Bet 78
By 2070, at least six countries will have officially implemented a 4-day working week.
Prediction 78
Duration 68 years (02002-02070)
Predictor
Christophe Cauvy
Challenger
TBA
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Working less not only induces social, intellectual, and health benefits for individuals and families, but it is also positive for business and society on a whole. Let’s bear in mind that our present capitalist society would look very different had we decided to continue with a 6-day working week. If the weekend was still one-day, think about the reduced importance of the following sectors: tourism, catering, transport, real estate, entertainment, publishing, cinema, and shopping malls… With the emergence of ultra-fast communication means, and the automatisation and robotisation of numerous tasks, productivity continues to increase, therefore allowing less time spent working without jeopardizing the stability of the economy. This gives room for governments and corporations to authorise a substantial decrease in the amount of time spent at work by employees and civil servants. As Western societies tend towards more emphasis on distraction and entertainment, a supplementary weekly day off is a natural, logical, and somewhere inevitable progression. It will be first implemented by a few innovative countries. Gradually, it will gain momentum (hopefully also in third world nations).
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By 2070, at least six countries will have officially implemented a 4-day working week.
How "officially implemented" is the present, alleged, 5 day working week? Sunday has some specific regulatory significance, but apart from that it's custom that determines what days are worked.
In my view, Saturday is officially a day off, in that, for instance:
- Shops opening hours are restricted
- Stock exchanges and banks clearing systems are closed
- The law imposes higher hourly salaries
Obviously, these examples are not ubiquitous because regulations differ in each country. But they illustrate the special status of Saturday.
In this bet, the term “officially” signifies that there will be a patent acknowledgement by the State that a third day of the week will be considered as a “weekend day”.
By 2070, the Earth will spin more slowly, and the official number of days per week will be dropped to 5, but days will be 33.6 hours long. Since there will be less time commuting = more time working, Full-time benefits may be achieved at a minimum of 47 hours per week.
"The law imposes higher hourly salaries"
It's not exactly 'off' if they're working, ne? In fact I'm pretty sure that the amount of people working on the weekend has been increasing over the last few years.
There will always be people who work during nightshifts or on Sundays.
Having 3-day long weekends does not mean that hospitals, restaurants, and drugstores will be closed at the end of the week.
It will be a similar situation as the one we have today, except that the official working week will end up on Thursday evening.
I reckon that the main problem will be to synchronize an entire society with neighbouring countries. Still, I reiterate the initial statement of this present bet.
According to many anthropologists, the average adult today spends about as much time working each day as our pre-human ancestors spent hunting and/or gathering. If the standard hasn't changed for thousands of years, what will make it change in the next few decades?
We don't need to work 5 days a week to maintain a basic lifestyle- we do it because what is considered a "basic lifestyle" changes with each generation. Today we work that extra day to pay for our cell phones, SUVs and DSL connections. Tomorrow we might be working to afford our hoverbikes and holodecks.
After all these years of progress and evolution, ending up “working” as much as our ancestors is quite ironic, and surely not a coincidence. I didn’t know about this theory.
I’d like to think that this is related to biorhythm and to the fact that one day still comprises 24 hours: we need to have activities to fulfil our lives, whether it’s hunting, programming computers or playing with our children.
I think that there is a tendency in our modern society to think beyond work and enjoy other aspects of life. It used to be reserved to the ‘elite’. The 20th century definitively saw the emergence of entertainment and leisure as key components of everyone’s life (at least in ‘rich’ countries): cinema, art galleries, books, travel, gardening, DIY…
Why should 5 working days per week be our destiny?
Regarding the second argument - working an extra day to pay for SUVs – it doesn’t contradict my position: whether you have 4 or 5 “official” working days per week, people are – and will be – authorized OR obliged (depending on circumstances) to work more.
The main way that the 5-day working week has been "officially" adopted in all countries is that government offices open only Monday-Friday. Many countries do not specify a work-week for the private sector, and increasingly the ones that do specify a number of hours and not which days they are worked on. The UK, for example, has no laws whatsoever on Saturday working.
So I would call this bet on the basis of what days government offices are open.
Incidentally, on this basis I would call the bet NO because social pressures are moving towards a service being available 24-7 with different people taking their rest days on different days of the week. Even if most people only work 4 days (and many people may prefer to work 5 short days or other patterns) nobody (not even the government) would shut up shop on Friday. Instead, different people would take different days off and most services would be open 5 (or 7) days. This has numerous advantages over the 4-day week, particularly that you can do your banking/shopping/bureaucrat-feeding on your day off work, rather than having all the shops shut just when you have free time to visit them.
Jonathan Monroe, you've voiced an excellent argument. Feel like taking the bet?
Unfortunately I am a full-time student so I can't afford USD1000. If I can find a backer for about USD500, I'll take it, subject to a watertight definintion based on opening times of government offices.
Sorry for the delay in responding.
You stated:
“The main way that the 5-day working week has been "officially" adopted in all countries is that government offices open only Monday-Friday.”
This is what I mean. I am not talking about dissuading people from working as much – or as few – as they want or need.
My point is that, it will be an identical situation as today, except that there will be one less day of “official opening”.
This term could depend on:
- Government offices opening days (excluding specific cases like social services)
And / or
- Banking exchanges opening days (whether we are talking about stock markets or money transfer/clearing houses).
Give me some time to think about any other examples that might be relevant to this discussion.
Then you said:
“Incidentally, on this basis I would call the bet NO because social pressures are moving towards a service being available 24-7 with different people taking their rest days on different days of the week.”
Here I obviously disagree.
Becoming a full-on 24H/7-days society open to consumption is NOT incompatible with the principles of this bet. The point is not to limit activity (shopping, leisure, working) but to facilitate the advent of one extra day off.
And then:
“…nobody (not even the government) would shut up shop on Friday.”
Theoretically, this is not unfeasible. How did it happen with Saturday became days off…? I am not an historian and was not born when it occurred, but all I know is that Saturday is seen as a day off, even if numerous people work. Why can’t Friday have the same fate?
Finally:
“Instead, different people would take different days off and most services would be open 5 (or 7) days.”
This is already what we do today with 5-working day. And we will remain free to do the same within a 4-working day pattern.
Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but I seem to remember that the Kung! bushmen spend about 20 hours a week doing 'work' and they live in some of the worst conditions in the world. I always believed that the more technology we had in our lives the more work we had. Yes, a vaccuum is much quicker than beating out a rug, but we vaccuum a lot more frequently.
There of course have been exceptions. Early agricultural societies put in more hours than we do, but they were also putting in more hours than their ancestors.
I guess maybe it has to do with expanding expectations. Companies used to be satisfied to know if a certain product was selling. Now they want to know what demographic is buying the product, and why.
It might be that we reached a technology level so that manual labor that used to be done, well, manually, could be replaced by machines, which is why we spend less time growing food than we used to, but more time vaccuuming.
It seems that the next step, the important step, would be to start making machines that could replace the human in intellectual labor. The computer is probably the forerunner of this, able to replace the trained monkey drills of moving information around, but until artificial intelligence not only catches up with the human, but becomes cheaper as well, I think for every time saving device we come up with, someone will come up with ten new things we can do now because of that very same time saving device. The four day week sounds nice, but I think it will be a long time coming.
M. Cauvy makes a good point about the benefits of working fewer hours. However, I am not convinced that this implies a shorter "working week" in terms of number of days.
The same factors that give rise to the possibility of humans working shorter hours - for example improved manufacturing efficiency, use of automated technology to process interactions as disparate as filling in a tax return to buying a pair of shoes - also give rise to a series of expectations.
The increase of leisure time will lead to an increased expectation that services - shops, golf courses, swimming pools, bars - will be open when required. While fewer people may be required to run them, they will be open for longer and longer hours as those with more free time want to use them at a time they consider convenient.
The distinction between "working" and "non-working" days and hours as a society-wide norm will, I believe, decrease.
Internet technology has already given us a sales / information / communication channel that is open 24 hours a day, 7 days per week. Broadcasters now air TV/radio round the clock. Shops are opening longer into the evening, and longer hours at weekends than ever before, as their customers demand service.
Financial institutions have started to follow - internet and telephone banking are now available round the clock.
National Stock markets are notionally closed, but increasingly global stocks are traded on several markets in different time zones.
Office-based employees are increasingly working flexible hours, and the manager who arrives in the office at 11am every morning, and leaves at 4pm, but then "does email" from home from 5-11 every night is beginning to become acceptable.
Access to publically funded services is perhaps the only bastion of the "traditional working week". I cannot believe that Governments will reduce the number of hours that their services are available, since their voters will demand access at their convenience.
As such, I disagree with the assertion that a 4-day week will come about, because, paradoxically, a shorter working week in terms of working hours demands a longer working week in terms opening hours.
(and yes, I realise I have to make this more succinct.)
Sorry, just jumping in with my first post.
I'm assuming this is in reference to the US.
I got to this site by searching for research on a paper I'm doing. As part of that I was trying to confirm how many countries presently have a 4 day work week, how they got there, and why.
Obviously there is some disagreement about the definition of how to win the bet.
I would suggest that the bet consider that the hours per week be a guiding force, and that the evolution to a 32 work week be the standard.
I believe that in the US it is a 100% sure bet that it WON'T happen.
This argument can be very easily supported by looking at how deeply entrenched we are in the present situation:
I provide the following arguments:
1. We have established a "threshold of pain" work ethic - Quite entrenched in our way of lives is a faster and faster pace of activity. Since I'm 50, I have seen the change over the years. Information technology and the constant beating of marketing forces around us will have us participating in the "machine" until quite literally we achieve our "threshold of pain". The emphasis thus is not on achieving a higher quality of life through technology, but by working to a point that we can just barely stand it.
2. The people won't ask for it - People of the middle and bottom would have to have a major epiphany and consider that they weren't getting a "fair share" of the pie. Practically speaking, the reduction from 40 hours to 32 hours means they get a bigger share. For some reason Americans are very content with the notion that they have to work while most of the "profits" of their work go to the top. We have an interesting philosophy of "rich envy" and we generally believe that those at the top deserve to be as rich as they are. So Americans basically buy lottery tickets or else believe maybe some day they might "hit it rich".
3. The people wouldn't get it even if they asked for it - There is no reason to believe that the government will intercede to control the situation. The present situation is literally nailed shut. Companies would actually ask for more hours per week if they thought they could get away with it. Any "official" change would require an enormous deviation in the basic way we think of government. The government of the United States is evolving to be less "socialistic" and would see no need to upset anything that might have to do with the Gross National Product. The present government is also completely caught up in special interests and ultimately capitalistic forces, and is not a body of men that are truly interested in Americans having a better way of life.
4. Technology and "wealth" won't get us there - This is an important and often argued point. There are many friends of mine that believe in Reaganomics and that if it was given a chance, everyone will eventually become millionaires. They truly believe that the principles of flat tax and letting market forces take over would eventually make us all rich if given the chance. If so, then we all could obviously "afford" to take the time off…and perhaps we would naturally evolve to a 4 day (or even less) of a work week. Notwithstanding this argument, the present tax system and its present gradient STILL allows most of the money to go to the top. One critical defect of this is that the bottom and middle are NOT coming up in the process (however vehemently those who believe in Reaganomics might argue this).
Our current tax system has allowed a disproportionate amount of wealth to go to the top (and out of the country). One only has to go out and buy a few almanacs confirm that there is a clear trend which is putting more of the "pie" at the top and less in the middle and bottom. But more to the point, the middle and bottom are not GAINING in the process. This is evidenced by the fact that per capita assets are diminishing while debt is on the rise. My own personal theory is that it’s a combination of 2 basic things. First, the tax system would have to be revised to either create an upper upper rate or raise the current rate to offset the ever increasing trend of money to the top. Secondly, there are a number of expenses in our lives which are becoming disproportionately large (transportation, health care, housing, college, and others).
Honestly, no one has provided a compelling enough argument for the situation, or to the extent that the majority of people can embellish the fact that they are losing ground. Ironically, they lose ground and therefore continue to work harder in an attempt to get back where they started. In the country today, it is very possible that the future holds for us a situation where the middle and lower classes live purely on credit if the present trends continue.
The application of this point alone MANDATES a continuation of a very intense work ethic.
Our company is presently working a 4-day 40-hour work week by implementiong a 10-hour day. I assume what you're discussing is a 4-day/8-hour work day week.
If you mean the former, it isn't a stretch from what we now have.
The way it works is that we have some people working Monday ->Thursday, with a crew on Tuesday-> Friday.
Personally, I worked it out to work alternate
Monday->Thursday & Tuesday->Friday the next week.
This gives me one week with Sat & Sun off & the following weekend with Fri,Sat,Sun& Mon off.
My cross-worker works the alternate shift & so we cover for each other for five-day coverage with no loss in coverage. In fact, the added 2-hours per day makes us more productive due to reduced start-up-shut-down time.
Any would satisfy, in my opinion. That way you don't have to continue pointless arguments about flex-time. It was originally widely believed that the year 2000 would bring with it shorter work weeks. Instead, it brought richer rich people.
I agree with the bet, because it says 6 countries. We can already count Germany. Canada and France will certainly qualify by the deadline. The USA can continue to work itself to the bone until the end of time, it is just one country for the purposes of the bet.
For those who think 4-working days will not happen:
I find your arguments genuinely valid.
However, when reasoning, there is a key factor that is under-estimated: we all have the tendency to use our brain within a "present framework".
I explain: yes, some people want to be able to consume 24H-a-day. Yes, some people want or are obliged to work more for various reasons (from reasonable sense of responsibilities to pure greed).
But all in all, this type of assertion misses the point: it is not because we are all more or less attracted by materialist comfort - that's today's society - that we will still behave similarly in the future.
My point is: the 21st century will be different. Capitalism will mutate, incrementally, but still significantly. Therefore, we cannot just transport our current state of mind into 2070 without modifying it. Otherwise, it would be like predicting, before a bunch of 19th century coal-miners, that one day they would have social security, paid holidays, and weekends. Obviously, they would be extra-dubious!
Regarding the problem related to poor social categories, we could attain a society where even the lowest salary could allow a decent life.
Overall, things will change, and I bet that, regarding the evolution of the balance between work and non-work, at least in some countries, it will be for the better.
Indeed, I am thinking about 8-hour per day. But your current situation could be an intermediary process. Over the years, with added organisation, benchmark elsewhere, and higher productivity, your entire country could end up working 4 days per week...
By 2070 all humans will either be extinct, controlled by machines or machines would have taken over in EVERY field of work even inventing new machines.
I'm really interested in the elimination of work. Perhaps it will take thousands of years. Someday we'll reach a point where people are guaranteed survival. Shelter and food will be either either guaranteed or provided in a way where people are able to obtain it for themselves.
Forced work is not much different from slavery. Many people work in dissatisfying jobs. It robs their soul as the sociologist Weber has said. Bertrand Russell has also spoken about work.
Once work is no longer a necessity, people can spend their time learning how to be human. In the manner in which life has been organized in our short time of civilised culture, most people do not grow much beyond childhood. Their basic psychology and personality doesn't change because life, for the
most part, has so far stabalized in adulthood.
When things change, much may have to be self service and public. Perhaps there will be places where people can go to make their own food, clothes, and other goods.
People will also have much greater mobility in deciding what type of new work they wish to do. Jobs will no longer be organized for production in itself. By this time, consumerism will have already failed and created a level of poverity much greater than today. The difficulty of having basic means of survival in highly populated areas will have expanded to such a point that riots and other signs of dissatisfaction will have led to a necessary change.
In case anyone hasn't read Bertrand Russell's article, here it is:
http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html
Many people have spoken about the importance of personality development yet I don't believe any commonly read philosopher has specificly addressed work. This is an important article that I believe everyone should think about. I suspect if Russell was more honest or had written this later in is philosophical development, he may have been more radical.
I agree with the basic technological premises, but the way things are going, it looks more like we're going to have 50% unemployment and a 7-day week for the few who are lucky enough to have a job.
Dude, we have already reached this point decades ago. In most of Europe, North America and Japan people ARE guaranteed basic necessities like food and shelter. Here in East Germany there is 20% unemployment rate. Half of them are long term unemployed and they live in nice houses with dishwashers and central heating, own cars, and get free health care. Even a homeless person living in a Western nation in 2007 is materially better off than a King in the middle ages. Fact is, any of us could work a 5-hour week and easily cover the most BASIC necessities if we wanted to. The reason most of us don't is because we want to afford luxuries.
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