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Dean Baker: Why Americans should work less – the way Germans do
Why Americans should work less the way Germans do
There is a solution to unemployment: if we worked the same shorter hours as Germany, we'd eliminate joblessness overnight
Dean Baker
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 3 July 2012
Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman and Richard Layard, a distinguished British economist, took the lead last week in drafting a sign-on "Manifesto for Economic Common Sense", condemning the turn toward austerity in many countries. This manifesto seems destined to garner tens or even hundreds of thousands of signatures, including mine.
While the basic logic of the manifesto is solid, there is an important aspect to the argument that is overlooked. We can deal with unemployment every bit as effectively by having people work fewer hours, as we can by increasing demand.
The most important point to realize is that the problem facing wealthy countries at the moment is not that we are poor, as the stern proponents of austerity insist. The problem is that we are wealthy. We have tens of millions of people unemployed precisely because we can meet current demand without needing their labor.
This was the incredible absurdity of the misery that we and other countries endured during the Great Depression, and which Keynes sought to explain in The General Theory. The world did not suddenly turn poor in 1929, following the collapse of the stock market. Our workers had the ability to produce just as many goods and services the day after the collapse as the day before; the problem was that after the crash, there was a lack of demand for these goods and services. ..................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/03/why-americans-should-work-less-way-germans-do
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Dean Baker: Why Americans should work less – the way Germans do (Original Post)
marmar
Jul 2012
OP
jade3000
(238 posts)1. and many, many other countries
It's not laziness. It's sanity. Chasing ever increasing worker productivity is a fools errand. If we want to live the good life and protect the environment, we should aim for shorter worker hours and less productivity per worker. If we can do that and still maintain a good standard of living and good educational system, that's the one aspect of the way to a better society.
Populist_Prole
(5,364 posts)2. The GOP will compromise
They'll accept 'Americans should work for less'. They'll still drive their expensive German cars and brag of prestige...all the while disparaging the industrial policy there that made it all possible.
Republicans. you see, are remarkably adaptable.
limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)3. no this makes too much sense, it will never be considered. nt
Uncle Joe
(58,389 posts)4. Kicked and recommended.
Thanks for the thread, marmar.