The people with the highest "social capital"--the most and deepest human connections that are critical in moments of crisis and stress--are people who work 20 hrs. per week; more than people who work "full time"--which does, in the US anyway, mean 60-80 hrs. per week, 50-51 weeks per year.
These people tend, more than, for example, stay at home parents or full time workers, to volunteer for non-profit organizations, work for political causes, etc. We need people to have more time to pursue happiness.
There's no reason we couldn't push for a more sane work week: in fact, that's where unions in the US were headed earlier in the 20th century when they finally got the "40 hr" work week, 2 day weekend, established, They wanted a 20 hr. work week.
Besides that kind of work schedule, here's what I'd like to see, in my utopia:
+Real health care, perhaps modeled on the Cuban system, universally available, unconnected from your employment status.
+Real "social security" for children, disabled persons, and the elderly; connected to the cost of living, and not skimpy.
+A push towards a required 5-year, mid-life retirement/sabbatical. Could be taken in one go or in various 1-year chunks. You'd pay a huge tax if you refused to take one by age 45.
+Mandatory siesta time--all businesses close from 1-3 pm. (You go, Zoom--I love your attitude toward business.)
+Serious regulation of corporations, including "death penalty" statutes--revoking charters and claiming all assets for serious violations of cultural rules--social, economic or environmental.
+Serious emphasis on broad-based funding for individual and community arts projects.
I don't think this kind of thinking has to be classified as simple "nostalgia." It's not "natural" that we work harder and harder for less and less as time passes; our current economy and those who profit from it would like us to view that insane cycle as an immutable fact of life, but it doesn't have to be that way; we have the right to seek to shape our culture,even when we are daily seeing our power to do so pulled away from us.
Just because you "slow" down your work, doesn't mean that you are doing nothing in the off time. Of course, this would require a broad based social commitment to work to create a culture that has life to offer outside the house, that values public spaces, public life, much more than much of the US, anyway, does. But I think that's where cities have the most to offer, because there is much more public space in real cities than in suburbia or rural areas.
Idealistic, yes. But why not, damnit? "Pessimism of the intellect; optimism of the will." |
