Why are we still working this hard?

mitxela

Because the people in charge of deciding which work should be done have decided that we should spend every waking hour making them more powerful. Next!

Dr_Birdbrain

The simple answer is that we will continue to work this hard as long as some members of society are willing to work this hard. The hardest working participants of the labor market will set the tone of the competition for high-paying jobs. A typical tech job requires far more than 40 hour work weeks.

XenophileJKO

Nobody wants to admit they are having a 15 hour work week with AI, but if in office attendence is any indication, I think many knowledge workers are starting to reduce work hours. It is much easier to do so remotely. Some are filling hours with more work however it seems like many are not increasing work volume, just quietly reducing the amount of labor.

carlosjobim

If working people in industrialized society weren't artificially kept indebted and poor (relative to the wealth they should have), then it would be impossible for the rulers to control the population, and they would loose their power. A ruler will always prefer to rule over 100 wretches, than be an equal with 100 peers. And people all over the world have been bred to submit by relentless head stomping by family, school and media. But the current order will end without violence and be forgotten as foolishness, just like the spell of the feared Soviet terror regime ended as if people woke up from a dream. Just like the strangle grip of popes, priests and monks ended and is now the source of ridicule. Our children's children will look with nothing but disgust at how the current population worship "governments", "authorities" and so on - all of these illusions made up of some of the least admirable people alive.

quantified

We live in a money-based economy. Money comes from other people, who don't give it away unless you satisfy them somehow. Those people that want work from you, will take all the work you can perform (up to the limit of labor laws). That's why.

jpatten

I'm no economist but it seems like competition for housing drives up prices as wages increase. Also, more generally, people's happiness seems to be more correlated with their economic rank in a society, rather than their wealth in absolute terms [1]. So, people want to do better than their neighbors, not just do well. 1. Boyce, Brown & Moore (2010), “Money and Happiness: Rank of Income, Not Income, Affects Life Satisfaction”

jdw64

I was reading this and a question came up. It ultimately works under the premise that there is only one ticket — so the conclusion is that the ticket must be ownership. But if machines produce more, couldn't the state provide free services rather than cash? In kind provision could be less dependent on wages than taxation is. Then couldn't we divide the monetary system further — not as banknotes, but by subdividing it? Would the administrative system be too difficult after all? In other words, if the problem is that only the "wage" earned for participating in production grants the right to consume, then shouldn't tickets to the means of production also be distributed? Still, no matter how I think about it, in the end it comes down to the problem of distribution. The OP also gives capital ownership as an example, but... If automation can enable substantial production without human labor, then what on earth is the reason we should keep demanding that humans do wage labor for survival? I find myself thinking about this a lot these days. Someone who did not participate in production can consume the product because they own capital. Then what is the basis on which that right arises? In fact, economic logic, when you think about it, seems to be mostly a kind of circular reasoning. It says "capital's share equals its marginal contribution," but that market itself is ultimately something created by power. Sometimes I have thoughts like this. In fact, the core of capitalism is the ownership of the means of production, and such ownership will keep accumulating ever-widening disparities. If automation keeps advancing, humans will eventually become unnecessary — and then how will the market be maintained? We cannot give everyone a claim on automated production. In the end, a ruling class and a ruled class will inevitably exist, and the question becomes how the ruling class can rule entirely with the consent of the ruled. Lately, it seems this principle no longer works in capitalism.

an0malous

Productivity gains have mostly gone to the investor class, they’re not only not working but making more for not working than they ever have. Elon could go sniff glue for a day and he’ll make more money than most of us would working 10 jobs for the rest of our lives.

dataviz1000

Whitney’s cotton gin increased the speed separating cotton fibers from the sticky seeds by 50x. I wonder if labor will experience similar outcomes with the efficiency AI creates?

BugsJustFindMe

We work this hard because there's insufficient collective drive to provide for all before the wealthy are allowed to extract. If 2 people both need something to survive, then collectively the group needs to produce 2 of those things. But if 1 of them demands 1000 of that thing, then collectively they need to produce 1001 of that thing to satisfy the demand. The _problem_ is that the demand for the extra 999 is given equal weight and competes for production resources vs the 2 that are actually needed instead of explicitly prioritizing the 2 and then letting the 999 come from a secondary market of post-needs-fulfillment labor. Right now if the group produces only the needed 2, then most of the time the person who only wants the 1 that they need won't get anything at all, and in many cases that means they starve and die. When the consequence of collectively producing less than the total sum demanded by the wealthy is that some people will then starve and die, that hangs like an inverse sword of damocles over the heads of the poor and middle class, always threatening those who can't just buy their way out into laboring more than would be otherwise needed. The very obvious to me solution is to structurally prioritize meeting everyone's common needs for food/water, shelter, and medical care first before then satisfying the desires of the rich who want more. That way rich people can still get all their private jets and fancy cars, but they'll need to pay more to convince people that the loss of their leisure time is worthwhile instead of everyone in the underclass living under constant threat for survival. Personally I think the constant political drumbeat to have more jobs instead of literally anyone trying to maximize collective leisure time is the greatest tragedy of modern capitalism. It's always jobs jobs jobs instead of needs and rest.

barchar

It's something of a collective action problem even beyond power relations. My motivation to work less than 40h just isn't that high since everyone around me is working 40h too. Also has to do with demand for savings. The US has a bunch of mostly accidental policies that juice that demand.

jms703

We work hard for billionaires (directly or indirectly) so that we have money to pay the billionaires and their many subsidiaries.

IshKebab

Do you really need a whole essay to answer that question? The answer is super obvious: supply and demand. The fact that we can do in 16 hours what we used to in 40 doesn't suddenly mean that people are only willing to work 16 hours.

wat10000

One aspect that interests me is the relative difficulty of "part time" employment. We define "full time" as 40 hours a week (number may vary depending on location and field, but that's the stereotypical value). The wage that brings in may be, for successful people in a reasonably lucrative field, substantially more than needed for a comfortable life. But let's say I decide that I'd be happy with my life at 50% of my current pay, and I want to do 50% less work in exchange. 20 hours per week instead of 40. If you're in the kind of job that makes enough for this to work, you probably can't do it. 20 hours per week is for crappy jobs in retail and food service. It's very unlikely that you'll find a tech job willing to employ you part time at any pay level. So even if I, personally, am sufficiently productive and sufficiently compensated that I could afford to work a lot less than people did 50 years ago, I can't do it. At least, I can't do it on a rolling basis. The closest I can come is to retire early. Or maybe take some years off in the middle of my career, but that's extremely risky. I definitely can't cut my hours and pay in half over a week, or month, or even year.

itpragmatik

so that we have money to cover our health insurance!

jjcm

Because capitalism is a competitive environment, and improvements in efficiency increase the opportunity cost of not working harder. We aren't competing with workers from 1973, we're competing with other workers leveraging the same accelerated efficiency.

unyttigfjelltol

Answer: People are reluctant to live in 2026 the way they did in 1973. The additional compensation is a statistical artifact that accounts for air conditioning, iPhones, reliable cars that last 20 years, the Internet, etc.

lurker919

Seems like tragedy of the commons principle - if everyone was chilling and working 20 hour weeks, I'd do the same. But people hustle and grind to get rich so that's the culture I have to adapt to.

chrisra

IMO: if my company slows down to a healthier 30 hours, we lose to competitors and lose our livelihoods. So we have to keep up the 40 hours or disappear. Seems like so much effort is wasted in competition.

topspin

The "we" in this is a missing a piece: the size of the labor force. It's shrinking. Has been for 20+ years, with a peak around 2000. Some people are working hard. The growing demographic is the retired, the trust-funded and those NEET-ing around on various forms of subsistence income. Another few years we'll be back to post-war levels ~%58 of participation, where two-parent homes prevailed, and one stayed home.