- cross-posted to:
- usa@midwest.social
- cross-posted to:
- usa@midwest.social
Experiments with a shorter workweek have shown that shown that working fewer hours improves worker well-being and productivity. But we can’t expect employers to implement this transformative change of their own volition.
I dunno what to tell you. It’s not like you’re getting the fruits of your labor in the first place. They’re already paying you as little as they can get away with. How it shakes out depends on what economic frame you’re going with, but the idea is at least the lowest wage 4 day week is a living one. I don’t think getting into the weeds with inflation and such is worth it for this. Just accepting that you’re already not getting a realistic “piece of the pie” in any measurable sense should be enough.
My point is, if someone has a 4 day a week job and needs a second job to make up the difference, that defeats the purpose of a 4 day a week job. 😉
If rent, mortgage, bills, etc. also see a 20% decrease, then cool, cool. No worries, we’re all good.
/saying this as someone contemplating starting their own business and is expecting to work all hours, all days, to get it running.
Yeah I mean that goes hand in hand with the living wage argument. Where that goes and who absorbs the cost is in the weeds. Ex: landlords extract based on expected potential profit margins of the renter for commercial real estate so theoretically if margins drop everywhere all at once because of increased labor costs then rents drop to pay for that labor because unutilized real estate loses money. Unfortunately landlords are financed by banks and their mortgages create sticky price points that are very resistant to those drops. This isn’t taking into account general political resistance to property devaluation (which is huge). So telling you who is going to pay for it beyond saying “eventually it’ll get paid” is kinda impossible. Could be the worker, could be the consumer who is the worker, could be the capitalist, could be finance. Generally it’s a little of all. But you need strong unions to protect what little you got.
The best thing to do with economic policies that might negatively impact unproductive sectors such as rentiers is to let them fail. Nobody guaranteed them an infinitely lucrative revenue stream. And if the pricing is sticky, it’ll come unstuck in a big wave once the insolvencies start. We just have to make sure even bigger parasites don’t use that as a reason to seize control of those assets.
I agree. Unfortunately that would implode the western financialized system all the way to the middle class so your options tend to be revolution or waiting for it to blow itself up. I’d personally speed it up like condemnation of vacant properties and liquidity provided by state development banks to homeowners and businesses to buy said properties instead of waiting for vulture capitalists (blackrock) to buy things up when they’re the only ones with liquidity.