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Is it moral to seek a "four hour work week"?

Is a four-hour (or otherwise very short) work week compatible with the idea that a person's productive work should be his central purpose? If a person is so productive that he is able to enjoy a great life by only working a few hours per week, would it be wrong for that person to spend the rest of his time on travel, relationships, hobbies, self growth, education, and other non-productive interests?

Bryan , 09.09.2011, 11:03
Idea status: completed

Comments

Sarah Jane Smith, 13.03.2012, 22:30
That is a loaded question. Am I being paid to work 40 hours? Or am I being paid to work what is expected to take 40 hours even if it only takes me 10?

I personally lean toward the latter. There is huge variance in peoples working ability and business can only judge (and pay based on) ability.

Someone told me about a person who was able to walk in, check their servers, and walk out each day of the week. This persons job was to make sure things were running. As such, they didn't have to work very long. But he/she had to work long and hard if something bad happened.

There are a lot of jobs I think should be handed in this 'retainer' sort of respect. Some jobs are not that flexible, like call center jobs.

With modern technology, I'm still having a hard time understanding why we have to work more than 10 hours a week. I'm glad for the 40 hour work weeks LABOR UNIONS gave us. But why Americans are allowing us to work weeks this long still boggles my mind.

//Sorry if I sound like a liberal troll.... I'm not. But how we got stuck at 40 hours with our tech still boggles my mind.
Matthew Squire, 25.01.2013, 08:10
You make a very interesting point about retainer work. Examples of retainer work could be further expanded to police, fire departments, insurance agents, emergent medical doctors, soldiers, to name several without exhaustion. They all are examples of professions where one willingly pays to keep them employed, but hopes for a rational reason for their non-use.

It's interesting that some people want to see constant motion and action, whereas more objective minds would rather see specific attainable outcomes.

Productivity isn't about arbitrary amounts of time spent. It's about outcome. I could break rocks in a prison for 40 hours per week for 40 years and still only end up with sand, or I could spend 4 hours a week teaching philosophy for 40 years and end up changing a culture.
Ron, 18.08.2013, 09:52
If you can support yourself, then working more than you want to in order to fulfill someone's notion of what your central purpose should be sounds like sacrifice to me. Having said that, if you can't find some productive work that you wouldn't enjoy doing more than ten hours a week, I suspect you may be in the wrong line of work and are simply compensating by working shorter hours..

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