The 21 Hour Work Week

[Powers Hapgood]

If labor and socialism are to adequately address the obstacles faced by workers in 21st Century capitalism, then we must get back to basics. We have experienced massive increases in productivity since 1937 when the 40 hour week went into effect. But we have not had a serious re-examination of work time, and what should count as full time employment since then. This should be CRITICAL FOR SOCIALISTS: in Volume III of Das Kapital, Marx explicitly states that the shortening of work time is the pre-requisite for the realm of true freedom. I would also point out that workers have never advanced their lit in society by working for the capitalists -- only through using their time for their own purposes. This video is short, but effective.

[Demeter]

1. One of the biggest problems facing Capitalism today is Over-Supply

There are two causes to this problem.

The first is: too many people who would like the products of Capitalist factories cannot purchase them, due to insufficient income. Governments can help rebalance the flow of money so that everyone has enough, or they can buy and distribute the goods where needed.

The second is: there's too many enormous factories that can produce more than the entire global population can consume. They overbuilt, in an excess of capital, greed, and the belief of infinite demand, and their highly automated operations dis-employed their customer base, resulting in point 1 above. They committed economic suicide in their quest for domination.

[RKP5637]

2. Exceptionally well said!!! n/t

[Powers Hapgood]

3. Be careful with that analysis . . .

The technology allows more room for profit by lessening the human input. In the early chapters of Das Kapital Marx describes the capitalist drive toward great productivity. It no longer hinges so much on "great factories" as on the ability of capital to command great amounts of productive activity. In other words, globalization has made it possible for many transnational monopolies and oligopolies to simply be a conduit between the financial community and networks of smaller business units, generally contracted for limited periods so that capital can withdraw from unprofitable or less than optimum profitability production units. In those industries where information technology or robots can be applied on a mass scale the capitalists employ "technological displacement" strategies -- replacing humans with machines -- smart machines, that is. Capitalists can get away with this for a while because population growth expands the supply of labor, and wages can be bid down in the marketplace. Shorter work time is an essential demand of labor, because it allows the working class to control the supply of labor. It makes the capitalists have to bid wages up!

As far as demand constraints produced by technical innovation and the resulting worker displacement, the capitalists can go only so far before meeting the subsistence needs of the population over rule the manipulations of the labor market. At that point capitalism goes into profound crisis, because it can no longer hold society together. We are now going headlong into such a crisis. The Russian economist Kondratiev saw this as the "winter" of a very long term business cycle.

THE INTERNET BOUNCED WHEN I WAS WRITING THIS, AND I LOST MY CONCLUSION. I'LL COME BACK TO THIS LATER.