this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2025
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Work Reform

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[–] thebestaquaman@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

when the 5 day a week, 40 hour work week began there was a specific level of productivity. As technology increased the output increased.

Exactly, so following this argument, we can choose between living at our current (increased) productivity level (40 hour weeks), or trading off the technological advancements for more spare time at the cost of going back to the productivity level we had previously.

I won't argue for which of these two is "correct", I think the tradeoff between free time vs. more access to goods and services is considered very differently by different people. However, I do think that a major problem we're facing today is that the increased productivity we've had the past 50 years due to technological advances has benefited the wealthy far too much, at the expense of everyone else.

I think it's more fruitful to first try to take care of the wealth distribution, such that we can actually see the quality of life our current productivity level can give everyone. Then we can make an informed choice regarding whether we want to reduce the productivity in exchange for more free time.