But anyway, yes, to what you've said below. i can't fathom that demands for a 20 hr work week will fly with anyone though. Open borders, yes.
the 20 hr work week, though, that would probably be seen as the whining of the clothing privileged and not worthy of struggle. *************************
I think shorter work time (SWT) is the key to fortifying the class interests of the world's workers. Workers should have their own class agenda. The SWT critique is based on the reality that there are two sources of wealth in the world: Natural resources and workers' labour/productivity over time. Workers get paid what they can sell their labour power for in the marketplace. Their pay is called wages. Wages are the price of labour of varying sorts. Different skills are bought by the employing class for different prices. In general, workers wages are usually paid out of what they produce in the first hour or so of their working day. The working day is then the key to the exploitation of wage labour. If the working day is reduced, then the worker can still receive the same wage and still produce more for the employer than the cost of the wage to the employer, hence exploitation will continue until wage labour is abolished. Be that as it may, with
shorter work time, the capitalist still gets to sell the social product of labour.... just not as much as before 'output per hour/work week' was shortened. And that is a important, material (not just moral) link to the question of open borders and solving the unemployment issue and raising wages by making the supply and demand axiom work in favour of proles, whatever their country of birth. Quite simply, there will be more demand for workers, if shorter work time can be enacted. Of course, the thrust for this change would have to come from the workers themselves. There's the rub, lefty organisers would have to go to the grassroots with a materialist analysis in hand as opposed to the usual liberalism i.e. moralist based emotional appeals.
Mike B)
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