How Many Hours Do/Did You Work?
How
many hours per week do you, or did you if you are retired, have to work?
In
considering the answers to this question that were given by people who studied
the economy, please not the dates when they were written.
"The
so-called "division of labour" has grown
under a system which condemned the masses to toil all the day long, and all the
life long, at the same wearisome kind of labour. But
if we take into account how few are the real producers of wealth in our present
society, and how squandered is their labour we must recognise that Franklin* was right in saying
that to work five hours a day would generally do for supplying each member of a
civilised nation with the comfort now accessible for
the few only." Chapter VIII, FIELDS, FACTORIES &
WORKSHOPS, Peter Kropotkin, Second Edition 1912.
*Benjamin Franklin
(1706-1790). That's right. According to Ben Franklin's analysis of the market,
and we may rely on the business acumen of a man born into a poor family of with
thirteen children who became a millionaire and statesman; already in the 18th
C. it was possible to attain a comfortable standard of living working five
hours a day.
In
reading the next quotes think about the implications of what Kropotkin is saying would have for Shmitta:
"In the domain
of agriculture it may be taken as proved that if a small part only of the time
that is now- given in each nation or region to field culture was given to well
thought out and socially carried out permanent improvements of the soil, the
duration of work which would be required afterwards to grow the yearly
bread-food for an average family of five would be less than a fortnight every
year; and that the work required for that purpose would not be the hard toil of
the ancient slave, but work which would be agreeable to the physical forces of
every healthy man and woman in the country.
It has been proved
that by following the methods of intensive market- gardening-partly under
glass-vegetables and fruit can be grown in such quantities that men could be
provided with a, rich vegetable food and a profusion of fruit, if they simply
devoted to the task of growing them the hours which everyone willingly devotes
to work in the open air, after having spent most of his day in the factory, the
mine, or the study. Provided, of course, that the production of food-stuffs
should not be the work of the isolated individual, but the planned-out and
combined action of human groups.
It has also been
proved-and those who care to verify it by themselves may easily do so by
calculating the real expenditure for labour which was
lately made in the building of workmen's houses by both private persons and
municipalities -that under a proper combination of labour,
twenty to twenty-four months of one man's work would be sufficient to secure
for ever, for a family of five, an apartment or a house provided with all the
comforts which modern hygiene and taste could require.
And now, in the
presence of all these conquests - what is the reality of things?
In industrially
developed countries, a couple of months' work, or even much less than that,
would be sufficient to produce for a family a rich and varied vegetable and
animal food.
One month of work
every year would be quite sufficient to provide the worker with a healthy
dwelling." – Chapter
IX, F F & W
"For centuries
science and so-called practical wisdom have said to man: "It is good to be
rich, to be able to satisfy, at least, your material needs; but the only means
to be rich is to so train your mind and capacities as to be able to compel
other men-slaves, serfs or wage-earners -to make these riches for you. You have
no choice. Either you must stand in the ranks of the peasants and the artisans
who, whatsoever economists and moralists may promise them in the future, are
now periodically doomed to starve after each bad crop or during their strikes
and to be shot down by their own sons the moment they lose patience. Or you
must: train your faculties so as to be a military commander of the masses, or
to be accepted as one of the wheels of the governing machinery of the State or
to become a manager of men in commerce or industry." For many centuries
there was no other choice, and men followed that advice, without finding in it
happiness, either for themselves and their own children, or for those whom they
pretended to preserve from worse misfortunes.
But modern knowledge
has another issue to offer to thinking men. It tells
them that in order to be rich they need not take the bread from the mouths of
others; but that the more rational outcome would be a society in which men,
with the work of their own hands and intelligence, and by the aid of the
machinery already invented and to be invented, should themselves create all
imaginable riches. Technics and science will not be
lagging behind if production takes such a direction. Guided by observation,
analysis and experiment, they will answer all possible demands. They will
reduce the time which is necessary for producing wealth to any desired amount,
so as to leave to everyone as much leisure as he or she may ask for. They
surely cannot guarantee happiness, because happiness depends as much, or even
more, upon the individual himself as upon his surroundings. But they guarantee,
at least, the happiness that can be found in the full and varied exercise of
the different capacities of the human being, in work that need not be overwork,
and in the consciousness that one is not endeavouring
to base his own happiness upon the misery of others.
These are the
horizons which the above inquiry opens to the unprejudiced mind." End of Chapter IX, F F & W
"Overwork
is repulsive to human nature--not work. Overwork for supplying the few with
luxury--not work for the well-being of all. Work is a physiological necessity,
a necessity of spending accumulated bodily energy, a necessity which is health
and life itself. If so many branches of useful work are so reluctantly done
now, it is merely because they mean overwork, or they are improperly organised. But we know--old Franklin knew it--that four hours
of useful work every day would be more than sufficient for supplying everybody
with the comfort of a moderately well-to-do middle-class house, if we all gave
ourselves to productive work, and if we did not waste our productive powers as
we do waste them now." - Peter Kropotkin, ANARCHIST COMMUNISM: Its Basis and Principles,
1887
Kropotkin treats the matter of how many hours of work
are required of whom and under what conditions
in depth in Chapter VIII of THE CONQUEST OF BREAD (See: http://tinyurl.com/fdtvn)
We have
already obtained the unanimous assent of those who have studied the subject,
that a society, having recovered the possession of all riches accumulated in
its midst, can liberally assure abundance to all in return for four or five
hours effective and manual work a day, as far as regards production." Anarchism:
It's Philosophy and Ideal", Peter Kropotkin, 1896
See: Johann
Most's speech: " THE BEAST OF PROPERTY", c. 1884, which
can be found on the following URL: http://tinyurl.com/kxr8w
"Under
socialism…With the idle rich and the idle poor working and the work day four
hours long their bodies will grow strong again and their minds sane." –
"Brutal Treatment of the Unemployed in Sacramento Star" – Helen
Keller, March 16, 1914
"It
can be statistically proven that three hours' work a day, at most, is
sufficient to feed, shelter, and clothe the world and supply it not only with
necessities but also with all modern comforts of life." – Alexander Berkman, Now and After: THE ABC OF COMMUNIST ANARCHISM,
Chapter 22, New York: Vanguard Press, 1929.
"No
one wants to spend their whole life in the factory or workshop, but everyone
needs nails, transportation, or rope at some time, It would only be fair that
all people spend a few hours every week helping to provide these useful
products in co-operation with their fellows. Machines do help us make these
things more easily; people only become slaves to their machines because they
are slaves to their bosses and to a wasteful, growth-oriented economy. If there
were no useless bosses who collect the profits but do no work at the machines
they own or oversee, and if production did not always have to be increased to
fuel an ever-expanding, growth-oriented consumerism, then it is doubtful that
any of us would have to work more than a few hours per week. Those who are by
temperament "workaholics" could spend their time improving upon, and
experimenting with, products or projects of their choice." - "ANARCHO-SYNDICALSIM, TECHNOLOGY and
ECOLOGY" by Graham Purchase http://tinyurl.com/el9fs, writing in 1995.
The
Catholic Worker Movement: Societal
structures need to be built so that it will be "easy to be good." Advocates the four-hour work day in order that workers become
scholars and Scholars workers. (See: http://tinyurl.com/oou45).
Is it
any less imperative for Jews to be scholar-workers than for Catholics?
I have
spoken to an inventor about this matter. He has a number of patents to his
name. In response to my question: How many work hours would be required of a
person to live an upper-middle class lifestyle today, given today's technology;
his answer was: TWO hours per day. All the rest that you work is going into
someone else's pocket. Internalize that.
Think
of how many things you could do for your community, how much more energy you
would have, how much more time you would have with your loved ones, how much
you could do to edify yourself if all of those work hours that are being stolen
from you in order to make someone else rich were given back to you.
What do
you expect the length of your work life to be, or, if you are retired, of how
many years' duration was it?
Kropotkin says in his book, FIELDS, FACTORIES AND
WORKSHOPS, Second Edition 1912, that technology had advanced his Franklin's
time. Let's read on.
"But
we have made some progress since Franklin's time, and some of that progress in
the hitherto most backward branch of production--agriculture --has been
indicated in the preceding pages. Even in that branch the productivity of labour can be immensely increased,
and work itself rendered easy and pleasant. If everyone took his share of production,
and if production were socialised--as political
economy, if it aimed at the satisfaction of the ever-growing needs of all,
would advise us to do--then more than one half of the working day would remain
to everyone for the pursuit of art, science, or any hobby he or she might
prefer; and his work in those fields would be the more profitable if he spent
the other half of the day in productive work--if art and science were followed
from mere inclination, not for mercantile purposes. Moreover, a community organised on the principles of all being workers would be
rich enough to conclude that every man and woman, after having; reached a
certain age--say of forty or more--ought to be relieved from the moral
obligation of taking a direct part in the performance of the necessary manual
work, so as to be able entirely to devote himself or herself to whatever he or
she chooses in the domain of art, or science, or any kind of work. Free pursuit
in new branches of art and knowledge, free creation, and free development thus
might be fully guaranteed.. And such a community would
not know misery amidst wealth. It would not know the duality of conscience
which permeates out life and stifles every noble effort. It would freely take
its flight towards the highest regions of progress compatible with human
nature." – Chapter VIII, FIELDS, FACTORIES & WORKSHOPS, Peter Kropotkin,
Second Edition 1912.
Doreen
Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel