I think society would benefit from a shorter work week, and spending free time recreationally be it with their family and friends, playing sports, arts and music, etc. That time could easily be spent developing arts, music, and culture in a city, or otherwise developing our lives on a more personal level. Plus, I'd much rather have free time than spend maybe 25 hours actually working and another 15 sitting around pretending to work. I've yet to have a job where the vast majority of my time is actually spent working.
I would guess that a 20-30 hour work week is completely feasible from a production standpoint in most cases.I've yet to have a job where the vast majority of my time is actually spent working.
I was recently talking with b_b and insomniasexx about how at the beginning of ones career you work a LOT. 50-60 our work weeks aren't uncommon. Then as your career advances and ideally you become more sought after, you inevitably get paid more and work less hours. I've also noticed that the higher you climb the business ladder, the less likely you are to wear a tie. -I never want to wear a tie again unless its a funeral or a wedding.
I remember learning about "Holy Monday" in the sense that it was known during the Industrial Revolution: Holy Monday did not only call into play the question of work time, but also the use of money, because workers did not return to work until they had spent all of their salary. From this period on, the slave was no longer considered simply a worker, but a consumer as well. The need to develop the internal market by opening it up to the poor had been theorized by Adam Smith. Moreover, as Archbishop Berkeley wrote in 1755, "wouldn't the creation of needs represent the best means of making the nation industrious"The resistance of the first factory workers manifested itself primarily over one of the rare things that belonged to them, and of which they were being dispossessed: their time. It was an old religious custom not to work on either Sunday or Monday, which was called "Holy Monday." Since Tuesdays were dedicated to recovering from two days of drinking, work would not reasonably begin until Wednesday. Wide spread at the beginning of the 19th century, this holy custom subsisted until 1914 in some trades. Various coercive methods were employed by the bosses, without success, to combat this institutionalised absenteeism. It was with the introduction of trade unions that Saturday afternoons off from work were substituted for "Holy Monday.'' This glorious conquest meant that the work week was extended by two days.
Some would be negative, but would they outweigh the good? Who knows but It would be a shame to dismiss more personal freedom, over concerns of the unknown.
For me working less is more or less automatically good because I have a vision of what I could use the extra free time doing, and who I could be working with. For other people, working less might not be good for them, at least not immediately. It depends on that type of person you are and what your hobbies are.
Would those negatives be more than the current negatives?