world but the fact is nothing lasts forever and we aren't living sensibly so it's just not sustainable, short of some real luck with technology and a change in our ways we probably don't have a star trek style civilisation to look forward to!
If everyone did it, surely there would be massive deflation, due to everyone having less money. So then when it all evened out we'd still be able to afford the same amount of crap, but at a lower price.
So we'd work half the time, have half the money, but everything would be half a price.
Am I wrong? Or just correct in a perfect world? (Which we're not in).
So we'd work half the time, have half the money, but everything would be half a price.
Am I wrong? Or just correct in a perfect world? (Which we're not in).
Soldato
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Yes why?