I agree wholeheartedly, but I wanted to provide an alternative choice of language that I think better describes what we must do:
Rather than:
"Let's use our extra wealth to give people some more leisure time."
We could say:
"Let's use our extra wealth to take more leisure time for ourselves."
My life goal is to help end the necessity of human work for our survival, and I think it's critically important that we understand that this will only happen if we take the time. John Maynard Keynes famously predicted in 1930 that as productivity rose, working hours would drop and at some point we would all be working 15 hour work weeks. That didn't happen though, and it seems in a huge part related to the fact that, as productivity rose business owners turned that in to profit for themselves rather than sharing the profits with workers.
So suggesting business owners "give" us that time seems unlikely, and I think we need to take it for ourselves. We can do that by becoming business owners ourselves, either by joining a cooperative[1] or by starting our own business, or we can do that by earning a high enough salary that working 4/5 as much would still pay the bills, and then negotiating hard with prospective employers until you find one that needs you enough to accept a 32 hour a week schedule.
Anyway, I'm completely agreeing with you, I've just spent a lot of time thinking (and writing) about this and I think the language of suggesting we "give" this to workers critically misses out on the workers' agency and ability to take what they want for themselves.
Certainly, achieving this will not be easy and there are many problems, but I think it's a goal so worth achieving that we ought to work hard to figure that out.
> as productivity rose business owners turned that in to profit for themselves rather than sharing the profits with workers.
You hit the nail. This is exactly the reason why the 15 hour workweek did't arrive. And unless systemic changes happen it is also the reason why a market requires regulation.
OK I'm lost on "We could say: "Let's use our extra wealth to take more leisure time for ourselves."" and how you square that with the gap between median wage and median housing cost. What extra wealth are you talking about?
I suppose if you say everyone who wants a bit bit more leisure time should leave cities for cheaper places it works out monetarily, but then people have to move.
I think I explicitly answered your question in my comment - it involves taking more wealth for ourselves by refusing to work for bosses who take it all from us, or by becoming so valuable to those bosses that you command a high enough salary to take more time for yourself.
The median income is low because a small fraction of people take a large fraction of the wealth. But workers could leave wage jobs and become co-owners in a cooperative business, where wealth gains would be shared by all.
Where are all of these co-ops then? If people in in-demand fields struggle to find places with good work life balance, it seems that owners don't find it beneficial to themselves to adopt such a model or more would have done so, no? Almost a chicken and egg problem.
Rather than: "Let's use our extra wealth to give people some more leisure time."
We could say: "Let's use our extra wealth to take more leisure time for ourselves."
My life goal is to help end the necessity of human work for our survival, and I think it's critically important that we understand that this will only happen if we take the time. John Maynard Keynes famously predicted in 1930 that as productivity rose, working hours would drop and at some point we would all be working 15 hour work weeks. That didn't happen though, and it seems in a huge part related to the fact that, as productivity rose business owners turned that in to profit for themselves rather than sharing the profits with workers.
So suggesting business owners "give" us that time seems unlikely, and I think we need to take it for ourselves. We can do that by becoming business owners ourselves, either by joining a cooperative[1] or by starting our own business, or we can do that by earning a high enough salary that working 4/5 as much would still pay the bills, and then negotiating hard with prospective employers until you find one that needs you enough to accept a 32 hour a week schedule.
Anyway, I'm completely agreeing with you, I've just spent a lot of time thinking (and writing) about this and I think the language of suggesting we "give" this to workers critically misses out on the workers' agency and ability to take what they want for themselves.
Certainly, achieving this will not be easy and there are many problems, but I think it's a goal so worth achieving that we ought to work hard to figure that out.
[1] For more information on the benefits of a cooperative-business based economy, see the excellent book "Democracy at Work" By Richard Wolff: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13591849-democracy-at-wor...