The 20-hour workweek

Today’s education topic centers around the possibility of organizing our economy around goals other than profits.

Readings:

Discussion outline:

Leader starts by talking about a hobby or what they’d do if they had more free time.

Maybe you have a really cool hobby, would like to learn a language, learn an instrument, throw a block party, volunteer more, strengthen your community.

Maybe you’d just spend more time with family or friends.

Maybe you would just watch more TV.

As a socialist, I want you to be happy, and whatever it is that makes you happy, I want you to do a little more of it.

Socialism is about happiness.

Breakout groups discuss for a few minutes: What would you do if you only needed to work 20 hours to support yourself?

Each group gets a minute to share.

 

For a Luxury Leftism: There’s nothing wrong with champagne, caviar, and mansions. The problem is that not everyone has the opportunity to enjoy.

Socialism is the ideology of happiness. Let’s arrange society in a way to make people happier.

Snowdays Under Socialism points out that, under capitalism, snow days inhibit profit making. So capitalism forces people to risk their lives getting to work to make profits for a few. And if they can’t, they’re forced to speed up work or stay later for the rest of the week.

What would snow days look like under socialism? Driven not by the profit motive but by human happiness, everyone could enjoy a snow day–engage in some winter recreation, admire the beauty of freshly fallen snow, etc.

Could we find a way to meet everyone’s needs with a 20 hour workweek? I don’t know. But nobody doubts that we could do a 35 hour workweek.

Who decides our workweek? There is no 40 hour workweek–not when people can’t make ends meet working 40 hours and must work two or three jobs. A tiny sliver of the population, those who own controlling stakes in major corporations make the decisions of how long we have to work, based on what they pay people and work expectations. These people profit when people work long hours. This tiny sliver of the population gets to determine the workweek. This is not democratic. People’s lives would be so much better off working 4.5 days per week instead of five. Surely the happiness of so many should trump a few more dollars of profit for the few.

Or, we could organize our economy around some other goal, something other than profits for a few, or leisure for the many–something totally different. The point is that we allow these decisions to be made by a tiny sliver of the population, and we shouldn’t.

 

Open discussion in breakout groups for remaining time. Groups get a minute share at end.

 

 

People were very excited about this topic and offered lots of feedback, including:

This idea, from MR article, did not get enough attention:

One of the least known flirtations with the 30-hour work week was by the cereal giant W.K. Kellogg Company.  In 1930, the company announced that most of its 1500 employees would go from an 8-hour to a 6-hour work day, which would provide 300 new jobs in Battle Creek.  Though the shorter work week involved a pay cut, the overwhelming majority of workers preferred having increased leisure time to spend with their families and community.

New managers who began running Kellogg had no enthusiasm for the shorter work day.  They polled workers in 1946 and found that 77% of men and 87% of women would choose a 30-hour week even if it meant lower wages.  Disappointed, management began examining which work groups liked money more than leisure and began offering the 40-hour week on a department-by-department basis.

How long did it take them to get rid of the 30-hour week?  Almost 40 years!  The desire to have more time to themselves was so strong that it was not until 1985 that Kellogg was able to eliminate the 30-hour work week in the last department.

The experience at Kellogg indicates that it is absolutely false to say that all workers all of the time crave more stuff and will sacrifice anything to get it.

TINA–there is no alternative. We don’t dream enough. Think big. There is a better way.

 

Incorporate social feminism into this topic–domestic work is gendered.