I think you're right, but in a different sense. I'm in IT so the answer in automate, automate, automate. Why is there a person to fill your petrol tank when you can do it yourself? Why have a till when you can wave your card at the machine and go? The mini-supermarket here at the train station now only has 8 self-serve tills and two (young) people who keep an eye on things and restock. The end result is that everything is automated and nobody works. Isn't that what we want?moonshadow wrote: ↑Thu Nov 04, 2021 1:38 pm If everyone just lays around and does nothing all day, milking whatever social program may exist to keep them fed and sheltered, then who will do the work required to keep modern life going? Who will stock the store shelves? Who will deliver the pizza? Who will truck the goods across the country? Who will u load those trucks? Who will prepare the food? While will pick the produce? Who will fix the machines when they break?
I think we're seeing the answer to that question play out... Nobody.
At my work my job is to automate, but that just leads to more work which then has to be automated. Never a dull moment.
One impact of social security is that it kills shitty jobs. Why would you work $15/hr at a job that wears you down with a boss that abuses you, when you can get the equivalent of $12/hr staying home. (numbers made up for effect). Employers have to invest in their employees or they lose them to someone who treats them better. High minimum wage mean you can't let people do stupid jobs, they have to do something that produces more than the minimum wage. You could say it destroys jobs, but it can just as easily make the existing jobs less dull.
How does Europe work when so many people are on holiday? By simply planning around it. Don't start new projects in July. Many small stores hang up a sign saying "back in august". Students take summer jobs to hold the fort so all the normal people can go on holidays. Of course, holidays in this period are super-expensive, people without kids choose to go before or after. OTOH it's then high season for tourists, so touristy places attract people who in the winter go work in elsewhere. Because construction largely stops, there's less deliveries. People on holidays don't order online. It just sort of all works out.
It's an attitude. In France shops close for lunch. I find that annoying, but for them, because everybody does it they plan around it and it all works out. After all, if everybody is at lunch there's no point keeping your own shop open, right?
I think that as long as the whole of the US has the idea everyone has to work unpaid overtime, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I also don't think it's something you can change by yourself