On May 13, 2007, at 10:10 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
> The numbers offered on this are artifacts which tell us nothing either
> way about how actual people live. The number 8.63 hours of sleep gives
> us no information whatever of how many employed people between the
> ages
> of 19 and 55 sleep less or more than 8 hours. This topic can't be
> studied in terms of averages or other indexes.
The numbers don't tell you what you want to hear, so better to head for Deep Truth instead.
DIdn't Hochschild find, among other things, that people like work better than home sometimes?
> Also, the only proper comparison is with the _best_ 3 to 5 years in
> the
> experience of u.s. workers. Probably the '60s -- at a time when the
> plan
> was for everyone to have a 3 day weekend every month. Everything
> looked
> so bright in the mid '60s. That is the time to measure by.
If you're going to go maximialist, why not compare what is with what could be? With the level of and growth in productivity, we could work less and still live pretty well in material terms. But instead, the productivity payoff is mainly in the form of higher profits and upper- bracket incomes.
Doug