would society benefit from working a 3 or 4 day week?

I must admit, I've always thought this would make sense as well. Now I don't proclaim to be an expert in these things but what with how busy life seems to be these days I've often contemplated how nice it would be to have a 3 day weekend.

Currently working 5 days a week (40hrs), it's just too knackering to do stuff mid week and the two days of rest fly by when you are busy using your free time to catch up on all the routine stuff that live throws at you that you don't have the time to complete in the week.

Especially now as you consider that even Sundays, previously considered to be a day of rest, many businesses and other daily activities continue to go ahead. We really are a 24/7 society.

How it would work realistically? No idea, probably wouldn't. But in theory it would be nice to either create an extra day for the weekend or make Fridays a non working day. It would never happen though.
 
realBabelfish said:
my basic rationale was that if nobody is claiming welfare then they should only need to take half as much income tax (maybe even less. you could irradicate it totally)
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I seriously doubt that the majority of people who claim welfare benefits actually want to work. Also, how did you work out that more goes out in benefits than income tax?
 
realBabelfish said:
of course a capitalist society will never try to look to a better work/life balance and neither will governments. i just think society would benefit from more quality time with family and friends etc. maybe im just a hippy still?
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Benefit scroungers have all the free time in the world but it doesn't translate into quality time with their family, does it? Kinda flies on the face of your anti-capitalist society workaholic-villains argument..

You don't need to be rich to have free time!
 
kgi said:
Benefit scroungers have all the free time in the world but it doesn't translate into quality time with their family, does it? Kinda flies on the face of your anti-capitalist society workaholic-villains argument..

You don't need to be rich to have free time!
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then we stop them. if loads of jobs are created and they dont want them we tell to **** off or join society. remove their benefits.

to be honest i was on the dole many years ago and it was brilliant having that free time but you lived hand to mouth and that sucked so i got a job as soon as i could - i even moved away from friends to somewhere with higher employment. we need to work to have some luxuries and buy a house/car etc and we all need to pay some tax but IMO we pay too much and most of it seems to be ****ed away. remember when you could get things done from council/government and it didnt cost in the millions?

benefit scoungers also have no disposable income (relatively) and spend 7 days a week with family. its not really quality time sat in a crappy house with no cash. i think i might go stir crazy.

Kinda flies on the face of your poo-poo
 
tom01 said:
I must admit, I've always thought this would make sense as well. Now I don't proclaim to be an expert in these things but what with how busy life seems to be these days I've often contemplated how nice it would be to have a 3 day weekend.

Currently working 5 days a week (40hrs), it's just too knackering to do stuff mid week and the two days of rest fly by when you are busy using your free time to catch up on all the routine stuff that live throws at you that you don't have the time to complete in the week.

Especially now as you consider that even Sundays, previously considered to be a day of rest, many businesses and other daily activities continue to go ahead. We really are a 24/7 society.

How it would work realistically? No idea, probably wouldn't. But in theory it would be nice to either create an extra day for the weekend or make Fridays a non working day. It would never happen though.
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I've often found myself thinking the same sort of thing, but it would take a worldwide, universal switch to a 4 day week.
 
realBabelfish said:
then we stop them. if loads of jobs are created and they dont want them we tell to **** off or join society. remove their benefits.

to be honest i was on the dole many years ago and it was brilliant having that free time but you lived hand to mouth and that sucked so i got a job as soon as i could - i even moved away from friends to somewhere with higher employment. we need to work to have some luxuries and buy a house/car etc and we all need to pay some tax but IMO we pay too much and most of it seems to be ****ed away. remember when you could get things done from council/government and it didnt cost in the millions?

benefit scoungers also have no disposable income (relatively) and spend 7 days a week with family. its not really quality time sat in a crappy house with no cash. i think i might go stir crazy.

Kinda flies on the face of your poo-poo
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What you just described explains why your OP is unworkable and ridiculous. Just re-read what you wrote, your answers are all in there, it's surprising that you can't really see it!!

I've highlighted it in bold for you to help you connect the dots.
 
kgi said:
What you just described explains why your OP is unworkable and ridiculous. Just re-read what you wrote, your answers are all in there, it's surprising that you can't really see it!!

I've highlighted it in bold for you to help you connect the dots.
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not working at all and barely having enough cash to buy food (i think dole was £25/week and i need to save £10 for rent) isnt quite the same as working less hours. im not sure why thats a bit hard to grasp for you? i dont mind working 3/4 days and im substantially better off than on the dole and own a nice house and car and have a great family.

as i say if you could wipe out welfare and therefore drop income tax we could all drop from 5 days to 4 without any loss of income. hell i could go down from 4 days to 3 if i didnt pay income tax.

maybe i am looking towards a utopian state - and its most likely pie in the sky - but its got to be better than how society works now. capitalism (as we know it) has brought us to our knees so we need to do something. else in a few years we get this all over again.

anyway, im off soon so some of you can bang on about me being a nutter, while i have a lovely day off with my son tomorrow. ahhhh 4 day weekend. bonus! :)
 
kgi said:
Benefit scroungers have all the free time in the world but it doesn't translate into quality time with their family, does it? Kinda flies on the face of your anti-capitalist society workaholic-villains argument..

You don't need to be rich to have free time!
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It doesn't translate to quality time with that section of society because, typically, they have too much time on their hands, start using it unproductively and get in a rut. His point "a capitalist society will never try to look to a better work/life balance and neither will governments" is that a capitalist society is not interested in the consequences of what it does to make profit. It is only interested in making profit. For this reason, we have to introduce environmental and social laws, otherwise it ends up as a world full of exploitation and environmental degradation. We have strict social and environmental laws in this country and as a result we are not exploited in the workplace and we live and work in clean, safe conditions. Take those laws away and capitalising businesses would quickly exploit its people and pollute. China is a good example of where these laws are not present (they are, but they are very weak and not enforced). People there work 7 days a week and the place is polluted to hell.

Liampope said:
If the HPI was actually supposed to be a measure of the happiness of people, you would have a point. It isn't, though.
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His point still stands even if he pointed to the wrong metrics, because the countries with the happiest people are not the wealthiest. This is actually in that book I mentioned earlier.
 
To be fair to the OP all the MP's have about as good an idea of what real wealth creation entails as him.

Humans are ignorant, pathetic morons. Chuck them in the sweatshops 7 days a week and squeeze as much as you can out of them, I say.
 
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