The case for working less: insights from Marx and Keynes

The case for working less: insights from Marx and Keynes David Spencer, Economics Division, University of Leeds, email: das@lubs.leeds.ac.uk

Introduction • The case for working less is present in the writings of both Marx and Keynes • Both saw the shortening of work time as an important ingredient of a better society to come

Presentation • Economics and working time • The case for working less in the writings of Marx and Keynes – similarities and differences • Working less: prospects and possibilities

Economics and working time • Key theme of standard economics is that workers are “free to choose” the hours they want to work • Workers are assumed to make rational choices over the allocation of their time between work and leisure which maximise their utility or happiness • Workers are able to work shorter hours if that is their preference

Economics and working time • Non-interventionist approach adopted – work time is best left to individual choice and free bargaining between workers and employers • Classical economics invoked the idea of “free agency” to oppose the C19th Factory Acts • Neoclassical economics invokes assumption that workers are free to determine their work hours in support of a flexible labour market

Economics and working time • Standard economics takes the view that people have an interest in working less (work is a “disutility”) • Proceeds of higher growth can be used by people to “buy” more leisure time if that is their preference • Only the unlimited nature of human wants and the relative scarcity of resources keeps people at work

Marx and Keynes • Marx and Keynes challenged the standard account of work time determination in economics • More broadly, they offered a different vision of how society might and should be organised under conditions that enabled people to work less (similar vision also offered by J.S. Mill) • Look at contribution of each writer in turn, starting with Marx

Marx: work time and capitalism • Focus on the way in which capitalism imposes long hours of work on workers • Key feature of capitalism is the lack of free choice and the alienating conditions of work • Human suffering, physical and psychological, caused by long work hours and the degradation of work

Marx: limits to shorter work time under capitalism • Work time reduction only possible through class struggle. Work time legislation linked to working class resistance to long work hours • Technology developed under capitalism has the potential to shorten work time but this potential is left unrealised – instead, technology under capitalism becomes a means of exploitation

Marx: the workless future to come • Less work could and would be done in a future society • The inevitable abolition of capitalism would bring about a reduction of work time • Development of capitalism as a necessary stage in realising a workless future

Marx: workless future to come • Marx foresaw that in a future communist society technology would be used to curtail work activity in the “realm of necessity” and to expand free creative activity in the “true realm of freedom” • Work could be turned into a rewarding activity, by curtailing drudgery and by organising it on a collective and communal basis • Work would be rendered as “life’s prime want” under communism • Communism will bring about not only more free time but also fulfilling work

Marx: workless future to come • “It is self-evident that if labour time is reduced to a normal length and, furthermore, labour is no longer performed for someone else, but for myself, and, at the same time, the social contradictions between master and men, etc., being abolished, it acquires a quite different, a free character, it becomes real social labour, and finally the basis of disposable time - the time of labour of a man who has also disposable time, must be of a much higher quality than that of the beast of burden.” (Marx, TSV, vol.2)

Keynes: on work time • Keynes questioned the idea that workers could make rational, utility maximising choices in the labour market • Due to constraints on aggregate demand, workers could find themselves excluded from paid work through no fault of their own • Notion of “involuntary unemployment” and the denial of preferences

Keynes: vision of workless future • Keynes’s 1930 Essay: Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren • Looked forward a hundred years and foresaw a workless future • The “economic problem” would be solved by 2030 • Technological progress and capital accumulation would enable us to meet our needs by working only 15 hours per week

Keynes’s vision • Capitalism will create the necessary conditions for a future leisure society • The “money-making and money-loving instincts” of capitalism will propel the economic system towards a workless future, in which we will live better and fuller lives • These instincts will fade in the future and will be replaced by a striving for higher level goals

Lilies of the field • “I see us free, therefore, to return to some of the most sure and certain principles of religion and traditional virtue - that avarice is a vice, that the exaction of usury is a misdemeanour, and the love of money is detestable … We shall once more value ends above means and prefer the good to the useful. We shall honour those who can teach us how to pluck the hour and the day virtuously and well, the delightful people who are capable of taking direct enjoyment in things, the lilies of the field who toil not, neither do they spin.”

Working less and full employment • In a 1945 letter to the poet T.S. Eliot, Keynes wrote of the “three ingredients of a cure” for unemployment — (i) more investment; (ii) more consumption; (iii) less work: • “The full employment policy by means of investment is only one particular application of an intellectual theorem. You can produce the result just as well by consuming more or working less. Personally I regard the investment policy as first aid. In US it almost certainly will not do the trick. Less work is the ultimate solution.”

Differences from Marx • Gradual, harmonious movement to workless future: productivity gains would lead to reductions in work time – Keynes overlooked resistance of capitalist employers to reduction in work time as well as the insatiability of human wants • Work would remain a “bad thing” in the future – reduction of work time was about escaping the disutility of work, not negating it. Keynes saw human fulfilment as arising from activities (not sloth) pursued in the non-work sphere. Unlike Marx, no hope for turning work into a fulfilling activity

Working time: recent trends • Keynes’s prophecy unlikely to be realised – despite huge gains in productivity, reduction in work time has either slowed or been reversed in recent decades • Rise in work time in the US • Average worker worked 1,868 hours in 2007, an increase of 181 hours from the 1979 work year of 1,687 hours. This represents a 10.7 percent increase —the equivalent of every worker working 4.5 additional weeks per year (Michel, 2013). Longer hours for those at the bottom of the income distribution and for women • Persistence of long hours in the UK • 19.6 percent (5.9m) of UK workers work more than 45 hours a week (27.7 percent of male workers)

Working time: recent trends • Wide variation in work time between nations, suggesting that alternative work time arrangements are feasible • Official data may under-record total work time as work is performed during the commute to work and/or at home

Barriers to shorter work time • Pressure to consume (competitive consumption) • effects of advertising • rising inequality • Pressure from employers linked to decline in unionisation and collective bargaining • Stagnant or falling real wages coupled with higher debt levels  effects of crisis • Impact of technology – more effective monitoring + increase in remote working

Costs of working more • Economic costs: inefficiencies from working longer hours (impaired effort and reduced cognitive function due to tiredness and stress); maldistribution of work (overwork coexisting with unemployment) • Health costs: burnout, heart disease, mental illness, and even premature death • Social costs: less time for family and community activities • Environmental costs: more work implies more production and consumption and greater damage to the natural environment

Fears of working less • Prospect of working less has become something to fear • Fear of loss of jobs and of increase in inequality due to advance of technology – freedom from work means greater economic destitution for many more people • polarisation of labour market and decline in absolute number of jobs (“second machine age”) • Promoting the case for working less involves challenging and overcoming this fear

Conclusion • Visions of a workless future contained in the writings of Marx and Keynes continue to inspire us to think differently about how we might live and work • Challenge us to think of growth as a means to a better life, not as an end in itself, and to see technology as a potentially liberating force • Given the benefits on offer, as a society, can we afford not to work less?

The case for working less: insights from Marx and Keynes