<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.2627" name=GENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>John Thornton, pay attention. The statistics cited
were in a context. Joanna suggested that her fathers' era was something like a
utopia compared to the present. So I looked at the numbers and found that, on
the average, people worked shorter hours, their money went further (at least on
basics) and lived longer. What do these stastitics show, you rail? They show
that the 1960s were not (at least in material terms) better than the
present.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Tom Walker, like John, takes issue with the
evidence that on the average, fewer hours are worked in the US today, than were
in 1963. Comparing apples with pears, he says, since there are more women
working. Service sector work replacing manual work, says John. Read Juliet Shor,
the Overworked American, says Tom.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I do not think that you can explain the shift away.
It is true there are many secondary texts that argue that we work longer hours
than we used to (like Madeleine Bunting's book, or Pietro Basso's Modern Times,
Ancient Hours). However, looking at the statistics, I find this not to be the
case, at least not in the long term. The real movement in working hours is that
there was a sharp turn upwards from the mid eighties, but that the longer term
trend (say from 1947 onwards) is downwards. In Britain and the US, the upward
shift in the eighties has been reversed. Most people are remembering the
eighties increase, and projecting it backwards, without really taking on board
how much longer people used to work.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>There is a point that work is spread more evenly
between the sexes. But do you really want to argue for the exclusion of
women from full-time work?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I think what really needs to be explained is the
near-universal assumption that the past was better than now, even when the
evidence is to the contrary. I suggest the following answer. The past was not
better than the present in material terms. But in terms of social agency, most
people enjoy less influence over the direction of society today than they did
thirty years ago. This is projected backwards (mistakenly) as 'we were better
off then', when all the evidence is that in terms of material fulfilment, that
is not a plausible proposition.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>fraternally</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>James Heartfield </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>(off to France for a week, so happy
posting)</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>