Let me take you to a journey which you don't often see or which has fade away from main stream india.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Speed Thrills But It Also Kills (why 4 days a week work is good for society)
If you think that this post is all about advice, you are mistaken.
Here by speed i mean the rate at which some one or some companies wants to grow. Every company wants to grow at a very high rate. But we have our resources limited. So we look at technology to solve our this problem and make our resources more efficient. For example when in old days the cars were very less fuel efficient, the demand for oil was increasing. So we wanted cars that are fuel efficient thinking this will solve our problem of oil dependency. But instead technology put us into more grave problem. Since the cars are more fuel efficient, people are buying more cars and once again the oil dependency is increasing. Which defeats our initial purpose of less dependency. By increasing fuel efficiency by 30% (suppose) we are increasing the fuel consumption or demand as a whole by some X%. Technology makes efficient systems. Which means with same labour and efficient system we can increase the productivity. Increase productivity demands increased consumption. Now with recession around people have started consuming less. Which means we have a surplus of labour and people lose their jobs.
So what many feel is, increased efficiency should not mean increased productivity. Rather it should be increased leisure time for the workforce keeping the productivity in sync with the demand and making a change for less consumption. Just because the companies (owners, profit makers) wants to grow at a fast rate (high speed) they are inturn making the planet a dangerous place. Lets have more and more efficient systems and also have more time to relax. So that we do not harm the natural balance of life and nature. Efficient systems should give us more time in hand not more work to do.
So what about 4 days a week work ?? :) If in 1933 US decreased working hours a day from 10 to 8 then i think its time for 6hrs a day or 4 days a week . :)
If you have some comments on this then pls do leave some comments at the end.
My thoughts here are greatly influenced by "Work Less Party 32 Hour Work Week Campaign " To know more about it visit http://www.worklessparty.org/
Here by speed i mean the rate at which some one or some companies wants to grow. Every company wants to grow at a very high rate. But we have our resources limited. So we look at technology to solve our this problem and make our resources more efficient. For example when in old days the cars were very less fuel efficient, the demand for oil was increasing. So we wanted cars that are fuel efficient thinking this will solve our problem of oil dependency. But instead technology put us into more grave problem. Since the cars are more fuel efficient, people are buying more cars and once again the oil dependency is increasing. Which defeats our initial purpose of less dependency. By increasing fuel efficiency by 30% (suppose) we are increasing the fuel consumption or demand as a whole by some X%. Technology makes efficient systems. Which means with same labour and efficient system we can increase the productivity. Increase productivity demands increased consumption. Now with recession around people have started consuming less. Which means we have a surplus of labour and people lose their jobs.
So what many feel is, increased efficiency should not mean increased productivity. Rather it should be increased leisure time for the workforce keeping the productivity in sync with the demand and making a change for less consumption. Just because the companies (owners, profit makers) wants to grow at a fast rate (high speed) they are inturn making the planet a dangerous place. Lets have more and more efficient systems and also have more time to relax. So that we do not harm the natural balance of life and nature. Efficient systems should give us more time in hand not more work to do.
So what about 4 days a week work ?? :) If in 1933 US decreased working hours a day from 10 to 8 then i think its time for 6hrs a day or 4 days a week . :)
If you have some comments on this then pls do leave some comments at the end.
My thoughts here are greatly influenced by "Work Less Party 32 Hour Work Week Campaign " To know more about it visit http://www.worklessparty.org/
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