Relax! Work Less and Save the World!
This is a cause we can ALL get behind!
“We now seem more determined than ever to work harder and produce more stuff, which creates a bizarre paradox: We are proudly breaking our backs to decrease the carrying capacity of the planet,” says Conrad Schmidt, an internationally known social activist and founder of the Work Less Party, a Vancouver-based initiative aimed at moving to a 32-hour work week — a radical departure from the in early, out late cycle we’ve grown accustomed to. “Choosing to work less is the biggest environmental issue no one’s talking about.”
Americans work more hours than anyone else in the industrialized world. According to the United Nations’ International Labor Organization, we work 250 hours, or five weeks, more than the Brits, and a whopping 500 hours, or 12 and a half weeks, more than the Germans. So how does ecological damage figure in to the 40-plus workweek?
Do the math: Longer hours plus labor-saving technology equals ever-increasing productivity. Without high annual growth to match productivity, there’s unemployment. Maintaining growth means using more energy and resources, both in manpower and raw materials, which results in increased waste and pollution.
So chill out. Stop working so hard. Live a little. Life is too short. Your grandchildren will thank you, and you’ll thank yourself.
posted by Nadir at 4:02 PM
2 Comments:
Americans work more than Germans, Frenchies, and Brits... and have a much better economy, with lower unemployment, than they do, as a result. I find this proposal preposterous. Nadir, should you start working less on your music? Should your consumers start working less to earn the money that they use to purchase your musical products? Shall the companies that they work for produce less, sell less, and then fire some of your customers?
This is nonsense. The world is better than it has ever been where ever people work productively.
Find the nations where people work the least. List them for me please. I bet you will identify the places where living is the most miserable, and where you would least like to live. I predict you will also identify places where the people there dream of living in the US -- to work!
The fact is Americans are working harder, but are not reaping the fruits of their labor. Productivity is not increasing and wages are not increasing. Spending more hours at work doesn't improve our lives. It may increase the amount of money in our pocketbooks, but we have less time to spend that money.
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