Merrelyn disucsses a value that arises from the Four-Hour Work Day

The Four-Hour Work Day has many intrinsic values, none more important than what Merrelyn Emery discusses on the recent issue of the ABC’s “The Drum”.

Merrelyn Emery.

The social scientist has documented social change over time for many years now and in answer to the question posed earlier on The Drum by Jonathon Green: "Can someone explain how in the space of just a decade our public discourse has been hijacked by the ignorant and the bigoted and their boosters in the mass media?"

Writing in the story headed: “Individual emphasis and the loss of community connection”, Merrelyn writes:

While the ignorant and the bigoted have become much more visible over the recent decade, the problem has been in the making for much longer. In Australia, the problem surfaced for the first time in the period 1977-78: it is called 'dissociation'. Dissociation is a denial that cooperation with others could be more effective in reaching desired goals than acting alone or selfishly.

Working fewer working hours won't decimate society

Dick Smith.

Confirmation that fewer hours at work will not decimate society is illustrated in Dick Smith’s book, “Population Crisis – the dangers of unsustainable growthfor Australia”.

Smith became wealthy when he built his business, Dick Smith Electronics, on the back of a growing Australia and benefited hugely from a society addicted to consumption.

While readily acknowledging that, Smith now argues that growth, be it in human numbers or in economic terms is not in the long term interest of Australia, or the world itself.

His argument, arrived at after talking with some of Australia’s sharpest thinkers, along with reading about and listening to many of the world’s best demographers, economists, environmentalist, climatologists and an impressive array of scientists left him absolutely convinced that Australia, and the world, needed to immediately attend to all intricacies of growth.

Smith said: “I believe it’s time to abandon the growth-obsessed economy in its entirety. This will be epochal as the Industrial Revolution, but our long-term survival as a civilisation depends on it”.

He added: “The endless growth economy is obsolete and risky to future generations. We must plan now and begin to implement a ‘steady-state economy’ based on quality of life rather that the quantity of consumption”.

The human experiment has reached a nexus: continue with “business as usual” and we are unquestionably doomed; reshape and rebuild the world’s economic system and in doing so address all facets of exponential growth and we have a chance, a slim chance, of furthering the experiment.

Dick Smith's
"Population Crisis".

The growth Smith discusses at length has arisen through the conflation of a of event, alone each has certain impact, but together they have created a situation that sees humanity charging blindly toward the abyss.

Among the ingredients that have become a catastrophic recipe, is the fact that exponential economic growth brings many difficulties, among the fact that we are all too rich (many are also too poor) and that taken our consumption of “stuff” – stuff that we don’t need, that we buy to impress people we don’t know of don’t like – to a level that now actual endangers humanity.

The Four-Hour Work Day, yes, it will be as life-changing at the Industrial Revolution, will unquestionably end the wonderful discretionary spending that today troubles the planet so much, but that life-changing event could also be life-saving.

Richness and resilience of neigbourhoods pilfered by business

The richness, and resilience, of our neigbourhoods has been pilfered by the business world.

Demography, consultant, analyst and author, Bernard Salt, late last year told a packed house at Melbourne’s Wheeler Centre that the vibrancy and friendships once an integral part of neighbourhoods, was now to be found in the workplace.

It seems that the richness of life that traditionally arose in neighbourhoods was now largely restricted to friendships among work friends.

Bernard Salt

Mr. Salt, one of a panel of four who spoke about “Becoming Seven Billion” at the centre, said once neighbours chatted over the back fence, but now “neighbours” chatted over the petition at work.

Rather than being exciting, vibrant, resourceful and resilient places, neighbourhoods are becoming, or have become, silos from which people emerge in the morning to begin their journey to work, mostly by car, and to which they disappear into at night, back into their private nirvana.

The cost, ecologically, psychologically and socially, to our communities is damaging in the extreme and could be reversed if we adopted the Four-Hour Work Day.

Commercial operations are particularly good as creating a sense of belonging among its staff and that being so emotionally demanding, that arriving back in their neighbourhoods, most people are psychologically exhausted and searching for respite; respite they find by retreat to their private utopia – the “place” pays the price and becomes little more than a dormitory.

The neighbourhood, the place, needs people who actually live there; people who invest a significant portion of themselves to engender life into their small community.

Frequently people are so wearied by the rigours of the commercial world that they have nothing left for their community.

The Four-Hour Work Day would ensure that people returned from their workplaces with something of their soul left enabling them to interact with their neighbourhoods.

Contrary to that, Bernand Salt cast doubt on the idea of what he described as “urban villages” in which people know their neighbours, chat across the road, feeling connected and know their butcher.

Mr. Salt said he gets all the social interaction he needs from his work and when he gets home from work, “I just want to go to sleep”.

“I don’t want to chat with my neighbor,” he said.

The sad reality that appears to avoid the consciousness of Mr. Salt is the emerging conflation of events, our imploding economy, exploding population and decided changes to our climate that can only be resolved if in some way we reduce the amount of “stuff” we produce, the amount of “stuff” we can afford to buy and, within that the amount of energy we use, most of which is produced by fossil fuels.

The adaptation of our lifestyle to allow for the introduction of the Four-Hour Work Day will be the first step in on that journey of abatement.

Looking at life through the existing prism and seeing a handsaw

Considering just four hours of paid work each day is impossible, especially when our view is limited to the prism of what exists.

The common handsaw will see a return
 to common usage as we adapt to our
changing climate.

Should we struggle to comprehend the idea of a Four-Hour Work Day, then what is incomprehensible is made even more so because of the intractable burden that has settled upon us, gaining both weight and force with the passing of recent centuries.

The idea that contentment will emerge from having your shoulder to the wheel and that there is simply no other way of achieving such serenity is embedded in our psyche.

The world’s market driven system has become so pervasive and so entrenched in our being that consumption inevitably equates with contentment and much to the delight of unquestionably the military/industrial cohort, along with the world’s neoliberals (the same people probably) we work tirelessly to enable that consumption and so the associated  imagined contentment.

What exists did not arrive on the horizon, perfectly shaped, in ideal working condition and ready for instant implementation – rather, it was knocked into shape over the centuries: some bits working, other bits being discarded and all along being shaped to ensure it favoured the few, enriched them and allowed the orchestration of life to ensure that those with their shoulder to the wheel believed they were working for the broader betterment of mankind.

The latter is not true as the majority are really working for the betterment of just a few – there is an imbalance; an imbalance that favours “that few” with the implication that the present economic structure needs rescuing and definitive restructuring.

The Four-Hour Work Day is about many things, but chief among them is the restoration of neighbourhoods in that people would be able to spend more time in there and play their part in ensuring its resilience and so its adaptation to a changing climate; changes that will raise, hugely, the importance of such basic technologies as the hammer, the handsaw the shovel.

The existing paradigm almost denies the hammer, the handsaw and the shovel and their near extinction from the human landscape has, in an environmental sense, cost humanity dearly and as we adapt to a changing climate through the Four-Hour Work Day we will see their return to former value.

A lost job and a confusing vision

Nicholas Sarkozy proposed austerity to save France and it cost him his job.

Oddly it was a Socialist Francois Hollande who is now France's new president after winning a majority of votes in his defeat Sarkozy last week.

The new leader of France, Socialist
Francois Hollande.

Sarkozy, from the conservative Union for a Popular Movement and had been the president since 2007, had gone into the election arguing for severe austerity measures to enable France to endure the tribulations of a tumbling economy.

Hollande, by contrast, had promised to re-negotiate the European Union’s "fiscal pact," which had set tight budget rules.

Sounding a little like most of the world’s conservative thinkers, Mr Hollande had gone the polls calling for a "growth pact", which he argued would stimulate stagnant economies and add new jobs.

Maybe French politics are different from those of other developed western nations and maybe they are not.

Just like here, for argument’s sake, they are inherently confusing – Sarkozy, who had been derided by many for his allegiance to the wealthy has worked to protect those of his social class – something he felt could be achieved through national austerity, instructing his key ministries to create appropriate plans. 

Mr. Hollande equipped with a sharper understanding of the French electorate, celebrated victory, saying a change was coming that would answer the desires of people with an end to austerity and the repair of “broken and burnt” France.

The intelligence of the masses is mostly a cause for celebration, but in this instance, it sadly reflects what author Charles Mackay discusses in his 19^th century book, “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds”.

Austerity measures that simply solidify circumstances that favour a few and ignore the majority are distasteful and deserve punishment at the polls; a punishment handed out to Mr. Sarkozy.

Mackay's 19th
century book.

However, the platform of Mr. Hollande that promised a “growth pact” to stimulate the economy and create new jobs is a wonderful idea, but one which overlooks the reality that the world of tomorrow will not need growth, a stronger economy or jobs, rather the reverse.

A visionary leader able to stand comparison with history’s greats is urgently needed; a leader able to stand aside from those who, despite their protestations, are not able to rid themselves of the growth and consumption mindset.

That leader, whoever he or she might be, will help the people of the world understand and with charisma demonstrate the need to slow down global warming, we'll either have to put the brakes on economic growth or transform the way the world's economies work.

The solutions are not of the Hollande-type rather, they arise from understanding countless studies and undeniable scientific fact indicating we need to untangle the complexity of life and embrace a simpler and slower life.

by Robert McLean

A complex discussion that will lead to happiness and contentmentt

by Robert McLean

Most people are unable to understand or comprehend an entirely different way of living: a way of living rooted in a comprehensively different infrastructure, one applied both publically and personally.

Amory Lovins of the Rocky
Mountain Institure.

We are so addicted to present endeavours, physically, psychologically and practically, that we are unable to escape the present paradigm that is targeted at igniting our wants and making the fulfilling of our needs a seemingly incidental by-product of answering those wants.

Of course they are not, and if we continue to fulfill those wants in a blasé market driven fashion, our ability to answer even the most basic human needs will be severely eroded.

The Four-Hour Work Day is not about a Luddite-like attack on the existing capitalistic system, although it is interpreted by many as such, rather it is about injecting time back into our lives and conservatively halving the amount of time we devote to industrial growth: growth that is robbing humans of the conditions in which they enjoy life the most.

It is really about understanding what is important to us; what personally enriches our lives; and, within that, understanding and truly appreciating what it is that makes us better people.

None of those things are unconditionally answered by working long hours each day in the employ of another to ensure that person’s access to wealth goes on unabated.

It’s a complex argument as work has many worthy personal and social values and although many of the world’s market-driven companies invest to enhance them, the unacknowledged implication is that they pilfer both the energy and time of workers that could more advantageously be applied to the wellbeing and so resilience of their neighbourhoods.

The growth-mandate of the market system hinges on daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual budget disciplines that in themselves are honourable, but in being directed toward ever increasing profit pay little, or not attention, to the fact that success of those budgets implicates every aspect of nature – considered a common good by most – and considers irrelevant the fact that those budgets can only be achieved through the exploitation of even more of earth’s finite resources.

The Four-Hour Work Day if employed correctly would halve that consumption, make the community fundamentally financially poorer, but socially incredible rich – our neighborhoods would be more vibrant, alive, interesting and so rewarding place to be.

It was Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, in discussing a plan he has for energy said: “The future is not fate, but choice”.

Working endlessly to ensure the profit of another is not our fate, it is our choice.

The unspoken goal is to maintain life as it is

Every time people gather to discuss an adaptation, or response to climate change, the unspoken goal seems to be the maintenance of the world as we know it.

The Four-Hour Work Day is the
 among the first steps in
 responding to climate change.

That is honourable and warrants applause, but it seems to avoid the reality that if the causations of climate change are not attended to then circumstances will become so difficult that life as we know it will erode.

That is not what I want and what I certainly do not want is more discussion, more imaginary strategies or more research for we haven’t the time. The time to contemplate our response, and act, was ideally 30 years ago.

However, understanding then little about what damage we were doing to our atmosphere, we did nothing and continued with business as usual and so actually worsened the situation.

The time for talk and the seemingly endless oscillation as to whether or not humans are responsible and beyond that how we respond is past.

We now need a decision; we need courageous and bold leaders willing to put their careers at risk as they guide Australia through the tribulations that will evolve from a changing climate.

We need invasive social surgery; surgery that will slow down our carbon dioxide emissions and such surgery can only be orchestrated from the “top-down”.

We need an innovative process that will slow down society; lift its foot off the throttle; ease back, consider, contemplate life and pull over into the rest area.

Sounds easy, but doing that will be both complex and difficult, but a first step will be to embrace the Four-Hour Work Day.