Why Would Any Progressive Criticize a 30-hour Work Week?
Despite all of this, there is something problematic with advocating a 30-hour work week at the beginning of the 21st century: a 30-hour week is not short enough! There is mushrooming unemployment amidst mountains of useless products. An hour of labor now produces more goods than has ever been the case in the history of humanity. Combining these means that there is no reason for anyone to work more than 20 hours per week. Every year, clever folks figure out how to churn out more stuff with fewer hours of labor. Jeffrey Kaplan observed that, “By 1991, the amount of goods and services produced for each hour of labor was double what it had been in 1948.” [18] This was a doubling of labor productivity in only 43 years. Jon Bekken calculates a more rapid rate: “Automation and other innovations result in our productivity (output per work hour) doubling every 25 years or so.” [19] In other words, the amount that people produce during an hour of labor doubles every 33 years [give or take 10 yea
