Why not? Because capitalism. New technology will continue to automate away more and more jobs, from manufacturing to the service industry. This <i>could be</i> one of the greatest achievements in human history, leading to that so-called "leisure society" futurists talked about, but that would require a massive overhaul of most countries' economic systems.<p>All those gains in productivity mostly enrich the owner class while the rest of us have to fight even harder for the jobs that haven't (yet) been eliminated by technology.<p>In the U.S., it's hard to imagine getting a single conservative lawmaker to sit down at a table and have a frank discussion about wealth redistribution or a minimum income or public ownership schemes, possible solutions to this problem. That makes me worry that the inevitable transition away from our obsession with the free-market and pursuit of capital will be painful rather than celebratory. And that things will have to get worse before enough of us can consider implementing solutions that make things better.
I find the whole economic system to be quite bizarre. Nobody's salary seems to correlate with much except their skill at getting a high salary. For instance, my sister (elementary education) makes even less than I do as a grad student. The difference is that she wakes up at 5:00 AM and works all day teaching and taking care of little kids until 7:00 PM, whereas I wake up whenever I feel like it, head to a coffee shop and work on research (which is basically a computer game for me), and mix in bike rides and whatever else as I please. The difference in salary will be even more extreme once I get my PhD.<p>It really doesn't seem fair, and when I think about the vast majority of the world population in other countries, it seems even less fair. I used to have a more conservative stance that if you want to get more, you just have to work harder, but now I've reversed my stance completely: I think it's mostly luck -- where you were born, who you know, what your social skills are, and if you just happen to be in the right place at the right time.<p>Many jobs seem like they exist solely for the sake of creating more jobs. We have managers of managers of managers. A lot of people don't put a lot of effort into their work (they spend their day browsing the internet), and the ones that do put in an honest effort don't seem to be rewarded for it. The hardest-working employees are rarely promoted into administrative positions. And the best way to increase one's salary is to job hop instead of remaining loyal to one company (<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/cameronkeng/2014/06/22/employees-that-stay-in-companies-longer-than-2-years-get-paid-50-less/" rel="nofollow">http://www.forbes.com/sites/cameronkeng/2014/06/22/employees...</a>).<p>I feel like many people have this ingrained notion that you're just "supposed to work" for so many hours a week, and no one is seriously pursuing the goal of creating leisure time (or at least work that's personally enjoyable). We have more than enough technological capability to provide basic survival needs to everyone on the planet, yet we're nowhere close to achieving that goal.<p>Again, I don't know why it's this way. But it is, and it just seems wrong to me.
I would love some kind of job board for "lifestyle jobs". Thats jobs with 2 or 3 day work weeks and a 9-5 schedule. I might go as low as $60k (+ benefits) if it was offered.<p>The closest thing to achieve that now is freelancing.
w/r/t The Protestant Work Ethic:<p>The book only gets a one-sentence mention in the article, but much, much more could be said. Particularly, it presents overworking as a form of paranoia.<p>Working was framed as a duty to God and since we didn't know if God existed, we were to work hard, <i>just in case</i>. Now that we've (largely) shifted our beliefs from a Christian god to more diffused spirituality, we can stop justifying overwork in this way.
This is the biggest thing I miss from my consulting days. I would never work a 5-day week. It would either be a 3-day or 4-day week, leaving lots of time for travel, family and hobbies.<p>Sadly, I could never see our clients accepting any business day where we are not available during regular business hours.
Haven't tried it myself, but I like the idea of working a 9/80 with every other Friday off. One interesting effect is that those who are in the office on Friday end up feeling more productive or relaxed since there are fewer people around. I also wonder if every other Monday off might be better in some cases.
Economists of yore were wise to see that productivity would increase dramatically, but they were wrong in believing that surplus productivity would translate into leisure time.<p>I look at Google and Ycombinator as the model for the future economy, if economic systems are left unchecked by the threat of physical force.<p>How many people are working at Google everyday on a product that will never produce one red cent? Hundreds? Thousands? How many funded YCombinator startups will never provide a return on investment? 60%? 80%?<p>These days, the smart money is taking all their surplus productivity and putting it into long-shots to create even more surplus productivity. This explains why industries like software development, that have such an enormous productivity surplus, are paying such high wages right now. One could even argue that the shortage of skilled individuals in such an environment will lead to an increase in demand for those who can train such people - leading to something like a more organic education system.
George Jetson: "These three day work weeks are killing me."
(wikipedia: "George's job primarily requires him to repeatedly push a single button")<p>That is, isn't this a product of a far more optimistic (cartoon) past view of the future? and/or "where's my flying car?"
Yes, let's work 3 days a week in the West. China will continue to work 6 or 7 days. Fast forward 10 years and the reserve currency will be the yuan.