Why Technology Didn't Produce Increased Leisure

[David Horn]

(05-29-2018, 02:34 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(05-29-2018, 01:21 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(05-29-2018, 09:12 AM)beechnut79 Wrote: This thread has veered way off from its original topic. To bring it back over, in 1992 author Juliet Schor wrote a book called "The Overworked American" It's subtitle was "The Unexpected Decline of Leisure". I created this thread in the hope that some of you would have some interesting opinions about why we never became that society of increased leisure and, actually, beginning around 1980 we reversed course and workweeks began lengthening even though the society of increased leisure was something we were once all but promised.

The cause for the decline of leisure is based on the rise of the power of oligarchy, pure and simple: keep the hamsters running and the profits tied to capital.  I doubt this will change without a major impetuous to trigger it.  If the economy crashes even more spectacularly than it did in 2008, that may get the job done.  Short of that, I don't see it changing very much … cosmetically at most.  

John Maynard Keynes estimated that the work week would have to be limited to 15 hours at some point if productivity continued to rise at the rate it was in his time.  In the 1960s, the Senate Labor committee estimated that the 15 hour level would be reached by 2000.  Neither foresaw the total collapse of labor unions, to say nothing of the abandonment of working people by the Democrats.

Let's not forget that we are paying higher rents than ever in real terms, and that commute times are lengthening. Young adults who have middle-class incomes have huge student loans to pay. Much of our income is thus going into economic rent instead of into manufactured goods or into services.

We are going from a competitive economic system in which prices shadow costs closely to a non-competitive order in which the highest priority is in enriching the "right people", especially those wielding political or bureaucratic power.

Nothing changes until the pressure to change exceeds the power of inertia.  We Americans seem to be worse than most in that regard, so it's feasible that the 4T could come and go before the pressure to change gets high enough to actually trigger one.  I've been in that camp for a long time.  FWIW, it's not inevitable that we'll fail this 4T, but it is possible and getting moreso by the day.

Most of us have read Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy.  At one point, the predictability of history collapses because an inexplicable event occurs.  Like the Mule, Donald Trump is outside the prediction window.  Since Trump arrived on the scene, events are occurring that seem to be counterintuitive.  Why, for example, are lies considered more valid than truths, even though they known to be lies to those who cling to them?  Is there a technique or practice that can reverse that trend, and, if not, what does THAT portend?  

Until the 2018 election cycle is complete, we won't have a clue.  Even then, it may be less than clear.  We entered political space typically occupied by autocrats and tyrants, and aren't very adept in this milieu.  If all this leads to a failed 4T, then the next 2T has to be dramatic in the extreme or the cycle is probably broken.