This is missing the obligatory reference to Bertrand Russell who said in 1932 that working hours will reduce to 15 hours/week [1] and this is good.
[1] https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/
[1] https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/
It'd only be good if it came together with other social changes. So long as profit-seeking owners control employment, they will certainly not share the benefits of productivity improvements equitably. They'll cast some workers off to unemployment and pocket their wages, and the rest will be continued to be worked as hard as they are able.
"Why did Keynes’ promised utopia – still being eagerly awaited in the ‘60s – never materialise? The standard line today is that he didn’t figure in the massive increase in consumerism. Given the choice between less hours and more toys and pleasures, we’ve collectively chosen the latter. This presents a nice morality tale, but even a moment’s reflection shows it can’t really be true."
"But rather than allowing a massive reduction of working hours to free the world’s population to pursue their own projects, pleasures, visions, and ideas, we have seen the ballooning not even so much of the “service” sector as of the administrative sector, up to and including the creation of whole new industries like financial services or telemarketing, or the unprecedented expansion of sectors like corporate law, academic and health administration, human resources, and public relations. And these numbers do not even reflect on all those people whose job is to provide administrative, technical, or security support for these industries, or for that matter the whole host of ancillary industries (dog-washers, all-night pizza deliverymen) that only exist because everyone else is spending so much of their time working in all the other ones."
"These are what I propose to call “bullshit jobs.”"
and goes on to come to the following conclusion: "Clearly, the system was never consciously designed. It emerged from almost a century of trial and error. But it is the only explanation for why, despite our technological capacities, we are not all working 3-4 hour days."
Having just done Fritjof Capra's Systems View of Life course, channeling the ideas that:
a) "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution" [2]
and
b) "All behaviour in complex systems is emergent"
A (vastly simplified) argument is that bullshit jobs is the emergent behaviour from a system compromising between the needs of:
a) People to work so they can earn money, be fulfilled and see a material increase in their wealth.
b) A political class keen to keep the workers busy less they revolt and upset the system.
c) A system of economics/a reductionist western/scientific worldview that increasingly externalised anything that didn't show everyone was better off (e.g. GDP).
d) Elites who were increasingly happy to take an increasing proportion of the wealth from the efficiency gains.
Everyone wins in relation to the amount of power they have relative to everyone else and the system sustains itself based on the fact no-one with enough power has enough incentive/will to overthrow it. Obviously the planet (which once indigenous peoples had been conquered) mostly lost it's voice in the conversation and so that's why we're where we are now.
[1] https://evonomics.com/why-capitalism-creates-pointless-jobs-...
Home ownership is a way to keep people busy fixing the house, working or risk losing a basic need, and living at the edge of their means. Also invested in their own property and less willing to riot and revolt. Don’t get me wrong - I like my home a lot, but the cost is not much less expensive than rent after all the other associated expenses.
There are problems with land ownership but to me they seem related to inequality rather than anything else.
The cost is the same, but benefits include not just living space, but also equity. You can't sell a rental.
"No man who owns his own house and lot can be a communist. He has too much to do." - William Levitt