- This seems like a problem with a simple answer: work less so I’d have more free time. I’ve already proven to myself that I can live a fulfilling lifestyle with less than I make right now. Unfortunately, this is close to impossible in my industry, and most others. You work 40-plus hours or you work zero. My clients and contractors are all firmly entrenched in the standard-workday culture, so it isn’t practical to ask them not to ask anything of me after 1 p.m., even if I could convince my employer not to.
This article is probably wrong in the sense that the 40 hour work week is a conspiracy to keep us short of time, although it is quite open knowledge that large corporations have been engineering our culture for a fair while. To paraphrase a saying; never suspect a conspiracy when idiocy is sufficient explanation. What he says about the state of consumer culture rings true.
I agree about the work week. However, I do have to think that there must be data out there regarding consumption and hours worked. It's odd that our work week is so inelastic. Increased productivity never comes back to the worker in the form of time, probably because that is the place where workers can most easily compete with each other for employment or higher wages. There is an increasing amount of talk about the post work world circulating; however, I don't know how we will get from here to there, when the productive capacity available today would surely have convinced someone in the late 1800's that the work week needn't be so long.