It’s An Idea (not all) Economists View With Contempt…
As the derisive name suggests, it’s an idea economists view with contempt, yet the fallacy makes a comeback whenever the economy is sluggish. — Paul Krugman
- Isabel V. Sawhill (Brookings): “Time for a shorter work week?“
- Dean Baker: “Shorter Workweeks Will Defeat the Robots“
- Eva Swidler: “Radical Leisure“
- Ilana E. Strauss: “Would a Work-Free World Be So Bad?“
- Heather Boushey and Bridget Ansel “Overworked America: The economic causes and consequences of long work hours“
“Discussions of the work week, particularly among economists, often place a neutral or positive value on long hours. In the most common neoclassical model of labor supply, workers are assumed to work a number of hours that is consistent with their relative preference for consuming goods or consuming leisure time. Over short periods of time, fluctuations in the length of the work week are a business cycle indicator: employers will often reduce hours as an alternative to layoffs, so short-term reductions in the average work week are associated with recessionary periods. Over the long run, longer work weeks are often interpreted as reflecting a more productive economy; conversely, shorter work weeks are read as a symptom of an inefficient or overly rigid labor market (e.g. Rogerson (2008)).
“However, others have argued that even in narrow economic terms, very long hours are undesirable. Karl Marx, discussing British industrialization in the mid-19th century, argued that without legal restrictions on the length of the working day, capitalists would over-exploit workers to the point of physically degrading their capacities and undermining productivity (Marx 1990; Bourdieu and Reynaud 2006). Sydney Chapman (1909), working within the neoclassical tradition, made a similar argument: he proposed that in a free market, both employers and workers would choose a level of working hours that was greater than was optimal in terms of total output. This is due to the same tendency to degrade the productive power of labor that was observed by Marx: above a certain threshold, an increase in hours actually decreases the long-run level of output, because worker fatigue decreases productivity over the entire working day. However, because this new, lower-productivity equilibrium is only reached after a long period of over-work, employers and workers will tend to maximize their short-term profits and wages by agreeing to a working day which is above the long-run optimum. Moreover, a single firm will not have an incentive to restrain hours, if its competitors can hire away its well-rested workers at any time. This analysis implies that the work week could be reduced through collective bargaining or state policy without reducing the overall productivity of the economy. Over the 20th century, this perspective became marginalized within economics, but some have revived it more recently (Nyland 1989; Burkett 2000; Walker 2000, 2007). It is a line of argument that feeds into calls for “work-sharing” as a response to economic downturns, as well as debates over whether reductions in hours decrease or increase unemployment (Calmfors 1985; Booth and Schiantarelli 1987; Roche et al. 1996; Hunt and Katz 1998; Hunt 1999; Bosch and Lehndorff 2001; Kapteyn et al. 2004).
“Even when economically efficient, long hours may have other negative individual or social effects. Golden and Altman (2008) distinguish among three separate concepts: long hours, over-employment, and overwork. Long hours means simply hours that are longer than average. Over- employment refers to the situation in which workers are supplying more hours than they would like to, because employers do not offer work at the desired number of hours (conversely, workers who are offered work at a lower number of hours than they desire are under-employed). Overwork refers to an intensity or duration of labor that harms a worker’s physical or mental health due to fatigue or stress. By this definition, it is possible to be over-employed or overworked even if one is not working “long hours”, depending on preferences and job intensity; conversely, very long hours may be both voluntary and non-harmful to the worker. However, there is good reason to believe that long hours are associated with overwork and overemployment. Moreover, hours that are desirable and salutary for individuals may have negative social effects.”
For several years in the mid 2000’s I worked an average of 70 hours a week, occasionally with months-long stretches on a 7-12 schedule. I was a Journeyman Wireman following booming industrial projects. It was a punishing regimen, but this was the price you paid for good times.
A few years later, I was lucky to work 20 hours a week. I would consider it more a period of radical insecurity than a period of radical leisure. I have experienced the dubious pleasure of enforced leisure periodically throughout my career. None of the benefits of a work-free workplace ever made their way down to me.
Leisure is no good, no good at all. Not for those of us who must labor unceasingly for the survival of our families.
Lineman? Did some of that down near the equator where the TPs were rock hard. I was gaffing up one once and I did not dig in properly. Next moment I was sitting on the ground. My men were looking down at me. It is a hard job when there is no automation to lift you and the heat or cold can be debilitating.
I think what is being referred to here is a 40 hour week. At 70 hours you have lost much of your throughput or output, efficiency to do it correctly, etc. In the end at the seventieth hour, your employer was probably paying you more for less work or you could do more faster at 30 hours or place it into a daily hourly perspective. Why would an employer do such> Lack of available Labor? Not wanting to pay Labor more in a direct wage? Or just not wanting to pay the overhead (bennies legislated or customary). I suspect it is the latter which is usually more expensive than the Direct Labor.
Another point would be, with more people working at better wages, your taxes decrease as there is less slack in the labor force needing support.
Thanks very much for this comment, Richard, it illustrates the dilemma very well from a perspective different than my pro-leisure view. According to the consensus economic orthodoxy — I’m reluctant to call it “theory” — you get to choose between income and leisure. According to your comment, you choose income but you don’t get it.
What went wrong? Well, again, according to the orthodox analysis, you must be asking too high a wage for the additional 50 hours a week you say you want to work. How much too high? Let’s start with 70 hours work for 20 hours pay. Surely you would be able to work 70 hours a week if you were willing to take a 71% pay cut!
If that sounds harsh, don’t blame me. I don’t like it either. But it is the conventional wisdom. Maybe back when you were working 70 hours a week there was some unlucky guy who had a hard time getting 20. So he offered to do your old job at a lower rate of pay. It’s a race to the bottom.
Leisure that you want is good. “Leisure” that you don’t want is not leisure; it is an economists’ euphemism for unemployment. If you are going to swallow the economists’ definitions of leisure, labor, income and choice you don’t get to cherry pick which parts you agree with and which parts you don’t. It’s a package deal.