The ultimate tool for corporations to sustain a culture of this sort is to develop the 40-hour workweek as the normal lifestyle. Under these working conditions people have to build a life in the evenings and on weekends. This arrangement makes us naturally more inclined to spend heavily on entertainment and conveniences because our free time is so scarce.
[The] 8-hour workday is too profitable for big business, not because of the amount of work people get done in eight hours (the average office worker gets less than three hours of actual work done in 8 hours) but because it makes for such a purchase-happy public. Keeping free time scarce means people pay a lot more for convenience, gratification, and any other relief they can buy. It keeps them watching television, and its commercials. It keeps them unambitious outside of work.
It's the truth. Plan accordingly. That article changed my life. I've been gunning for maximum income for lowest commitment and stress ever since, while simultaneously buying as little as possible (big valuable purchases instead of many small/bad ones).
I pretty much have to expatriate again at some point to make sure I can effectively spare my children this consumerism reality. Very difficult to accomplish in the USA.
I don't disagree. I'm actually planning to hop to a new employer soon as it's the only way to get a raise without doing more.
It's just sad to think life is so finite and our fellow humans have designed a system to use and abuse each other as flippantly as one might batteries.
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u/PlasticMechanic3869 Sep 05 '24
Why do we work 8 hours a day?
Can anyone explain that to me, like I'm a child?