[beeforpork]

Every time a robot or AI or whatever machine takes over the work of many workers, why not lower the average work week hours accordingly? The machine made the process more efficient, and the machine works instead of the worker. So less work is needed for the worker, and this could be averaged to pay out as a bonus for all workers. If you want to calculate this is money, you could also say that the machine does not work for free, but it is definitely cheaper than labor, so we could at least say that the difference of these costs is the gained efficiency, and this could be translated back to lowering the average work load of workers. And if you still want an incentive that more machines are introduced, you would say that 80% of the gained efficiency is translated back to lowering the average human worker's load.

There is no reason why we should have unemployment if machines make work more efficient -- it just means that there is enough money to be earned to give back part of it so that we do not need all the manpower.

What's wrong with this perspective?

[simonsarris]

We've been doing that for a long time. Average worker in

    1900 worked 3000 hours
    1950 worked 2000 hours
    2023 worked 1790 hours

There's been a decline as living standards (and expectations) have dramatically increased. In the 1990s people still mended clothes.

Maybe you are expecting even fewer hours still, which you are welcome to do. I know lots of people that work 800 hours a year. All their basic needs are easily met. I do not want to live like them, though.

data from: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-working-hours-per-...

[philipallstar]

It's the same as saying "people need food to live; why not raise the price of food indefinitely to have better wages for people who produce food?"

The answer (thank goodness) is: competition.

You are a consumer more than you are a worker. Every industry that brings in automation and reduced costs can offer you goods for less, or pay their workers the same for more. Competition means they tend to choose the former (or, given there's also competition for workers, actually wages go up a bit and prices come down a bit, but there are slightly fewer jobs).

[Ray20]

You sound like an out-of-touch elitist. Do you really not understand all this? Just out of curiosity, what do you and your parents do for a living?

> why not lower the average work week hours accordingly?

Because workers can get more money this way.

> this could be translated back to lowering the average work load of workers.

Yeah, but workers want more money, not a lower load.

> it just means that there is enough money to be earned

More money means more agents trying to earn them, which means more competition, which mean less profit.

[6510]

It doesn't matter what they think they want. If you give them more money everything gets more expensive. Employers should want the maximum productivity per buck spend. 8 hours, 5 days only has appeal to tradition going for it. I'm not aware of any serious research.

[AnimalMuppet]

It depends on what you want. Machines increased productivity. What do you want to do with it? Do you want more stuff? Or do you want more time? You (plural, as in, society) can take one or the other, or some of each, but not all of both.

Traditionally we have taken the gains in terms of more stuff. (Not always, though - the 8-hour workday and 5-day week are in fact taking the gains in the form of time.) But we may be at a place where more stuff isn't going to make us that much better off.

That is, some of us may be there. Not all. There are still far too many people who don't have decent housing, nor any realistic chance of getting it. There are far too many people who can be ruined by one medical issue. There are far too many people who don't have food security. So maybe what we really ought to be spending the gains on is a better life for those people - that is, the "living wage" part. Living wage for all, first. Then we can see if we can reach the 32-hour week.

[imchillyb]

The owners of said company do not make processes more efficient in order to share the additional profits with others.

In order to affect the change you are suggesting that change must be legislated. Those who make laws are funded by these same companies extracting wealth from labor.

How would one implement such a plan without it falling apart immediately in The House or Senate?

[skeeter2020]

>> What's wrong with this perspective?

The worker is not putting out the capital that (hopefully) pays off in increased productivity; why do they benefit from this investment - especially when it's diameterically opposite the cost/value proposition they represent? If we value an employee's contribution and pay accordingly why would I pay more per unit if they work less?

I don't necessarily (fully) agree with this counter, but you better believe that's how investors view it. Productivity is really hard to measure in IT, but I tend to think of "attention". I want to pay a salary for all of your attention, and when you start talking about reducing your... work-focused hours (?) I'm getting less for the same money.

[__MatrixMan__]

It requires somebody who is in a powerful enough position to enforce the rule and also who doesn't become corrupted by their access to that kind of power.

Or it lacks a mechanism by which we can enforce the rule collectively.

By all means let's make it happen, it's a great idea, but how?

[Arch-TK]

Companies are constantly striving to compete. Being able to do more with the same amount of staff and therefore salary is a big part of that. The moment you let your workforce reduce their hours just because they are more productive is the moment a competitor gains extra productivity compared to you by simply not following suit.

If you want to work less, you need unions, government intervention, or some other form of organization (e.g. a change in the status quo).

[gdulli]

> So less work is needed for the worker, and this could be averaged to pay out as a bonus for all workers.

The whole point of their investment into the machines is to no longer have to pay workers.

> What's wrong with this perspective?

Morally? Nothing.

[refulgentis]

Up front: it is a fine perspective! Please take following as indulging your active curiosity because I find it compelling, not talking down.

If I sat down for a coffee with my favorite economics professor and they were doing a Socratic education thing, they’d ask:

- What happens if someone refuses to work less?

- Does that strike you as a stable state, or, the first turn in an assignment you gotta sketch out for that Game Theory class you’re taking.

- What happens if we automate all of someone’s job?

- What would it look like if we did this with ATMs? Would excess tellers be at home with same salary in perpetuity? Bank employment held stable with ATMs, even though tellers decreased. Under this proposal, would it have increased, as management couldn’t be automated and now can focus on loans?

- What happens in a more factory-like setting, where automation of manual work might entail constant monitoring?

In terse form: we’re instituting a more complicated form of communism with more moral hazards, and any analysis of what happens beyond the first step reveals a nest of complicated questions that result in less efficiency any time we build tools that could make us more efficient. The only thing I can think of is it would “resolve” generationally. I.e. if we needed 4 Grugs to carry the harvest, then invent the wheel and only need 1 Greg, 3 Grugs get to do nothing till they die and the generation that invented the tool reap no benefits of the invention, only their offspring will. (Their labor can get reallocated like the 3 Grugs normally would have)

[AnimalMuppet]

Historically, the answer has been that we as a society have freed up 3 Grugs for them to do something else. One can go to work in the factory that makes wheels. One can go to work in a factory that makes refrigerators, so that now half the harvest doesn't rot. One can go to work inventing semiconductors. These things make us far better off than having 4 Grugs carrying the harvest, or 3 Grugs idle.

The problem now is that we're not sure what to have the other people do that will actually pay them a living wage.

Or do we? The unemployment numbers are still pretty low. Is that just because people gave up and stopped looking for jobs? Is it because the immigrants left? Or is the economy actually doing fairly well at finding things for people to do?

[shputil]

Do you think we live in a planned economy or something?

[BobbyJo]

Capitalism. Squeezing out that productivity for the company instead of the worker ensures your company has an advantage over competitors, either via reduced cost or higher margins.

Pretty much all anti-worker outcomes are just corporate competition playing out.

[mig1]

Are you asking me to give some of my profits to the workers? Are you a communist? /s

[skeeter2020]

even as sarcasm and that's really not how communism works, where there's no notion of profits.