[P2P-F] historical success of shorter working week
Sandwichman
lumpoflabor at gmail.com
Sat Jul 16 19:18:51 CEST 2011
Thanks for setting up the pages. A clarification: I have written only one
book. There is an excerpt/digest from that book that is forthcoming as a
chapter in an anthology but it is still just the one book.
On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 10:01 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:
> Dear Tom,
>
> I find this a very fruitful direction of inquiry, very in tune with the
> general idea of the commons,
>
> I created the book entry here:
> http://p2pfoundation.net/Jobs,_Liberty_and_the_Bottom_Line and gave it a
> place here as well, http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Labor
>
> What about your other book?
>
> Feel free to improve and amend all of the above; in particular, our labor
> section could use quite a bit of improvement,
>
> Orsan and Walton are young p2p labour activists, and Phoebe a labour
> researcher, who could be interested in your work as well;
>
> You are listed here, http://p2pfoundation.net/Commons-Oriented_Economists;
> any suggestions for other interesting people, thanks for letting me know,
>
> Michel
>
>
> On Sat, Jul 16, 2011 at 9:36 AM, Sandwichman <lumpoflabor at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Michel,
>>
>> Below I have pasted an 813 word overview of the logic of my inquiry and
>> the problem I am seeking to address in my book (there is only one, not two).
>>
>>
>> Tom
>>
>> The issue I grapple with in *Jobs, Liberty and the Bottom Line *is not so
>> much "what is the best remedy for unemployment" or even "what is the case
>> for shorter working time" but why and how has one particular set of policy
>> options been excluded from the mainstream discourse. Of course that possibly
>> translates into "why is the *best* remedy the forbidden one?"
>>
>>
>>
>> Perhaps as much as or even more than problem solving, I am fascinated by
>> the notion of taboo and its functioning as *unwritten* prohibition. How
>> is the elusive ban transmitted and enforced in the absence of explicit
>> instructions for such transmission and enforcement? The answer is through
>> stock narratives that operate virtually as rituals, ignoring conflicting
>> facts, inassimilable scientific theories and appalling outcomes.
>>
>>
>>
>> With regard to working time, academic economics has fostered the notion of
>> a self-adjusting, individual choice-driven natural order in which the given
>> hours of work are presumed to be optimal and any interference will lead to a
>> decline in welfare. There are only three or four problems with this tale of
>> a miraculous automatism. The canonical income-leisure choice model upon
>> which it is based has no pedigree in economic theory and has been refuted by
>> the empirical data. The idea is inconsistent with the established and
>> authoritative theory of the hours of labor, presented by S.J. Chapman over a
>> hundred years ago. And the strange "lump of labor" fallacy *claim* – an
>> alleged belief by shorter work time policy advocates in a "fixed amount of
>> work," which is routinely invoked to disparage dissenters – was decisively
>> refuted as itself a fallacy nearly a century ago.
>>
>>
>>
>> One would think that with three strikes against it, the conventional
>> wisdom hours of work and employment would be ripe for reconsideration. But,
>> no, the impasse seems as formidable as ever, with calls for work time
>> reduction relegated to the fringe of policy debate, even in the face of
>> economic crisis, unacceptably high and persistent unemployment and the
>> discrediting of formerly respectable economic myths about efficient markets
>> and the "great moderation."
>>
>>
>>
>> My approach to the issue of work time reduction and its taboo has led me
>> down two tracks. One was recovering and documenting the body of economic
>> thought suppressed by the fallacy claim and/or displaced by the textbook
>> dogma that has grown up around income-leisure choice. The other was tracing
>> the substance and history of the fallacy claim itself. That process has led
>> me to a rather unexpected revelation of what the elusive "lump" in the
>> fallacy claim actually stands for: the commons.
>>
>>
>>
>> In retrospect, it seems simple. If dogmatic political economy is
>> understood as striving to vindicate the rights of property, then the
>> violence of primitive accumulation and enclosure of the commons can only
>> stand as an embarrassment and impediment to that goal – one that must be
>> shunned, evaded and denied. Investigating the taboo on "work sharing" also
>> highlights something about traditional attitudes toward work as a communal
>> activity that has been obscured by the now prevailing industrial-era
>> innovation of wage labor.
>>
>>
>>
>> Not only is it perfectly *reasonable* – and not fallacious – to think in
>> terms of sharing the work, it was formerly ingrained and virtually
>> unthinkable socially to do otherwise. This is not to say that the
>> institutions for carrying out such sharing were necessarily ideal or
>> equitable, or that those institutions *should* have survived the
>> industrialization that finished them off. The lesson we can take from these
>> archaic institutions, though, is that the individualized commodity form of
>> wage labor is not the only or necessarily the best way of organizing and
>> compensating work.
>>
>>
>>
>> The labor commons that I propose in *Jobs, Liberty and the Bottom Line*is thus not an entirely new idea but is rooted in traditional practices and
>> institutions such as the quilting bee, barn raising and medieval guilds. It
>> is also foreshadowed in the contradictory nature of the modern division of
>> labor and wage system itself, in that the determination of who *does*what and who
>> *gets paid* how much is inevitably controversial and unstable. Early
>> trade unionism, in sharp contrast to today's trade union bureaucracy, took
>> much of its impetus from the much maligned commons view of work, which
>> Samuel Gompers summed up in the phrase: "That so long as there is one man
>> who seeks employment and cannot obtain it, the hours of labor are too long."
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> My innovation is to animate the labor commons through a new accounting
>> technique – a method of social accounting that takes into explicit account
>> the effects of work-time variation and distribution on social productivity.
>> The calculations that need to be performed for this new social accounting
>> for time are conceptually easy to explain but operationally complex enough
>> to be feasible only with the advent of the personal computer and
>> availability of spreadsheet programs. Moreover, the technology lends itself
>> to a deliberative solution, rather than to the dictate of experts.
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 11:20 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com
>> > wrote:
>>
>>> perhaps what would be useful to start with, as our audience doesn't know
>>> you, is the total logic of your work, i.e. why are you writing those 2 books
>>> specifically, 'what problem are you trying to solve' and who are you
>>> 'debating' with ...
>>>
>>> later on, we can give more extensive treatment of your books in our book
>>> of the week program, if you're interested,
>>>
>>> this involves 3 presentations per book, on a given week, with a general
>>> presentation followed by 2 significant experts,
>>>
>>> Michel
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Jul 13, 2011 at 1:03 AM, Sandwichman <lumpoflabor at gmail.com>wrote:
>>>
>>>> Thanks, Michel I'll work up a brief outline.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 10:33 AM, Michel Bauwens <
>>>> michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Tom, this is also a general invitation to present your books and
>>>>> concepts to the p2p foundation audience, our blog is a top 2% retweeted blog
>>>>> ...
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't have time for the moment to explore your ideas in depth myself,
>>>>>
>>>>> Michel
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 11:11 PM, Sandwichman <lumpoflabor at gmail.com>wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Michel et al.,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In my view one of the most inspirational historical experiences with a
>>>>>> shorter day for full pay was achieved in the Newcastle engineers' strike of
>>>>>> 1871 for the nine-hour day. The success of that struggle inspired a wave of
>>>>>> emulation across the U.K. and (at least) Canada. I retell the story of that
>>>>>> strike, based mainly on the contemporary account of John Burnett, in the
>>>>>> first chapter of my manuscript, "Jobs, Liberty and the Bottom Line," in
>>>>>> which I also present a commons-based (Elinor Ostrom) strategy from
>>>>>> restarting a dynamic shorter work time movement.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/p/jobs-liberty-and-bottom-line.html
>>>>>>
>>>>>> best
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Tom Walker
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 7:17 AM, Michel Bauwens <
>>>>>> michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> thanks Juliet, already very useful,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Michel
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 8:33 PM, Juliet Schor <juliet.schor at bc.edu>wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Michel
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> A great historical source is Ben Hunnicutt's Work without End. His
>>>>>>>> book on the Kellogg workers six hour day finds a less positive outcome.
>>>>>>>> My student, Anders Hayden, has written a very nice paper on France,
>>>>>>>> which I attach here. I am also cc:ing Ben Hunnicutt who may have some good
>>>>>>>> references on positive cases. Ben, any ideas?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Juliet
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Jul 12, 2011, at 8:13 AM, Michel Bauwens wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Dear Juliet, Orsan, and friends,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Can anyone point to the historical experience with shorter working
>>>>>>>> weeks (with keeping full pay)?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> As far as I know, these experiences were very positive overall, but
>>>>>>>> I'd like to see this confirmed with concrete references,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Michel
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net -
>>>>>>>> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
>>>>>>>> http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens;
>>>>>>>> http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens;
>>>>>>>> http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net -
>>>>>>> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
>>>>>>> http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
>>>>>>> http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> P2P Foundation - Mailing list
>>>>>>> http://www.p2pfoundation.net
>>>>>>> https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Sandwichman
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> P2P Foundation - Mailing list
>>>>>> http://www.p2pfoundation.net
>>>>>> https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net -
>>>>> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>>>>>
>>>>> Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
>>>>> http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
>>>>>
>>>>> Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
>>>>> http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> P2P Foundation - Mailing list
>>>>> http://www.p2pfoundation.net
>>>>> https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Sandwichman
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> P2P Foundation - Mailing list
>>>> http://www.p2pfoundation.net
>>>> https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net -
>>> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>>>
>>> Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
>>> http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
>>>
>>> Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
>>> http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Sandwichman
>>
>
>
>
> --
> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>
> Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
> http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
>
> Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
> http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
>
>
>
>
>
>
--
Sandwichman
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://lists.ourproject.org/pipermail/p2p-foundation/attachments/20110716/da7a61c8/attachment.htm
More information about the P2P-Foundation
mailing list