Get in the Hilux.
Legitimately, I don’t think corporations are thinking on that scale. They can’t even see past next quarter.
Water drops in the ocean never mean to be- come a tsunami.
The CEOs maybe, but they then hire people who know all this psychology and absolutely know how to accomplish this.
I think this and similar ideas were more of an post-implementation discovery that now drives refused change of said systems. The idea that some grand plan has been in effect from any starting point is where absurdity is introduced.
The wealthy, ie the powerful, cannot even agree within their circle on much, and the entire personality that reaches said level isn’t known for thorough meticulous loyalty to a group plan.
The short name for what you’ve just described is POSIWID - the Purpose Of a System Is What It Does. There is no meaning in ascribing intent to a system beyond its function, because intentions don’t matter. Systems act regardless. If an outcome occurs - our emiseration - and those in charge do nothing to correct it, then they are implicitly approving of it, so it becomes part of the system’s purpose by evolution.
This doesn’t preclude policy decisions made by elite politicians funded by the wealthy from being designed to keep lower classes too exhausted to politically mobilize or rise up the caste or class system.
If you read The laws of power and super freakonomics, it’s easy to draw the conclusion that ethical companies are out competed by unethical companies, and should a company choose to remain ethical despite that, then the company can come to an end.
It’s financial death by a million cuts.
If you refuse to use slave labor to produce your tennis shoes, the company that does use slave labor to produce their tennis shoes can sell their shoes for less money.
No absolutely not, I agree, and I made the point elsewhere in this thread that anyone who knows “entrepreneurial” types will know that they relish in this kind of machiavellian thinking. They think it makes them so smart and so good at business that they know how to manipulate people into spending money.
Maybe it wasn’t intentional at first, but once they saw the effect and realized why it was happening, they definitely cranked it up to 11.
To some degree, yes. But its also a direct product of the systems starting point as well. Arguably, not changing anything is the best thing to keep the system in their favor for as long as possible.
What I’d argue is the “decision” they individually make, is to what degree they allow the suffering caused by their actions to be actually linked to them in the public eye. You have people like elon who are on the extreme end of unapologetic assholery, and then there are the people of equal or greater wealth who we cannot even name. I think that’s the core decision that the ultra wealthy make that affects society the most. Loud out and proud makes for a very clear and, to some degree understood, target for everything from legislation to pitchforks and torches. Quiet and Guarded makes for less “fun” and likely drives some of the large losses in wealth (chasing the big number for its brain feels gets increasingly risky).
I could go on and on about my amatuer class theory, but I’ll spare the rest. While all of this is important to consider at times of great change, I’d like to point out that I don’t find this aspect of examining class warfare to be helpful without the will and leadership to enact change.
The OT rules are governed at a national level and incentiving certain hourly amounts is policy created by the elites who know exhausted workers have less energy to question their exploitation. Look at wealth inequaluty by country and hours per week worked by the average person.
Corporations don’t think. People do. And elite rich people set policy that the lower classes either accept or rebel against.
Working forty-plus hours a week plus commute and domestic responsibilities keeps us from civic awareness.
It also keeps us from parenting and has since the start of the industrial age. So the madness (the family dysfunction and mental illness) is intergenerational.
We’re all mad here.
It used to be worse during the gilded age, and people still managed to unionize then.
They think I do 3 hours of work a day…ha
I’m sitting in the IT room hiding from everyone as we speak only 5 hours to go and I’ll have 8 hours no work done
Does that make you happy? Genuine question, because I absolutely hate not doing anything productive
I think making us purchase happy, while indeed very beneficial to the owning class, is still just a side effect (E: of the length of the work day, not capitalism in general) to the real reason (and why the 8 hour work day is a compromise people had to fight, and die, for) - keeping us tired and hungry (and not only for indulgence) and at risk of losing it all if we don’t go to work tomorrow keeps us from having the time, energy, and community (because capitalism encourages crab mentality) to organise and revolt against them, and their oppressive systems.
I have worked less than 40 hours a week (and more as well).
My entertainment spending in both scenarios says this is complete horsecrap.
During Covid times I had the chance to work 6 hours a day (for the same pay) and boy did things change in everyone’s life. People were clearly happier and more productive. Even my then manager agreed that it allowed for a significant improvement in work/life balance.
Unsurprisingly, everything went back to normal when it was over.
My big realization over the years working from home (both pre and post pandemic), with teams in differen time zones and with different types of workdays is that there just isn’t a single best answer. Things change person to person as well as over time.
But yeah, working fewer hours a week honestly didn’t impact productivity much at all, and moving the hours from a single chunk to mostly working at the right times for each type of task made things more sustainable. You can’t always be flexible about this on every position, but when you can I genuinely think it can get you to where you want to go faster and more reliably to be loose and align with specific needs.
There is a single best answer. 40 hours of work is too much given other responsibilities and compankes should be required to pay overtime when someone works over 32 hours.
Women in the workforce means most workers don’t have a fulltime childcare assistant cook cleaner at home anymore and the hours per week at work has not adjusted accordingly.
When covid hit they cut my hours to 32 a week. They wouldn’t let us do a four day work week which was kind of lame, but instead we got four 7-hour days then a 4-hour half-day on Friday. It doesn’t sound like a lot but even an extra hour in the evenings and an early start to the weekend turned out to be really refreshing. When things went back to normal, I asked if I could keep that schedule even with the 20% pay cut, but they said no.
Unfortunately, it seems that there simply aren’t a lot of white collar type office jobs where you can work for less than the standard 40 hours a week while keeping the same hourly rate and similar benefits.
I think it also depends on where you are in life. Way back when I was single, living along and with little to no responsibilities doing 40 hours wasn’t an issue. I would wake up at 6, hit the gym, do 8 hours of work, pickup takeaway, eat and then I pretty much have the rest of the day free (minus the occasional chore).
I lived close to work so daily commute time was 1 hour, gym and takeaway places were on the route. Add in 1 hour in the gym and after work, commute and gym I still had 6 hours of free time with 8 hours of sleep.
Now I do 32 hours a week and I don’t commute, but I have a family. Even with reduced workload I get 2-3 hours of personal time. ~1 hour comes from reduced workload and 1 hour comes from less sleep and the last hour comes from not hitting the gym. If I lived like I used to I’d have no free time and I’d have to make even more compromises about my time just to have some personal time. And let’s face it, working remotely means I definitely don’t spend the entire 6 or 6.5 hours on work. I have so many other responsibilities that doing less work is absolutely having an impact on my life and well-being.
I can’t fathom how people with families can do full 40 hours and find time to spend with their kids and find time to for self. I think they probably don’t find all that time. I think they’re compromising where they can and that mostly happens with themselves and their children, work is not compromised.
Look, I’m happy for you, but I’ve never had it in me to do any of that. Single, young, whatever. I had the energy to stop for a drink on the way back home, at best. On a good day.
Definitely. I’m currently living the dream. Four day work week with about twenty hours a week actual work. My wife and I own and run the place, so no overseers. I have enough money and free time to indulge hobbies, spend a lot of time with my daughter, and hit the gym five times a week. I’m probably the happiest, middle-aged person I know.
That’s great, dude. I’m happy you’re not chained to a desk and just scraping by.
Thanks?
This makes it sound like: “In the beginning, there was no work and everybody was happy. Then the shadowy magnates plotted to erect an 8-hour workday”.
What actually happened was: "In the beginning there were 16-hour workdays seven days a week; unions struggled to create better conditions for workers, and the magnates resisted, but some basic rights were attained".
But then in 1980, enough bOtH pArTiEs ArE tHe SaMe LoL idiots neglected to vote, giving the right-wing and its’ “make 'murica grate agin” union-hating, Bedtime For Bonzo b-movie actor the power to bust unions by hook and by crook, starting with air traffic controllers.
Things only stagnated or got worse from there. Allowing republican pigs in power - executive, legislative and/or judicial - to take the whole of society for a greedy joyride every four-to-eight years has assured that no change for the better takes place.
This does sound a bit conspiracy-ish, but they do have a point. Whether it’s intentional or not is debatable, but it sure is convenient for corpos
I would recommend a leisurely reading of Amusing Ourselves to Death (PDF) by Neil Postman
Amusing Ourselves to Death Wikipedia page
And just for fun (on the topic of conspiracy and psychological manipulation): The US mil/gov has been using memes and meme culture since AT LEAST 2009 as psyop
I hate ads and refuse to watch them. Now that prime has ads it’ll show commercials and ads based on my search history. Was watching tv on freevee (Amazon owned) last night and it started showing me commercials for an air compressor supply company, all because ive been look to buy a new manifold for mine. A very niche ad that I doubt many people are shown. It just gave me big ick and I turned the TV off. Furthermore I never searched for compressor parts on Amazon, only Google so yeah wtf
I had a similar experience on FB. I searched for something online, or maybe was talking about it with a friend on WhatsApp and all of a sudden, ads. I want off this cyber-dystopian hellride
While I agree with this, why is it in quotes? Who is OOP quoting? Like, would this be less convincing without the quotes?
I don’t think there’s some Machiavellian plot, but I think mechanically, an 8 hour day precludes you from seeking other “full time” work, thus reducing your labor bargaining position, as your first employer has a monopoly on your time.
Remote work (for those that can do it) represents freedom on this matter.
I think you’re right that nobody sat down and planned out this outcome, although the core principle of “starve them of free time that they might use to become independent” is still there with your motivation. Alienation from our own time disempowers us and thus differentially empowers the owner class, and that’s always something they will encourage.
And honestly, if you’ve ever spent time with “entrepreneurial” types, they take glee in how clever they’re being, thinking of the many ways they can manipulate people into spending money. They genuinely take pride in getting one over on people, to the point it becomes outright contempt for the percieved stupidity of their customers. I have absolutely no doubt that some version of this conversation about free time has happened in some golf club or boardroom many times. That doesn’t mean they made it so, but some of the owner class is aware and happy about this state of affairs.
Also, another thing to think about is POSIWID - the Purpose Of a System Is What It Does. There is no meaning in ascribing intent to a system beyond its function, because intentions don’t matter. Systems act regardless. If an outcome occurs - our emiseration - and those in charge do nothing to correct it, then they are implicitly approving of it, so it becomes part of the system’s purpose by evolution.
I quit work at 35 because of some of this, first job at 17 in the first week, I wondered at the hell this would be when I was 65… that and near death experience that made me realise what was important to me. Am now 58.
My only regret was not quitting work earlier, it’s hard to work against the herd though.
What happened in 2001 that allowed you to stop working at 35?
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