06-12-2019, 08:07 PM
(06-11-2019, 02:48 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(06-11-2019, 10:26 AM)beechnut79 Wrote: Do any of you think we will ever see that society of increased leisure we were, some half century ago, all bur promised?
We got the forty-hour workweek as the result of the Great Depression. There just wasn't enough work to go around with the fifty-hour workweeks of the 1920s.
With manufacturing and computer-organized clerical work we can work far fewer hours and achieve just as much.
Actually at least the eight-hour day concept was won toward the end of the 19th century with events such as the Haymarket and Pullman riots.
Weekends though were a byproduct of the Great Depression as a cost-saving measure, but first it was a five and a half hour workweek with mostly half days on Saturdays. Full weekends didn't become commonplace until around the 1960s.
Might be worth discussing why so many can't seem to try to stay grounded and find balance and calm in their lives.
As far as the second line goes, we have clearly gone in the opposite direction despite increased productivity as a society-wide "I don't have time" syndrome kicked in during the mid-1980s and hasn't really let up since, hence increased demand for things such as food delivery.