Friends, this week's Newsmaker Show considers some jaw-droppingly important storylines in the news. Has your jaw dropped yet? It soon will! Brian and I ponder Russian advances in Ukraine and what they mean for the long-term trajectory of the war, the Trump and Biden victories in New York State's presidential primaries, the state of the polls in the states that truly matter, Trump's decision to hawk fancy patriotic Bibles to promote himself as a "Christian" conservative, the prospects for the extradition of Julian Assange, the simmering and very consequential feud between RFK, Jr. and the Democratic Party, the role that the House of Representatives can and should play in the presidential election, whether Dulles airport is likely to be renamed for DJT anytime soon, and the banning of the private funding of elections in the purple state of Wisconsin.
When we get to "This Day in History", we consider the historical context in which the assassination of MLK occurred in 1968, the significance of the opening of the World Trade Center in 1973, and the nature of the fighting in WWI.
Hopefully your jaw doesn't hurt excessively from all that stupefaction, because it's about to be tested AGAIN, as I reveal my latest article below...
https://wlea.net/newsmaker-april-4-2024-dr-nick-waddy/
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And now...as promised, here's my fascinating take on Bernie Sanders' proposal for a four-day work week here in these United States. See if you agree or disagree!
A Four-Day Work Week Isn't Such a
Bad Idea
Recently,
Senator Bernie Sanders, socialist gadfly, proposed
that the U.S. federal government should mandate a four-day, 32-hour
work week. Before we conservative free marketeers recoil, let's
consider the merits of his idea.
Sanders
says that U.S. workers work considerably more hours every year than
their counterparts in
other developed countries.
He's right. To make matters worse, as anyone in the private sector
knows, employers are finding new and creative ways of squeezing
even more productive labor out of their workers, even when, and maybe
especially when, the theoretical “workday” is done. All these
extra hours worked mean less time with our families, less leisure,
and more stress – and it's not clear, based on numerous studies,
that more hours of work necessarily even yield enhanced productivity
or greater overall production.
The
concept of a four-day, 32-hour work week may seem fanciful, but
readers should recall that, before the institution of the five-day,
40-hour work week under President Franklin Roosevelt in 1938, there
was equally vociferous opposition to that idea, and equally
extravagant claims
that such a provision would be fatal to the engine of capitalism.
Indeed, it was not
so very long ago
that average workdays were more like 10, 12, and even 14 hours. Did
the curbing of such excesses eliminate competition, obliterate the
incentive to work, or dent the standard of living? If they did,
people seem pretty happy with the results!
In
addition, consider that the accelerating pace of automation, the
outsourcing of many economic functions, and the vast potential of
artificial intelligence to diminish
the demand for,
or even render obsolete, many categories of work, all point to a
future in which fewer employees will be able to accomplish much, much
more – and the U.S. economy will hum along very nicely even with a
relatively small percentage of the population engaged, in general and
at any given time, in productive work. Indeed, this is already the
case. The labor force participation rate has been trending
down
since the mid 90s, and with no discernible ill effects, in terms of
productivity
or the rate of economic
growth.
Conservatives
will argue that massive changes to the structure of the economy and
the nature of work, enforced by government fiat, are always bad. That
being said, few conservatives are demanding the repeal of the
five-day, 40-hour work week, and, as it turns out, the leisure and
the quality of life that those federal regulations have engendered
are the prerequisite for whole thriving industries in modern America,
like tourism, gaming, entertainment, and so many more. Would
Americans really be better off if they went back to working 10, 12,
or 14 hour days? No? Then why is it so hard to imagine that our
collective well-being might not be similarly enhanced by the phasing
in of a four-day, 32-hour work week?
Concerns
about excessive
government micromanagement
of private enterprise are valid, but, compared to the thousands of
petty rules and regulations that the government enforces –
selectively – every day, a mandate for a four-day, 32-hour work
week would be a very blunt instrument of federal policy, and it would
apply equally to every business, giving none of them an artificial
competitive advantage. Much like the minimum wage, it would be a
simple, straightforward regulatory measure that would change the
lives of tens of millions of people, for the better, without
inserting new layers of bureaucratic oversight and interference in
the capitalist system. Indeed, the federal
agencies and mechanisms
needed to enforce limits on the numbers of hours workers may work
already exist, and there is no particular reason why the institution
of a four-day work week should require the expansion of any agency's
budget, the hiring of a single new federal worker, or even the
passage of a new law, since the amendment of the Fair
Labor Standards Act
would suffice.
In
short, the movement to a four-day, 32-hour work week would bring the
U.S. more into line with the labor practices of other developed
countries – countries in which people seem, broadly speaking, to
be happier
than they are here. It would enhance the quality of life for almost
every American. And it would do all this in a streamlined, elegant
way that would empower workers themselves, rather than politicians or
government functionaries.
“Work hard,
play hard” has long been a popular axiom in America. Maybe it's
time we did a little less of the former, and a little more of the
latter...in the national interest, of course!
Dr.
Nicholas L. Waddy is an Associate Professor of History at SUNY Alfred
and blogs at: www.waddyisright.com.
He appears on the Newsmaker Show on WLEA 1480/106.9.
And here it is at World Net Daily:
https://www.wnd.com/2024/04/bernies-4-day-work-week-idea-crazy/
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