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From: baba@spar.UUCP (Baba ROM DOS)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: "Job creation" considered ridiculous
Message-ID: <290@spar.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 5-Jun-85 02:47:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: spar.290
Posted: Wed Jun  5 02:47:08 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 6-Jun-85 06:40:51 EDT
References: <1448@watdcsu.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA
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> "If the ordinary wage-earner worked four hours a day, there would be
> enough for everybody, and no unemployment -- assuming a certain very
> moderate amount of sensible organisation."
> 	-- Bertrand Russell, In Praise of Idleness (1932)

Consider what that "moderate amount" really is.

>                Or, consider the work that goes into producing dreck
> like electric knives.  Or "paperwork".  Probably, most office work
> (including computer work) is inessential.

>                               The eight hour day is no longer
> necessary.  In fact, if Russell is to be believed, it hasn't been
> necessary in over 50 years.
> 
> Technological progress enables us to produce more.  Why is it that
> so few people ever see the obvious implication, that technological
> progress can also enable us to work less?  And why is it, whenever
> shorter hours are suggested, usually by some university professor,
> in a newspaper article, the idea is instantly forgotten by almost
> everybody, while the concept of "job creation" refuses to go away?
> 
> -- 
> David Canzi

Given the choice between producing the same amount with reduced labor input 
and producing more with the same amount of labor, industrial managers tend 
to choose expansion.  It offers more immediate benefit to both enterprise 
and worker.  The real cost of the goods produced then drops.  As necessities 
become cheaper, the economy of discretionary spending grows, and "unnecessary" 
things get done.  There is nothing wrong with this in principle, and I think 
it advances the human condition at least as much as taking an approach which 
says, "We will produce only the essentials of life, can do so ever more 
cheaply, and are going to spend our time in non-productive activities instead."
It is indeed wrong that a society that produces MTV and frozen yogurt can 
allow people to be unwillingly deprived of food and shelter.  But I don't 
see how reducing the working hours of industrial labor addresses that problem 
at all.

						Baba