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Originally Posted by Sempu
While it seems self-evident that the working classes appear to be better off than they were during the Victoria era, that period may have been an anomaly that is revealed when we look back further. Primitive culture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia says that it's a defining feature of primitive cultures that they have more leisure time.
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Again, it depends on the metric. I'm sure people crippled in factory accidents, coal miners with lung disease, people with no appreciable skill and no means of gaining one would have disagreed.
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Some anticipated that work would be optional in the future. Robert Heinlein's first novel "For Us The Living" depicted a "social dividend" (presumably from automation) that was enough for everyone. Closest equivalent I can think of is the oil dividend for Alaskan residents.
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That was always going ot be unrealistic, and expecting it is naive.
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The original Star Trek series showed work being more or less optional and money no longer necessary (they weren't consistent on that point). Now that seems like a cruel hoax.
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Yes, their economics would never have worked without a post-scarcity society (which they arguably had via replicators, but not fully), but it took until well into the 22nd century.
I think you need to read
The Logical Fallacy of Generalization from Fictional Evidence - Less Wrong .
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Partly I think this is a result of ruinous central bank policies and national debt, a topic that I used to find immensely boring until I discovered how much it was affecting my life. And also that we have not as a people matured enough to deal with the social implications of our changing technology.
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Clearly you don't know enough about it then.
Without banking, there would be no money, nothing would be financed. No large scale projects would be possible.
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Originally Posted by Niri Te
Sempu,
I think the biggest reason that people are working longer and harder, is due to the Corporate "Fat Cats" manipulating the job market.
They use the threat of replacing the disgruntled, or those that are in THEIR estimation, "lazy", with either those out of work, who will do anything for anything over minimum wage, or the threat of moving the company production to China, and design and public relations to India "in an effort to stay in business", to turn hard working Americans into indentured servants. The fact that many Americans are in hock up to their eyeballs and can't afford to miss a single payment, acts as sufficient pressure to cause many working people into two jobs for scandalous wages.
Niri Te
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Again, your beliefs don't align with reality.
It isn't possible to arbitrarily fire someone without paying them. Many does not mean all; it is only the fault of people who took out bad debt and now struggle to repay it (and possibly the banks for taking on too much debt they knew people were going to default on, but that's beside the point).
In al truth, people are lazy. Offer someone two jobs at the same pay and they'll take the easier, or shorter hours. Offer someone a marginally harder one at 2x as much as they'll take that one.
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Originally Posted by redpaintednavi
The situation seems rather similar here in Sweden too. Here we now have got ourselves a government that, inspired by the US, goes along with the capitalists and which has launched a political agenda called The line of work, ie that everyone must work, else they get no money or allowances. Even the ones that are sick are forced to apply for jobs, otherwise they do not get any financial support from the state.
People who are unemployed are put into programs so they will not stay at home (people who just sits around home are considered a problem) but are forced to attend specially created jobs for only fractions of a normal salary in order to be able to get some financial support.
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You mean you think people should be entitled to sit at home and claim money from people who DO work?
Here, you only get benefits if you apply for jobs, and I completely support that, even as it is there are far too many chavs who have neither intention or action to apply for jobs, yet still live at the taxpayer's expense more or less permanently.
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Some parties and political groups have been lobbying for a six hour working day (today we have eight hour mandatory workingdays, but many ofcourse work much longer days) as a first step towards a more work free society, but most of the leading political parties, and ofcourse the companies, have opposed to that idea, claiming that it would ruin our economy.
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I'm sure that anyone with a job would oppose it too. Since there's already 30 min mandatory break that is't paid, that's a huge reduction in income (and in Sweden, tax levels are stupidly high anyway).