The Unconditional Basic Income

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jessekopelman
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Post by jessekopelman » Mon Aug 10, 2009 1:23 pm

judge56988 wrote: Currently, the average number of hours worked per week is 44 in the UK compared to 40 in the rest of the EU. France recently introduced a 35 hour working week.
Yes, because we have labor laws that prevent companies to force people from working beyond ~40hrs/wk (varies country to country) without drastically increasing their hourly compensation. For salaried employees, things like overtime do not generally apply and it is not uncommon at all to work >> 40hrs/wk. Anyway, of course we can come up with examples of pre-labor law factory workers and indentured servants that worked ridiculous hours but is that really a good comparison for contemporary free-market labor? Again, you must also consider that prior to almost the 20th Century, the work day was constrained by available daylight -- it was very difficult to work more than an average of 8 hours a day. Of course, there was generally no working (other than for servants) on Sunday, either. So what would an extreme work week have been? 48 hours. As you say, the average work week in the UK is 44 hours. I think that makes my point. Also, you haven't even addressed the issue of employment. Even if you think workers worked harder 150 years ago, a lot more people didn't work at all (at least in the sense of contributing to the GDP).

judge56988
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Post by judge56988 » Mon Aug 10, 2009 11:40 pm

jessekopelman wrote: Again, you must also consider that prior to almost the 20th Century, the work day was constrained by available daylight -- it was very difficult to work more than an average of 8 hours a day.
I don't doubt that for one minute. But that's not quite all the information is it?
As almost any child could tell you, here in the UK we get 8 hours of daylight per day in the middle of the winter. For 8 months of the year it's 11 hours or more, 16 hours in June, July and August.
Most children could also tell you that they would have had to have worked 12 hours a day during the industrial revolution. It was the norm for domestic servants to work 14 hours a day with half a day a week off.
Title
Labour Requirements of the English Peasantry, 1280â€

jessekopelman
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Post by jessekopelman » Tue Aug 11, 2009 3:02 pm

judge56988 wrote:Most children could also tell you that they would have had to have worked 12 hours a day during the industrial revolution. It was the norm for domestic servants to work 14 hours a day with half a day a week off.

Funny how you chose to ignore this sentence: Anyway, of course we can come up with examples of pre-labor law factory workers and indentured servants that worked ridiculous hours but is that really a good comparison for contemporary free-market labor? I pretty sure you aren't advocating a return to no labor laws and indentured servitude. So why use those examples for your comparison to today's typical worker. Why not compare him to an 18th Century tradesman, merchant, or bureaucrat; none of whom worked longer hours than today's equivalents.
judge56988 wrote: I'm also sure that you know exactly what I mean when referring to the changes in peoples thinking that occurred during the 60's. It has been very well documented by historians and journalists. You surely couldn't have missed it... Quite the opposite to your claim that the liberal ideas introduced then were as old as society itself.
I'm not saying there was no change in the 60s. What I'm saying is that there wasn't steady state before that. Throughout history there have been cycles of conservatism and liberalism. The early 20th Century was in many ways more liberal than the 20 year period bookending WW2. Was the social revolution of the 60s an entirely new phenomenon or in some ways a return previous ideas? Name a single popular idea from the 60s social revolution that wasn't popular in some earlier period. Your claim that the 60s was something unheard of in centuries would be like me making the same claim for the return of conservatism in the 80s. The only reason the 60s gets so much hype is because of baby-boomers.
judge56988 wrote:So is that another "8 hours of daylight" type fact?
When did I ever say that there were only 8 hours of daylight? I said it was hard to work more than 8 hours because of available daylight. That number assumed that one would be taking breaks and not working continuously -- again I was not talking about indentured servants and serf-like factory workers. Still, I admit my 8 hours was way too little. I was thinking average hours of daylight was only about 10, but it is more like 12. So I will certainly concede this point.

jhhoffma
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Post by jhhoffma » Fri Aug 14, 2009 11:35 am

I'd be thankful for 8 hours of full daylight in mid-January!!!

twinbee
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Post by twinbee » Mon Aug 17, 2009 3:35 pm

We're at a stage where a small basic income is supplied for everyone (at least in the UK), but in the future, I suppose the basic income will rise and rise further.

When businesses and processes unify, and robots/computers begin to take over traditionally human jobs, the output and wealth will stay the same or increase, but human time has been freed. Money will have less and less value, and we can spend our time more creatively. Yes it will take time, and it will be a gradual transition, but Star Trek's vision of this future seems correct I reckon.

Whenever news reports of "unemployment figures grow" show, they're supposed to be bad news. What few people seem to realise is that the reverse is (or should be) true. Creating jobs just for its own sake, is often worse than pointless - it wastes a lot of time, and yes damages the economy.

On a slight tangentential note, I think a good indicator of a country's development is the GNH (or Gross National Happiness).

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