[RdSnt]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Leanan', '
')
Even today, some organizations in Hawaii offer a system where you do a certain amount of work, then you can go home. No matter what time it is.

[Leanan]

"Piece work" generally means you get paid per piece. So there is incentive to work extra. Finish more pieces, you get more money. That's not way the "ukapau" system in Hawaii worked.

It's true that in foraging societies, people generally work less than four hours a day. People living foraging lifestyles now are living on very marginal lands - the desert, the Arctic. So it's likely that most humans actually worked even less in our hunter-gatherer days, since they were living on better land.

What changed? Agriculture. Particularly, the growing of grains that could be stored. That allowed people to accumulate wealth.

Before grain, that wasn't possible. Most foods (meat, vegetables, fruit) cannot be easily stored for long periods. Once you had enough to feed your family, there was no reason to grow or gather more.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ReverseEngineer', '
')The problem left unresolved in the promotion here of a society where people do not really need to work so much is just how you distribute out the food and shelter to the people?

We can no doubt keep producing food for quite some time, we certainly have plenty of shelters built. How, in the absence of jobs and functioning money do we equitably distribute out the food and the shelter?

Reverse Engineer

[seldom_seen]

You must read this article from Orion magazine if you haven't done so already.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]The Gospel of Consumption

Industrialists feared that the frugal habits maintained by most American families would be difficult to break. Perhaps even more threatening was the fact that the industrial capacity for turning out goods seemed to be increasing at a pace greater than people’s sense that they needed them.

It was this latter concern that led Charles Kettering, director of General Motors Research, to write a 1929 magazine article called “Keep the Consumer Dissatisfied.”

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/ ... ticle/2962

[Byron100]

Excellent article - thank you so much for posting that. Sums up very nicely my long-held beliefs about work. Kudos to Kellogg for having the six-hour day - imagine if that was the universal standard as opposed to the 8-hour day, which is often much longer than that, even.

Damn those nasty Puritans and the moronic "work ethic" they stuck us with...I just wish those azzholes had settled in Brazil or someplace like that...LOL. I've always hated them with exuberant passion, even as a little kid.

I've come to believe that us humans were never meant to be slaves to the land or the factory, rather, we're a thinking species, destined to live content, joyful lives full of creativity, leisure and fellowship with friends and family - and working just hard enough to provide for our basic needs and a few cherished luxuries, in total harmony with our environment.

Any other mode of living is a fool's errand - as we're about to collectively find out in a very big way, very soon.

[RdSnt]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('seldom_seen', '
').Imagine if instead of burning up, cutting down and strip mining everything in less than a century...we instead worked less, wanted less and consumed less? The US could have lasted several thousand years instead of a few hundred.

[Daniel_Plainview]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Byron100', '
')I've come to believe that us humans were never meant to be slaves to the land or the factory, rather, we're a thinking species, destined to live content, joyful lives full of creativity, leisure and fellowship with friends and family - and working just hard enough to provide for our basic needs and a few cherished luxuries, in total harmony with our environment.

Any other mode of living is a fool's errand - as we're about to collectively find out in a very big way, very soon.

[jdmartin]

Great article! Thanks for the link. I had no idea Kellogg was so progressive back in 1930. That would be a great movement today. Some of the European cultures seem to lean that way - I know a lot of my Italian relatives would be considered "lazy" in the US, especially without any real commitment to time, 2 hour lunch breaks, etc.

[TWilliam]

Well, looks like a good time to dust off this classic piece...

The Abolition of Work

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]No one should ever work.

Work is the source of nearly all the misery in the world. Almost all the evil you'd care to name comes from working or from living in a world designed for work. In order to stop suffering, we have to stop working.

That doesn't mean we have to stop doing things. It does mean creating a new way of life based on play; in other words, a ludic revolution. By "play" I mean also festivity, creativity, conviviality, commensality, and maybe even art. There is more to play than child's play, as worthy as that is. I call for a collective adventure in generalized joy and freely interdependent exuberance. Play isn't passive. Doubtless we all need a lot more time for sheer sloth and slack than we ever enjoy now, regardless of income or occupation, but once recovered from employment-induced exhaustion nearly all of us [will] want [to] act. Oblomovism and Stakhanovism are two sides of same debased coin.

The ludic life is totally incompatible with existing reality. So much the worse for "reality," the gravity hole that sucks the vitality from the little in life that still distinguishes it from mere survival. Curiously—maybe not—all the old ideologies are conservative because they believe in work. Some of them, like Marxism and most brands of anarchism, believe in work all the more fiercely because they believe in so little else.

Liberals say we should end employment discrimination. I say we should end employment. Conservatives support right-to-work laws. Following Karl Marx's wayward son-in-law Paul Lafargue I support the right to be lazy. Leftists favor full employment. Like the surrealists—except that I'm not kidding—I favor full unemployment. Trotskyists agitate for permanent revolution. I agitate for permanent revelry. But if all the ideologues (as they do) advocate work—and not only because they plan to make other people do theirs—they are strangely reluctant to say so. They will carry on endlessly about wages, hours, working conditions, exploitation, productivity, profitability. They'll gladly talk about anything but work itself. These experts who offer to do our thinking for us rarely share their conclusions about work, for all its saliency in the lives of all of us. Among themselves they quibble over the details. Unions and management agree that we ought to sell the time of our lives in exchange for survival, although they haggle over the price. Marxists think we should be bossed by bureaucrats. Libertarians think we should be bossed by businessmen. Feminists don't care which form bossing takes so long as the bosses are women. Clearly these ideology-mongers have serious differences over how to divvy up the spoils of power. Just as clearly, none of them have any objection to power as such and all of them want to keep us working.

[Snowrunner]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Byron100', 'I') would LOVE to live in a society like that. This whole idea of staying on the clock for 8 hours a day regardless if the job is done or not is just insane - I mean, what's the point of "finding" stuff to do, or "looking busy" just to run out the clock each day?

[alokin]

Well, that means that some of us may be without jobs very soon.
But does this mean real shortages? You can't really talk about shortage on plasma TV's, that's not really affecting anybody. I mean the stuff we really need - will there be shortages of this?
And factories shut and may reopen, however that is not really likely as we won't have money to buy.

[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('alokin', 'W')ell, that means that some of us may be without jobs very soon.
But does this mean real shortages? You can't really talk about shortage on plasma TV's, that's not really affecting anybody. I mean the stuff we really need - will there be shortages of this?
And factories shut and may reopen, however that is not really likely as we won't have money to buy.

[RdSnt]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Snowrunner', '
')Since this week I noticed that the ships are riding quite high, both inbound and outbound, so high in fact that I could see the screws turn in the water.

Not a good sign.

[lawnchair]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('alokin', '
')But does this mean real shortages? You can't really talk about shortage on plasma TV's, that's not really affecting anybody. I mean the stuff we really need - will there be shortages of this?

[bratticus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', 'T')hese people loose their health insurance and do not go in for "little things" like suicidal idealition, flu, or to have that hip replaced. Nurses, support staff, CNA's they get laid off (already happening btw).

[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bratticus', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', 'T')hese people loose their health insurance and do not go in for "little things" like suicidal idealition, flu, or to have that hip replaced. Nurses, support staff, CNA's they get laid off (already happening btw).

[bratticus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', 'I')n fact a rather small proportion.

[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bratticus', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', 'I')n fact a rather small proportion.

[IslandCrow]

Trade volumes sink even further http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/davos/7882816.stm

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')hina's exports fell more than expected in January, down 17.5% from a year earlier, marking the biggest drop in more than 10 years, figures have shown.

Imports were down 43.1% in the month compared with a year ago, as China's economy continued to be hit by the global economic slowdown.

Analysts say the slowdown could prompt more factory closures and job losses.

China's global trade surplus widened to $39.1bn last month, after recording a surplus of $39bn in December.

[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '&')quot;If you sit in one of the glamorous bars on the south side of Hong Kong, especially in the evening, you will see the lights of lots of ships," says Tim Huxley, chief executive of Wah Kwong Shipping, one of Hong Kong's largest ship-owners.

"Those ships are sitting there, waiting," he says.

"Those are bulk carriers and container ships that haven't got anywhere to go at the moment, there's no cargo for them to carry.

"They're sitting waiting for instructions, waiting for an upturn in trade that will see them moving again, carrying the raw materials that are needed to make the finished goods that are then exported out of southern China to the markets of the West."

Hong Kong has about 70 ships in "hot lay-up" at the moment, meaning they are waiting with full crews. Singapore has several hundred ships in "cold lay-up", where the ships are without crew.