> But the 8-hour workday is too profitable for big business, not because of the amount of work people get done in eight hours... but because it makes for such a purchase-happy public. Keeping free time scarce means people pay a lot more for convenience, gratification, ... We’ve been led into a culture that has been engineered to leave us tired, hungry for indulgence... Western economies, particularly that of the United States, have been built in a very calculated manner on gratification, addiction...
This makes it sound like there's some kind of a conspiracy, like robber barons or The Man all got together to plan this out. It's a lot easier to invent scapegoats like this, but that doesn't make it true.
> Can you imagine what would happen if all of America stopped buying so much unnecessary fluff that doesn’t add a lot of lasting value to our lives? The economy would collapse and never recover.
Again, any kind of research to back up such a bold and incredibly controversial statement? That's just unsubstantiated fluff, without demonstrating any knowledge of actual economics.
The truth is much more prosaic. People buy what they want, and companies make money doing their best to give it to them. In fact, we celebrate companies that do a better job at this, like Apple inventing the iPhone. People like buying things, and decide on their own that they want to work harder to buy those things.
Of course, most people don't have the degree of self-awareness or reflection to realize what really makes them happy in the long-term -- but companies that provide short-term gratification are under no obligation to educate their consumers, and it's not like they have any better idea what makes you happier long-term either, since everyone's different.
We have a 40-hour workweek because most people prefer work twice as much and be paid twice as much as a 20-hour workweek. Sure, there are people who would prefer 20 hours and half (or less) salary, but they're in the vast minority, so that's not what companies build their workforces around.
To rebut the title: yes, your lifestyle has already been "designed", but it isn't intelligent design. No person designed it. It's just what cultural evolution has arrived at so far.
A great Steve Jobs quote relevant to your first point:
A lot of times we think “Why is the television programming so bad? Why are television shows so demeaning, so poor?” The first thought that occurs to you is “Well, there is a conspiracy: the networks are feeding us this slop because its cheap to produce. [...] but the truth of the matter, if you study it in any depth, is that networks absolutely want to give people what they want so that they will watch the shows. If people wanted something different, they would get it. And the truth of the matter is that the shows that are on television, are on television because that’s what people want. [...] And that’s far more depressing than a conspiracy. Conspiracies are much more fun than the truth of the matter, which is that the vast majority of the public are pretty mindless most of the time.
There's no conspiracy, just mindlessness. It's just how society has evolved over time.
Used to be legitimate news reporters getting substantial stories. Turned into pretty faces spouting fatuous nonsense.
Why did news teams last so long? Not because the television public wouldn't have watched crap - there was crap available, and they watched it. (Candid Camera was a sort of first-generation realitiy TV show).
It lasted because the guys running the business respected the news teams - for their power over politics, their ability to turn over rocks and reveal dirt, whatever.
At some point (writers' strike?) content became a race to the bottom, which is about where we sit now. This is a new phenomenon, not some natural ecosystem response.
But why do these first buyers feel a need to have a smartphone in the first place?
We need to balance the gain of acquiring products with the inconveniences not only at a personal level but at a societal level one (work, environment, work condition of those producing etc.) This seems to be rarely the case.
I think the product comes into existence because it has potential demand. Smartphones, for example, do have valid uses. For some people some of the time. I think problems arise when companies who make a product, in the name of higher profits, convince us that everyone needs the product all the time.
> We have a 40-hour workweek because most people prefer work twice as much and be paid twice as much as a 20-hour workweek. Sure, there are people who would prefer 20 hours and half (or less) salary, but they're in the vast minority, so that's not what companies build their workforces around.
This is probably mostly true, but I think there are more factors at highly competitive places (which a lot of us hackers are at).
I take a look at any of the top firms in law, finance, medicine, etc - where even entry-level staff pull 60+ hours a week.
From talking with various friends in these fields, no one actually wants to work such hours.. a lot would even take pay reductions if they could work less. The problem is that the person who gets the most done is rewarded with great reviews which leads to career advancement which leads to, in addition to more money, more self-actualization... even if you could work half the hours for half the salary, you'd miss out on the exponential advancement opportunities.
If everyone agreed to limit their hours, things would be better for everyone. But that isn't going to happen; the incentives to "cheat" would be far too great.
We have a 40-hour workweek because most people prefer work twice as much and be paid twice as much as a 20-hour workweek. Sure, there are people who would prefer 20 hours and half (or less) salary, but they're in the vast minority, so that's not what companies build their workforces around.
Excuse me, but do you mind if I label this as a fallacy? It's a new one: the Free Market Fallacy. It's the fallacy of believing that a particular way of doing things came about as a result of a genuine consideration of popular opinion, as in a democratic election or the mythical "free market".
First of all, the United States doesn't have a 40-hour workweek, except in theory. It has a 30-hour workweek for wage workers, a 50-hour workweek for salaried workers, and a 100-hour "workweek" for the capitalist class (who actually mix leisure and work as they please, writing off cocktail parties as "networking" and other such things).
Second, we don't have what we do have because of popular opinion. We have it because of combat between opposing ideologies: the elderly, weakened "day's pay for a day's work" ideology of most workers, and the "love what you do" workaholism of the capitalist class and many salaried professionals. Their relative power over each other dictates the terms of their compromise.
Your perspective strikes me as lacking self-awareness. You critique another argument by arguing, essentially, that things are because they are.
It's far more valuable to try and question the assumptions we make, even if it's often fairly futile to do so.
Yes, culture has evolved to where it stands...You imply this means there's no room for improvement. What a sad perspective.
Consider that a first step to cultural change is the realization that things are the way they are for a reason, but that they are not set in stone. This is an important realization for people.
The argument is not that things cannot change. It is that they are this way because of a confluence of historical accidents and individuals pursuing optimum-seeking strategies. There is certainly room for improvement. Here's how you don't achieve those improvements: write a Durden-esque rant about how They Trickered Us and Wake Up Sheeple!
The truth is simply that few people will find True Happiness following a median path in life. But, and this is what I feel this rant neglects, neither will they find happiness by reacting to that knowledge and simply picking an extreme path. The post you're reacting to only says each person will have to consider deeply whatever it is that makes them happy. That's it, no conspiracy necessary.
I'm just saying that you can't blame capitalists or evil CEO's or the government for the state of affairs, which the original article strongly suggests with things like "because it makes for such a purchase-happy public" and "a culture that has been engineered to leave us tired, hungry for indulgence", and in the title, that this has all been "designed".
I'm saying there is no intention, no engineering, no top-down designing, no man behind the curtain -- it's just the way most people choose to act.
There absolutely can be improvement, if people want it, if a large number of them choose to act differently.
"Again, any kind of research to back up such a bold and incredibly controversial statement?"
There are dozens of books and movies about this. Life Inc by Douglas Rushkoff, the documentary Century of the Self, even John Taylor Gatto's book The Underground History of American
Education goes into this quite a bit. Not to mention The Making of the English Working Class by E.P. Thompson.
The idea that we arrived at mandatory fiat currency, compulsory education, ubiquitous advertising, etc. through some process of 'cultural consensus' is ridiculous.
> The might of industrial society is lodged in men’s minds. The entertainments manufacturers know that their products will be consumed with alertness even when the customer is distraught, for each of them is a model of the huge economic machinery which has always sustained the masses, whether at work or at leisure – which is akin to work. From every sound film and every broadcast program the social effect can be inferred which is exclusive to none but is shared by all alike. The culture industry as a whole has moulded men as a type unfailingly reproduced in every product. All the agents of this process, from the producer to the women’s clubs, take good care that the simple reproduction of this mental state is not nuanced or extended in any way.
> Whereas today in material production the mechanism of supply and demand is disintegrating, in the superstructure it still operates as a check in the rulers’ favour. The consumers are the workers and employees, the farmers and lower middle class. Capitalist production so confines them, body and soul, that they fall helpless victims to what is offered them. As naturally as the ruled always took the morality imposed upon them more seriously than did the rulers themselves, the deceived masses are today captivated by the myth of success even more than the successful are. Immovably, they insist on the very ideology which enslaves them. The misplaced love of the common people for the wrong which is done them is a greater force than the cunning of the authorities. It is stronger even than the rigorism of the Hays Office, just as in certain great times in history it has inflamed greater forces that were turned against it, namely, the terror of the tribunals. It calls for Mickey Rooney in preference to the tragic Garbo, for Donald Duck instead of Betty Boop. The industry submits to the vote which it has itself inspired. What is a loss for the firm which cannot fully exploit a contract with a declining star is a legitimate expense for the system as a whole. By craftily sanctioning the demand for rubbish it inaugurates total harmony. The connoisseur and the expert are despised for their pretentious claim to know better than the others, even though culture is democratic and distributes its privileges to all. In view of the ideological truce, the conformism of the buyers and the effrontery of the producers who supply them prevail. The result is a constant reproduction of the same thing.
From: Adorno/Horkheimer: "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception"
I don't think what you're saying is all that different from what the article is saying. It never says there's an actual conspiracy or that any specific person designed anything. But as you yourself said there seems to be a difference between what we think we want and what makes us happy in the long term and economies will tend to grow by maximizing on the former, not necessarily the latter.
This makes it sound like there's some kind of a conspiracy, like robber barons or The Man all got together to plan this out. It's a lot easier to invent scapegoats like this, but that doesn't make it true.
> Can you imagine what would happen if all of America stopped buying so much unnecessary fluff that doesn’t add a lot of lasting value to our lives? The economy would collapse and never recover.
Again, any kind of research to back up such a bold and incredibly controversial statement? That's just unsubstantiated fluff, without demonstrating any knowledge of actual economics.
The truth is much more prosaic. People buy what they want, and companies make money doing their best to give it to them. In fact, we celebrate companies that do a better job at this, like Apple inventing the iPhone. People like buying things, and decide on their own that they want to work harder to buy those things.
Of course, most people don't have the degree of self-awareness or reflection to realize what really makes them happy in the long-term -- but companies that provide short-term gratification are under no obligation to educate their consumers, and it's not like they have any better idea what makes you happier long-term either, since everyone's different.
We have a 40-hour workweek because most people prefer work twice as much and be paid twice as much as a 20-hour workweek. Sure, there are people who would prefer 20 hours and half (or less) salary, but they're in the vast minority, so that's not what companies build their workforces around.
To rebut the title: yes, your lifestyle has already been "designed", but it isn't intelligent design. No person designed it. It's just what cultural evolution has arrived at so far.