Comment by FabHK | Hacker News Reader

Comment by FabHK | Hacker News Reader

Leisure as a status symbol of the upper classes is nothing new though - it's what's required for the Good Life according to Aristotle, and it's long been the aspiration of the English upper class: a marker of nobility.

The famed Keynes biographer, Robert Skidelsky (The Right Honourable Lord), has an intriguing book with his son, Edward Skidelsky: How Much Is Enough? Money and the Good Life.

Starting point is an essay by Keynes from 1930, Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren, in which Keynes predicted that 100 years from then, economic progress would have improved productivity and real incomes so much that everyone (in the developed world) would only have to work 2 days a week and be free to enjoy their leisure otherwise.

Now, it's still a few years until 2030, but it doesn't really look like that prediction will come true - and the book is an examination on why.

Makes you think. (And sleep. And take time off :-)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/books/review/how-much-is-e...

Keynes was right on the fundamental analysis, but wrong on how much people appreciate the luxuries that the extra money from working three days more than you need to can buy (plus, something about the satisfaction that many people derive from working). Most people lower middle class and up could easily get by on 2/5 of their current salaries if they made the necessary adjustments to their lifestyles -- including moving to a low-cost probably non-urban area. But that's simply not an attractive proposition to most people.

Now, of course, there's a chicken-and-egg thing going on where two-day-jobs largely aren't on offer, but I'd argue that's largely because there just aren't that many takers. Especially in IT, especially if you're above-average successful, it's conceivable that you could find and negotiate a two day a week remote position -- but even among the population that probably could do that, it just doesn't seem a lot are, or are even trying.

> moving to a low-cost probably non-urban area

.. which doesn't have the kind of leisure that they want.

Two-day positions are very rare, but I'm seeing four-day arrangements becoming a thing as part of "flexible working".

Four or four-and-a-half work weeks are definitely a thing on my side of the pond; atm I have a 40 hour work week, I have colleagues who do 32 (their SOs also work a similar pattern, giving them 2 days to tend to the kids, so they only have to pay for 3 days of day care if that), and my previous job was a 36 hour / week job; if I just worked 40 (easy enough), I got a longer weekend every other week.

Usually, there are benefits tied to being full-time so I imagine part of this is that people would lose 'full-time' status and then their 401k match, health insurance, etc. Flexible working still implies full time.

Note that what you're saying is very US-centric, and contingent (not necessary).

In almost all jobs that I have had since the 1980s, I have negotiated working 4 days a week for 80% of the offered salary. This takes some sensitivity and flexibility in looking out for the interests of my employers.

There's very few people that would not be deep in poverty if they only received 2/5 of their wages.

I spend 1.25 days a week working just to afford rent (roommates, very crappy construction, no AC, no central heat, semi-decent area... ie can't find anything cheaper unless I were to add at least 2 hours to my commute every day).

These are the types of comments I just can't relate to on HN. I do not have many luxuries in my life (due to lack of funds) and I know I'm hardly doing poorly in modern America.

You're confusing not being able to with not wanting to. You seem to live in a high rent area: that makes sense if you're optimising for career/lifetime earnings - but in this hypothetical you're not, you're optimising for leasure time.

Adding two hours to your commute matters less when you're only doing it twice a week. Also, anyway, I'll bet that you can buy food for a week on less than 0.75 days wages. You could, if you wanted to, if five days of leisure a week was actually your life goal, most likely make a number of changes and achieve that. But it's not going to be a life of very many modern luxuries.

People on two days a week will generally be (money) poor, but they can live, and have a lot more leasure time. But that's the point: they don't want to, they want luxuries more, and that's fine.

Remember that Keynes was writing a century ago: two days a week can buy you a decently comfortable 1910s life, but that looks a lot like poverty today (you mention your lack of AC and central heating - well, Keynes never had any of that) - because we're spending our money on luxuries rather than leisure time.

There's another pertinent book, by the way, Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy by Robert H. Frank, in which he highlights how much the concepts of "normal" and "luxury" are really contingent and depending on our environment. Spending some time in Nepal, or the Philippines, or Kenya makes you appreciate that (and those are relatively thriving countries).

There's really a lot of "Keeping up with the Joneses".

Having said that, in some areas in the USA you really pay ridiculous amounts for a rather basic quality of life (or in HK, London, Munich, etc. for that matter).

"work 2 days a week"

Startlingly accurate but rather than everyone living that way, we have a small and shrinking fraction of the population working full time or more, and longer "education" and earlier retirement/ageism than ever. As an economy that's about what we do, we're just not egalitarian about it.

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