>Production output has gone up over the past few decades and we’re expected to work the same amount of hours
My hypothesis is that Americans cashed in on their increased productivity by socializing at work or browsing the internet at work. In Germany, it's extremely frowned upon to talk about non-work stuff at work, so they could cash in on this increased productivity by shortening working hours.
This is an interesting point but I do think the causality goes both ways. Yeah Americans are probably more inclined to want to socialize at work, but American companies also are way too obsessed with butts in seats. If you're being forced to stick around for 8 hours but you only need 6 hours to do your job, of course you are going to fill the time with something.
'do your job' being excessively nebulous. Finish up all those tickets we gave you at the beginning of sprint? I've never once had a boss that told me to go home, they just dig into the backlog and throw some new tickets at you.
> My hypothesis is that Americans cashed in on their increased productivity by socializing at work or browsing the internet at work.
Many people, yes. But the beneficiaries of an increase of minimum and hourly wages, which would affect like 60+ million US workers - they show up and they just work all day, they're not socializing, they didn't cash in anything.
What you're saying may be factual to some degree, but it almost universally talked about in bad faith.
The divide between 'hourly' workers (even if paid a salary) and white-collar knowledge workers is likely the largest obstacle to changing the 40-hour workweek in the US. Many jobs, and often the highest-paid, could be nearly as productive working 4x6 instead of 5x8. However, there are lots of jobs where output really does scale linearly with input time. The obvious ones are hourly service workers in retail or restaurants, but even some 'high status' jobs really require the hours (healthcare, airlines, union manufacturing, etc...)
It would really upset societal order if suddenly two once comparable jobs suddenly required drastically different time commitments. People will find all sorts of reasons to fight against a shorter workweek, but I think this is the main reason why. We like the stability of believing that everyone (or at least working people) are 'equally yoked' at least in terms of time commitment.
> However, there are lots of jobs where output really does scale linearly with input time. The obvious ones are hourly service workers in retail or restaurants, but even some 'high status' jobs really require the hours (healthcare, airlines, union manufacturing, etc...)
With manufacturing, I disagree due to the impact of automation - especially when analyzed over a long time frame, productivity has exploded whereas the number of employees has shrunk drastically and their inflation-adjusted wages barely growing.
In retail, restaurants, even in some parts of healthcare (think lab work) the situation is similar. Automation, mass manufacturing and containers (the physical things, not Docker...) have slashed costs on the input side, menial tasks like stacking shelves or cleaning got cost-cut (by outsourcing and by exploitation of undocumented workers), some places like IKEA and Amazon even eliminate the cashiers by having the customer do that themselves.
The owner class has reaped all the productivity gains and given back little to the workers who made it possible, and now they are asking "why is the American/Western market for cars shrinking and the only growth in China"... well easy, too many people don't have the cash on hand to splurge on a dozens of thousands worth new car!
This is a great point, and I wish productivity gains in all sectors had been more equitably split. In fact, I think that automation-based productivity gains could extend to the other sectors I mentioned as well (more surgeries/hour, etc...)
However, I still think there is a disconnect. Even with productivity gains, output still basically scales linearly. When your job is producing a specific physical artifact consistently, you are always going to make more of them, the more time you spend doing it. The same is not true for many 'knowledge workers' whose output is not measured in 'lines of code' or 'meetings held' but looser, larger objectives that are fundamentally more limited in how many you actually want. I think you more rapidly get diminishing returns for a lot of this type of work. Even if a project manager could manage twice as many projects in twice as many hours, would that benefit the business?
In Germany, it's extremely frowned upon to talk about non-work stuff at work
I wish my German co-workers felt this way. It would cut hour long meetings by half, usually. Not to mention the long list of my other non-American colleagues who are quite chatty. In my experience, I don't really see how one can generalize this behavior by nation...
Most people I know work nonstop until the bell, salaried or hourly. The chitchat and internet browsing is not sustainable at the vast majority of workplaces, you will fall behind and there will be questions asked. IT can also pull logs of internet browsing and show your boss your reddit history.
My hypothesis is that Americans cashed in on their increased productivity by socializing at work or browsing the internet at work. In Germany, it's extremely frowned upon to talk about non-work stuff at work, so they could cash in on this increased productivity by shortening working hours.