thank Hans Rothgiesser (I hope I have written well) the attention given to this subject, object of my sleepless nights for years.
I've seen the video of Matt Ridley I loved, I have no objection. I think Marx would subscribe smoothly. Just read the Communist Manifesto to see Marx's fascination with the technological progress achieved under capitalism, thanks to constant innovation, exchange, Mecado, etc. Hans
suggest the friend who takes the trouble to read my book "Manifesto of the century" , to have a better idea of \u200b\u200bmy approach and information and the literature supporting it. So maybe we can save some explanations.
By the way, be encouraged also to read "Talking Old" , my conversations with the ghost Marx. Hans is clear and entertaining writing, so I guess I like things clear and entertaining read, and I think that book will not disappoint. We
main argument now Hans exposes us this time. What it says is that while today we have a much higher productivity than 80 years ago (when Keynes lived), we also have much greater needs. True, he says, that if our needs were the same as before, we should work less. The issue is that today consume a lot, but much more, so keep working the same or even more. is true that today consume a lot more things than before. Some things time were unnecessary, have become indispensable today (internet is one of them, perhaps the most notable).
Let the example of electricity. Keynes had to work eight seconds to get an hour of electricity. This means that, for 8 hours a day working 64 seconds (just over a minute).
The English worker today, according to knowledgeable Ridley, you have to work 4 seconds to get eight hours of electricity. Beware: the difference is seven and a half seconds, but sixteen times less!. That is the correct way to express the productivity gap. In a day has not saved 7 seconds and a half, but 60 seconds.
Now the question is how many hours of daily electricity needs today that worker 'English. Probably, considering that today is much more electric than Keynes did, you need many more hours of electricity too. Okay, but the problem is how much more? Therein lies the whole question. Because if needed, for example, 16 hours, would have to work ... 8 seconds (much less, of course, that the 64 seconds of Keynes). Suddenly is even more suddenly is 24 hours, in which case you would ... 12 seconds. Let us most demanding needs 36 hours of light. In this case we have to work to get them ... 16 seconds! What remains less, but much less than what I had to work the poor of Keynes.
Why, then, tell you to keep working well?
How does the friend Hans that, if I work eight hours a day, with a productivist) d six times greater than that which existed during the years of Keynes (that figure I quote in the video , is because we consume six times more then?
How do we know that we are consuming all that we are producing, and not much surplus production will be the others are running?
Sorry, but when it comes to my life my work of my time, I have to get demanding, and I can not stay calm that I say, "ah, now muuucho produce more than before, but looooong consume more, so you have to work the same."
If the proportions are like electricity, I think that the figures did not add up. I do not think that even consuming more energy as we do today, and assuming that our increased productivity for the case of electric light is to 1,600% (sixteen times), in the case of the English worker, according to Ridley's own data , as further work is justified (and even less justified, by the way, you are working twelve hours today, instead eight in law).
worker not only English, of course, has increased its productivity. The workers have tode Europe, United States, Latin America and Asia, in similar proportions.
A simple way to convince us that we are not consuming everything we produce is to see if there is a surplus somewhere. If we are not consuming everything we produce, there must be a surplus, "and has to be somewhere!" I say, and rightly so.
Is not by chance that the surplus is in the billions of the huge capital that has accumulated and continues to accumulate in staggering proportions that were unimaginable in the world? If I work today
twelve hours, thus produce 9 or ten times more than a worker who worked eight hours ninety years ago. If the salary they pay me I can take four times longer than the worker of 90 years ago or six times more than him, do I have reason to be happy?
Yes and No!. Yes, because I'm better than this fellow before. but No, because even if I eat six times, me being extracted, but I have realized a surplus, which is the difference between six and nine. A surplus will swell the capital, if not, where do so fattening?
Not bad, indeed, there is saving and accumulation. Are required to reinvest in technological innovation, etc.. What is wrong is that surplus, so quiet, very well hidden, and advantage that we have not been good to get the accounts that we had to take to avoid being deceived, surplus, say, will all end up in the Capital coffers, without us having the right to enjoy them. And the best way to enjoy them, once met our current needs as extensive as they may be, is also resting, enjoying free time, that's what life is, alas, not to be slave labor.
We can not take time off, for the simple reason that the market system, with all the good that is to promote technological innovation, is incapable of reducing working hours, and historical experience, as well as the pathetic reality that today prevails in the world twelve hour day (for the overwhelming majority of humanity and not for some Japanese managers that one swallow does not make a summer), proves conclusively.
As also shown (historical experience), that the single most expeditious way to reduce the journey has been and is, the strike . The strike peaceful, democratic and civilized, but strike.
continue, I guess.
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