Two centuries ago Ricardo hypothesized his Iron Law of Wages, which suggested that wages would be constantly pressed down to a level of subsistence.
Overwork and longer hours are a manifestation of the Iron Law. A modern economist is like Stephen Leacock's horseman -- he jumps on his horse and rides off in all directions.
So long as they chase wildly after effects, they will never find causes.
As is clear every day as they pompously declaim their certainties.
Harry Keith wrote:
Brad,
At 08:30 12/10/2003 -0400, you wrote:Keith Hudson wrote:
Before the French government legislated to reduce the working week to 35[snip]
hours in 1998, various FWers though this was a splendid thing. However, I
ventured the opinion on this List that it wouldn't really create any more
jobs and, in fact, because it made the unit costs of employing people
greater, then small businesses would be heavily penalised. I also wrote
much more recently (yesterday, in fact) that France is gradually sinking
into an economic morass because of bureaucracy and that it might collapse
in future years as spectacularly as Soviet Russia did in 1992. The
following article in today's /Sunday Times /bears witness to the problems
brought about by regulation in matters that shouldn't concern governments.
>>>>
FRENCH WORK UP ANGST AT 35-HOUR WEEK
The French now have more leisure hours but less money to spend. Critics
say the 35-hour week is fostering a disdain for work and hastening
economic decline
Matthew Campbell
Is the straw man a red herring?
I must say, I'm mystified by what he means by fostering a "disdain for
work". I suspect that these -two sentences are the work of a sub-editor who
hasn't read Matthew Campbell's article properly.
Let's grant that a police-enforced 35 hour week is not the answer (although it might be less of a problem or even a benefit if other countries all played according to the same rules).
How do we protect against the very real problems of persons being expected
to work much longer than 40 hours? At least back in the 1980s, Japanese
salarymen tried to avoid leaving the office
at a normal hour even if thay had no real work to do because those who did
not work long hours
were stigmatized. And here in the U.S.A., a combination of paid and
unpaid overtime (some more or less genuinely voluntary, but a lot
involuntary) is expected in many jobs today.
How do you suggest we address over-work, and at least here in America today, its uncertainties, which result in persons becoming anxious and depressed as well as being worn out?
I really don't understand why this is an important question. When I worked
in industry in my early thirties I suffered from duodenal ulcers and
sometimes I would crumble-up on the sidewalk in pain as though kicked by a
horse and it would be five minutes before I was ready to continue walking.
After a few weeks of this the ulcer would heal and I'd have a period of a
few months before the next one came. This lasted for five or six years when
I had a particular position and was due to frustration and helplessness --
having a middle-management position taking flak from both senior management
and from the shop floor and not able to change anything. But I stuck it out
because I had a young family of three children and I was earning good
money. But it was my decision to stay at the time and, later, it was my
decision to leave industry even though I had a comfortable job by then (as
recently described). Anybody who's grown up in post-WWII times has lived in
an era in which self-responsibility has been disparaged. It's always
someone else's fault -- our employer's, our environment, etc. When I left
industry I had no job to go to. I left because I had a theory that if I
could cut myself off from all the props that had hitherto sustained me then
I would be more open to opportunities. I did it in style -- moving to a
city where I didn't know anybody. And so it proved -- even though it is not
something I would recommend for anybody else unless he wanted to do it. It
was a roller-coaster ride. I was very naive and I discovered just how cold
and selfish the real world was and I made a lot of mistakes coming close to
suicide on one occasion. Today, I'm street-wise. I now know several
opportunities that I could have taken, and it would have been a much
smoother process, and I'm sure I would been a very great deal better-off
than I am now. Even so, I am still much better-off -- financially and
experientially -- than I would have been if I had stuck it out in industry
in my well-paid job and seen my normal time out and to earn a good pension.
Keith Hudson
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