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In the past people worked around 10 or even 12 hours a day (or more, but it is hard to believe that a human could work more than 12 hours for some time), so many coutries, especially the socialist ones, determined that a worker could work at the most 8 hours a day. However it was already a long time ago when the technology was much inferior and there was very few or no automation in the producition, at that time there is no computers and advanced technologies (robots, artificial intelligence etc.) of the, so known, “4th industrial revolution”.
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Nowadays we could automatize almost all. On the other hand, in capitalism it finds contradictions, because if the capitalist automatize the whole production, it will be benificial to him and most workers will lose their jobs. Structurally, if the most capitalists automatize their production, great part of population will have no job, no lose their buying power and then the capitalists wouldn’t sell their products much it could conduce to a crisis due to “overproduction”.
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Only in socialism could be benificial to automatize everything what would be possible and nowadays with this kind of technologies the socialism could easier be applied and hold high productions without using much human working.
Consider it in a capitalist context. What do you guys think about the 8-hours working a day?
I think the working day of 8 hours is overhidden. It should be at most 6 hour a day and 35 a week, especially in physical labour.
I’ve experienced periods of unemployment in much the same way. I used to make art of various forms, but I just don’t have the energy or inspiration for it while I’m working. Even when I was unemployed by “choice” and living off savings and odd jobs I remember feeling more fulfilled and complete in a way, even while there were pressing worries about making ends meet and what my future would hold.
In terms of keeping us controlled, it’s a mix of unnecessarily long workdays as well as what some call “bullshit jobs.” There’s this artificial socio-political-economic pressure that everyone in the working classes and even lower bourgeoisie must work all the time (except a small reserve of labour to keep wages down). The work most of us do is useless at best and actively destructive at worst.
Yes, forgot about bullshit jobs there for a second. Forget automation, as things already stand we could be working the mythical 15 hour workweeks we heard about 100 years ago if we trimmed all the useless fat and people were paid the same as long as the job got done.