Some More News - SMN: The Past, Present, And Future Of Work

Episode Date: March 23, 2022

In today's episode, we pee in bottles for the good of the company. After all, that bottle isn't going to fill itself with pee, is it? Get back to work! We now have a MERCH STORE! Check it out here: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/somemorenews Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/some-more-news/id1364825229 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ebqegozpFt9hY2WJ7TDiA?si=5keGjCe5SxejFN1XkQlZ3w&dl_branch=1 Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/even-more-news Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/somemorenews To get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, and get the plan shipped to your door for FREE, go to http://MINTMOBILE.com/morenews. For everyone watching right now, Trade Coffee is offering a total of $20 off your first three bags when you go to http://drinktrade.com/morenews. Go to http://magicspoon.com/MORENEWS to grab a variety pack and try it today! And be sure to use our promo code MORENEWS at checkout to save five dollars off your order! Follow us on social media! Twitter: https://twitter.com/SomeMoreNews Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/SomeMoreNews/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SomeMoreNews/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@somemorenews Source List: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1J0jfr3qC6x5Pid3gl8iqRqGFcyj6zvVonQHFMqjFUag/edit?usp=sharingSupport the show!: http://patreon.com.com/somemorenewsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Oh, hey everyone. Sorry, it's going to be a minute. I'm trying to figure out our HR management app and I just forgot the password. Security questions. Anus shape. Okay, I'm just gonna... Katie, hello. I know you can hear and see me. Those stuffed owls are clearly cameras. security questions. Anus shape? Okay, I'm just gonna... Katie!

Hello! I know you can hear and see me. Those stuffed owls are clearly cameras. Oh, hey, buddy. Just randomly checking in to see how my favorite news host is doing. Yeah, hey. Where's my bathroom? I'm sorry?

My entire bathroom is missing. Did you go through the app? The app? The app wants to know about my anus. Well, it is the body's fingerprint. Where is my bathroom? Did you go through the app? The app? The app wants to know about my anus. Well, it is the body's fingerprint. Where is my bathroom? Listen, Cody, I hear you.

I see you through those owls. And you took just too many pisses on company time. I do not pay you to piss, man. You get paid to consume the news, process it, and then shoot it out at the camera. I want you to eat news and crap news also. You sweat, you bleed, and you piss news, man. This is my home. You took my home bathroom.

Where am I going to pee now? Pee in a bottle. Pee in your pants. I don't care. The camera's only waist up anyway. Just figure it out for yourself for once. Be creative. Be a thought leader, Cody. All right, good talk. I'm off to go play executive sushi golf.

Executive sushi golf? Yeah, you play golf, but with sushi into each other's mouths. That seems kind of gross. Yeah, okay, like I'm gonna listen to what Admiral Pisspants thinks is gross. Okay, break time's over, remember to give this 110%! Wait, no, better make it 111%. Bye! 111%?

But that's more of my all than exists! Anyway, back to the news! One second. All right, sorry about that. Boy, working kind of sucks, right? It's not exactly popular right now either. In fact, here is some news. According to the leading experts, nobody wants to work anymore. You guys have stayed open the entire time,

but as it's reopened and mandates have been lifted, it's tough to hire people right now, right? Yes. Nobody really wants to work. Everybody is staying home. Why do you work if you can't collect the money and the government is feeding them? So I don't think it's a good idea. They should stop it. And it's good for people and good for the business and good for the country, good for the economy. Why is there a demand for labor and seemingly high unemployment, but we can't marry the two? Well, I mean, I don't think anybody's wanting to say it, but with unemployment and the stimulus and tax income, everyone's kind of saying, you know, I make more at home. They make

more on unemployment. They make more with these benefits and they're just not wanting to go to work. The government's made it too easy. Just basically all the stimulus money and then the extra money on the unemployment and then extending the unemployment for people that have just been on unemployment. They make more money to stay home than work. Did I say leading experts? I meant random people and business owners

being asked to speculate as to why there's a hiring crisis in order to push a specific narrative without having to consult actual experts who might not reach the same conclusion. Also, Kim Kardashian, apparently. And according to those experts, it turns out that after the pandemic, all of America's working class became listless

and self-centered loaf mongers suckling on handouts from that socialist Uncle Sam, Donald Trump. No need to look into the deets around how all the low wage work, which we rely on in the US has become more cumbersome, stressful and often traumatic during this pandemic. No, that would be too cumbersome and stressful and often traumatic to acknowledge.

Also, geez, I don't know, if giving people like 600 bucks a week for unemployment turns out to be more money than what they made doing a service job, perhaps the finger pointing should be aimed at the people paying dirt wages. Or at the very least, maybe the news could ask the people on unemployment about why they aren't going back to work instead of the people running the businesses. Or heck, perhaps they could point out that the deadly pandemic that killed nearly a million

people and caused lasting side effects might have something to do with people not rushing back to the office. Or by golly gee whiz, perhaps one of these reporters can open a fucking laptop and clack a few typey type words to see if unemployment benefits have any kind of historical or measurable connection with causing people to not look for work. because it turns out that there are a bunch of studies all concluding that no, unemployment benefits do not slow down the labor market recovery. It's simply not true.

These are all things that the media could have done instead of sticking a mic in the face of a storekeeper or a rich celebrity who inherited a bunch of her money or in one of those clips, just a random nurse who took a viral photo and asked them to speculate why people aren't working and then run with their answers like they were the fucking lords of facts.

But instead of doing any of that, the second those no one wants to work anymore memes started popping up in 2021, we saw the news jump on this narrative like a bunch of horny squirrels, followed by a series of Republican governors ending crucial unemployment benefits during a pandemic to try to force people into low-paying, often unsafe jobs.

A few signs at a Wendy's suddenly became proof that America's working class were living high on the hog and taking advantage of completely unnecessary unemployment benefits distributed at a time when only 35% of US adults had received two shots of a coronavirus vaccine. Not to mention that most of the same governors slashing unemployment benefits and declaring,

it's time for America to get back to work, were doing so while banning mandates for vaccines and masks and being generally super duper wrong about how and when the pandemic would end. Of course, it's always those dipshit GOPs, isn't it? And by dipshit GOP, I of course also mean President Joe Biden. We're going to make it clear that anyone collecting unemployment who is offered a suitable job must take the job or lose their unemployment benefits.

It's time for America to get back to work and fill our great downtowns again with people. People working from home can feel safe and begin to return to their offices. We're doing that here in the federal government. Hey Joe, I know you're like 90 and live in your office, but most people have this thing called the internet now and shouldn't be required to physically go into work for all kinds of jobs, no matter how much those sad downtown buildings miss us. Surely we can think of a new use for a bunch of lonely buildings in a time where people are struggling

to find affordable housing. Also, maybe we live in a time where people shouldn't have to take the first suitable job under the penalty of starving. Where COVID related side effects are still incredibly hard to diagnose and could result in seriously sick people being shoved back into the workforce.

Maybe there are worse things out there than someone leaning on unemployment benefits a little longer than they should. And most finalist of all, just possibly, maybe, perhaps, after several years of being paid dirt wages and killed off for the sake of the economy, amassing serious anxiety and medical problems, the last thing anyone struggling in the workforce

actually wants to hear is how having a job equates to having your dignity back. My dad used to have an expression, he said, Joey, a job's about a lot more than a paycheck. It's about your dignity. And then he'd say, Joey, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It's about your dignity.

It's about respect. It's about your place. It's about respect. It's about your place in the community. Yes, family budgets are still tight, but a lot of Americans are getting paychecks this year more than they got last year and restoring the dignity of work so they can show up at work with some pride. Mmm, yes, dignity. One second, hold on.

All right. Sorry, I had a lot of coffee this morning. Didn't expect my bathroom to be torn from my apartment. Anyway, nothing says dignity more than going to a place you hate for eight hours a day. This framing from the president that work is dignified and that it's sad that no one wants to work anymore to apparently fill our struggling skyscrapers is all, as you might've noticed, from the perspective

of the people in charge of these workplaces. And so what I'm getting at here is that post-ish the pandemic, it seems that a lot of Americans who aren't running a business or office are wondering just why they're expected to work long hours for very little money. They do not, as Biden keeps putting it, see the dignity in that.

And yet at the same time, a lot of, let's call them the more wealth inclined individuals, well, they see this as the common folk getting a little too big for their britches instead of say the beginnings of a workers' revolution in this country. And I guess my question now is, which is it? Did a massive unemployment system create a nation of people

who want to make money doing nothing? Or perhaps are workers finally realizing their value? Is it wrong to even complain in these modern times compared to the olden days of black lunged children hand shoveling toxic rat turds for penny slivers? Or perhaps we shouldn't compare the worst labor moments of our history with today as a way to justify contemporary problems.

See, it seems like it's that last thing. You know, seems extremely obviously like it's the last thing. But wait, perhaps we actually should look at history as a whole when talking about labor in this country after all. I know I literally just said we shouldn't, but while there certainly were worse times to be a worker, there were also way better times as well.

In fact, you might argue that the concept of working was actually much better for the majority of history before now. And that only for a very tiny sliver of our existence as sapiens, you know, the humankind. Have we been expected to expend energy in the service of some other non-personal goal for so much of our lives?

So darn, let's, I don't know, talk about that. Are you ready? The past, present, and future of work. Oh yeah, I am so ready. So no better place to start. Time for ads! Fucking what the hell? You like it? Instead

of a toilet, you now have a giant speaker that tells you when to cut to ads. Unfortunately, it is on a timer and cannot be turned off during non-working hours, though. You serious? Or like, I don't want to turn it off? I forget which.

Either it can't be or I won't let it turn off. Point is, you need to do an ad break. I was just starting! Congrats! Oof, better cut to ads, pissy. Okay! Wow, fine, great, let's cut to the ads. Hey, listen here!

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Save on money today before your boss drastically cuts your pay because you quote, don't need food and can just eat your fancy beard, Mr. Fancy Beard. She's right, but still, it hurts to hear. Wow, look at me. They said I couldn't have it all, but here I am, running a news show, overcoming adversity and the constant ill temperament from a certain employee with a big fancy beard. But I couldn't do it alone. I had to drink a lot of coffee to get where I am today. And I think we can all agree that I deserve a perfect brew, which is why I use Trade Coffee.

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One moment. Okay, super, and we're back from ads! And as I was- Back from ads! Why? Why? Okay, so we were about to talk about the history of work, and no better place to start

than the beginning of our entire species. No, really, it sounds whack and or bogus, but human beings have existed with essentially the bodies and minds we have today for like 200,000 years. Unfortunately, we don't have much info on that first 190,000-ish years, but if you look at the indigenous communities that managed to maintain their traditional

hunter-gatherer structures into the modern era, those groups worked, on average, about 15 hours a week. One group of people from Southern Africa, which managed to live as hunter-gatherers until the 1970s, had plenty of time and energy to devote to leisure and operated in a system whereby individual attempts to either accumulate or monopolize resources or power were met with derision and ridicule,

which sounds pretty fun if I'm being honest. Researchers believe that most hunter-gatherer societies, which again, is how we humans live for the vast majority of our history, spent most of their time on purposeful activities such as making music, exploring, decorating their bodies, and socializing. You know, things only communists like to do.

Some even theorize that these pinko homo sapiens were only able to develop language because of all of this free time. And that makes sense. If you're laboring for 14 hours a day, that doesn't leave you a lot of time to yak about your opinions around the water cooler, which back then was called a river.

Now, I'm not trying to go all edgelord Tyler Durden on everyone and propose we all revert back to the days of hunting and or gathering, preferably with robot dinosaurs like in that Horizon game, that would be pretty sweet. And so I guess I'm actually proposing that. But what I'm trying to say here is that perhaps the human brain wasn't exactly built to be in a work task mode for 40 plus hours a week.

And in fact, didn't operate this way for the majority of our history, even in the most socially unequal and brutal societies, and yes, they were unequal and brutal, most people still didn't work as much as they do today. In medieval England, working days would typically not last longer than eight hours and were notable for leisurely meals,

naps, refreshment breaks, and banging two coconuts together in order to comically simulate the sound of a horse. And given how crops have both on and off seasons and the harvest is not year round, most people had holiday time lasting about one third of the year. And those Brits of the 16th century were probably themselves overdoing it a little.

In the later middle ages, like the top half of the middle of the ages, I guess, people in Spain typically had five months of time off per year. And entire peasant families around Europe would usually only work until they had earned what they needed for the year, after which they would stop. They would stop working.

That's a choice people could make in the past, I guess. They would look at the amount of money they had and say, well, that's all the money I'll need. And then just stop. Making money for the year? And that was possible? Because for some wild reason, these people didn't think making money

was the most important thing in life? Welcome, comrade medieval peasant. So what exactly happened? Well, that would be a thing called the Industrial Revolution. Now, first off, a little historical housekeeping. There were actually two Industrial Revolutions. The first involving a rapid expansion of machine processes,

including steam power and mechanization from 1760 until around 1840. And the second involving the mass industrialization of American and European production and labor, plus the adoption of new technological achievements like railroads, sewer systems, electricity, and stuff like that, lasted from the late 19th century until about World War I.

I'm going to just say the Industrial Revolution over the next few minutes, and I'm gonna need you to stick with me on the general understanding that a lot changed during this 150-year period of time. And some stuff happened in the first industrial revolution and other stuff happened in the second. And you should really just get off my ass about it.

What are you, King History? I think not, you're an Earl at best. Now, the industrial revolution is often thought about just in terms of factories, long hours, workplace accidents, and novels where even the CliffsNotes were a struggle to get through. But this is also the era where modern capitalistic institutions

like credit, stock markets, and incorporation became commonplace. The entire idea that most individuals would work for a company and get paid a wage, nowadays just accepted as if there could be no alternative, came out of the rapid expansion of non-agrarian industries during the Industrial Revolution.

The impact this era still has on us today is pretty incalculable. Our cities swelled, railroads were built to connect them all, and an economic system that relied on low-wage workers suffering through harsh conditions was established. The attitude of laissez-faire capitalism in this era meant that the government set very few regulations as to worker treatment, hours, or conditions. Working 16 hours a day in a mine or factory wasn't uncommon. Workers were often either denied breaks or docked pay during their breaks and frequently had to perform maintenance on machines while they ate lunch. And you have to remember, in late 19th

century America, this probably seemed like an improvement for much of the country, given the US had only recently started dismantling its much more horrifying system of having millions of no wage workers just a few decades before. Without any regulation, companies had carte blanche to work employees as tough as they wanted. Between that and the newly developed machines

those workers operated, production increased. Production meant more goods to sell and export and more money coming into the companies Between that and the newly developed machines those workers operated, production increased. Production meant more goods to sell and export and more money coming into the companies that had figured out how to use technology and labor efficiently. Much like today, the people who got rich off of this increased productivity

didn't want to share all of the money coming in with their workers. Unlike today, they didn't have an outlet for their totally epic weed sex inflation jokes. Do you get it? Do you get it? The guy who runs segregated factories said the funny numbers.

Do you get it? Over 69 worker lawsuits. Oh, lol. But also unlike today, the classic robber barons of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were probably, and this is gonna sound wrong to you at first, hoarding less in profits than today's wealthiest people.

No, really, it is much worse now. You might have heard that John D. Rockefeller, the founder of the Standard Oil Company, was the richest American who ever lived, if you adjust for inflation. But Rockefeller died in 1937 with a net worth of $1.4 billion, which would be about $27 billion today. Far below your Gateses and Buffetses and Zuckersbergses.

That richest person ever line only comes from calculating Rockefeller's wealth as a percentage of GDP at the time. It's a minor distinction, and look, Rockefeller wasn't like a good dude, but it's part of this overall narrative that intensive unfair work and the massive hoarding of wealth was a product of a bygone era.

So given that the industrial revolution in the now times, both feature long hours, low wages, often unsafe working conditions, and massive amounts of wealth flowing to the richest 1%, the major difference between then and now is that the struggle was a lot more blatant and violent back during this time. In 1877, when railroad workers went on strike

to protest reduced wages, states gathered militias of more than 60,000 to put them down, leading to the deaths of 10 people in Cumberland, Maryland. A decade later, workers rallied in Chicago to support the standardization of an eight-hour workday. They were attacked by cops, an action which led to more rallies, and ultimately anarchist violence against police. Since labor leaders were blamed for the violence, this incident is said to have served as a setback for the labor movement. That was in 1886. The eight-hour workday was won

gradually over the ensuing decades, but didn't become codified into law for most US workers until the Fair Labor Standards Act was passed in 1938. So despite mobilizing, since we had a president named Millard, it took forever to see the visible fruits of these actions, like the 40 hour work week, child labor laws, the minimum wage, and ladies and gentlemen, the weekend. Those protections, won largely in the first third

of the 20th century, provided a significant benefit to American workers after World War II. After the war, more people were able to pursue what they wanted to for employment instead of spending all day building tanks, shells, and this is true, bat bombs. But also after declining in the 1920s, union membership surged during the Great Depression,

World War II, and then peaked in the mid 1950s. Working hours for most stabilized at around 40 hours per week, worker injuries declined, and some workers were even able to save for retirement because of profit sharing incentives at companies. In one of the most prominent examples of the benefits of this kind of arrangement, Sears earmarked 10% of its pre-tax earnings

for a profit sharing program with workers. By the 1950s, Sears employees owned a quarter of the company. A quarter being how much Sears is currently worth. The union membership of this era is credited with earning workers additional benefits, including regular pay raises, healthcare, and retirement packages.

The U.S. was able to sustain a robust middle class that allowed a single individual working as an insurance agent, bus driver, or Mambo bandleader to afford a comfortable life, maybe own a house, have children, and even take a vacation once in a while. And that was because, and this is pretty key, we fought for those things over a long period of time. Now, don't think I'm gonna spend the next

amount of time waxing nostalgic about the 1950s. Don't get me wrong. The 1950s sucked. Racist housing and banking laws kept most non-white people from purchasing property. Safe and legal abortions were unavailable to all but the affluent. The CIA started having a real fun time

overthrowing the governments of other countries. And one of the hottest comedies on TV was produced by a fucking toothpaste company. But the correlation between robust union efforts and broader protections for workers is readily apparent, and it's one of the artifacts of post-World War II America that might have made things better for workers today. Unfortunately, the strength of unions, and thus the power of the American worker to maintain a reasonable working day for good pay started a steady decades long decline during this period. This was due to a number of factors

such as manufacturing jobs moving overseas, allegations of corruption, and most notably a political scene that promoted irrational and frequently racist fears about communism. After World War II, the Congress of Industrial Organizations launched a campaign to promote unionization

among workers in the South called Operation Dixie. This effort was partially undercut by the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, which restricted the power of labor unions and set the stage for dozens of states to establish right to work laws, further exempting companies from having to negotiate with unions when hiring.

But it also failed because industries took advantage of conditions in the Jim Crow South to stoke fears and prevent black and white workers from organizing together. Institutionalized racism, you probably won't be terribly shocked to find out, was one of the primary catalysts for the decline of unions in America.

People at the time, much like today, would try to find other dog-whistley ways of saying the racist thing without using overtly racist language. But since this was the 50s, much like today, will try to find other dog-whistley ways of saying the racist thing without using overtly racist language. But since this was the 50s, you could just call someone a closet communist, light up a Lucky Strike, slap a child, and then move on.

But believe it or not, even as union membership started to decline in the US, compensation for workers still kept going up until about the early 1980s, when, you know, when Ronald Reagan and his flagrant disdain for workers led to the firing of thousands of air traffic controllers in 1981

who were striking for a pay raise and shorter work week. And his monster tax cuts for the rich hollowed out the middle class and led to four decades of politicians saying, maybe if we give all the rich people more money again, this time it will trickle down mommy. Despite the fact that this has never, ever, ever happened. And that's what leads us to charts like this

and the way we all work today. A system where every adult pretty much has to work at capacity all of the time, just to hang on to whatever bottom rung of a ladder we have been presented with. We covered that most recent era from Reagan to the present pretty thoroughly in a video a few months ago and not to toot my own bulbous horn,

but we did a decent job laying out why modern American workers, particularly millennials, are so frustrated at what we inherited. But between 1979 and 2018, productivity jumped another 69.6% and compensation grew by just 11.6%. In other words, we're working our asses off and inheriting very little in return. So I don't know, maybe let us have our stupid green toast.

Man, what was I thinking with that beard? Ugh. So to recap, union membership has been on the decline for decades despite union workers earning 19% more on average than non-union workers. The largest block of workers in the US has lower wages, works longer hours, and are generally unhappy with their jobs. So why doesn't it change?

Well, that's a very good question that deserves a whole bunch of words coming out of this pretty mouth of mine, which will happen right after these ads. So just sit tight. Time for ads. I was literally just doing the ad thing. Let's do, all right, we're gonna do the ad.

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of cereal. Well, we're back from ads. So we're back from ads. And we were talking about the history of how work in this country became all encompassing and why now in these exhausting times, our society seems barely able to change that. Not because it isn't possible,

but rather that the people in power, as well as a lot of workers, seem actually unwilling to do anything. So why is that? Well, for one thing, it's kind of the same reason most of us still sing happy birthday when it's someone's birthday. It's what we were always taught to do.

Seems innocuous enough at first glance, and it might be a little uncomfortable if you just suggested something else out of the blue. Even though Crazy Town's Butterflies are a really bad song, is it really worse than Happy Birthday? It's possible people might prefer it. Or maybe we can just sit in silence while the cake is brought out.

There's no reason we can't, but we will probably keep singing Happy Birthday, right? Who's gonna spearhead a movement to change that? You? Me? I can't even shit in a toilet anymore. I have to use the garbage disposal, which is really just me wiggling a butter knife around down there.

Of course, there are some other reasons we work the way we do as well. Some of them uniquely American. And we will split these into two categories, starting with the cultural reasons. You've perhaps heard of something called the Protestant work ethic, the idea that a significant chunk of the American identity

comes from the teaching and work of Protestant theologians, Martin Luther and John Calvin, which is that work is built into our bones and we wouldn't even want to live any other way. And sure, I guess you can find some examples to back this up. There have been surveys in the past finding that most Americans like their jobs

and that many people, especially if they don't work in the private sector, glean a certain amount of meaning and pride from their work. There's nothing wrong with taking pride in the work you're putting in. You think Prince Goro enjoys shoving someone's head into their torso and then ripping off the front of their chest

so they look like Krang from Ninja Turtles? No, he does that because the work needs to get done. Also, he probably enjoys it. However, this idea of work ethic is strongly tied in with a concept of American exceptionalism and is often used as the expectation for how people should work, often as a political point used to alienate those

who don't feel this way. It's good that some people enjoy work, but we shouldn't assume everyone does. When Rand Paul announced his, and excuse me while I stifle laughter here, 2016 presidential campaign, he strongly delivered this message and countered what he saw as a nation struggling

with its work ethic. From an early age, I worked. I taught swimming lessons. I mowed lawns. I did landscaping. I put roofs on houses. I painted houses. I never saw work, though, as punishment.

Work always gave me a sense of who I am. Self-esteem can't be given, it must be earned. Work is not punishment, work is the reward. Ah, yes, work is the reward. Mowing lawns and teaching kids how to swim, I bet Rand Paul had a lucrative lemonade stand and a paper route to deliver his dad's racist newsletters. Of course, you can tell what kind of person he's visualizing while promoting the American work ethic,

given that he's previously said that only unemployed people use heroin, and that he's glad his train didn't stop in Baltimore during protests over the death of Freddie Gray, it seems pretty clear exactly who he considers the Americans with a strong work ethic. Also, and maybe this is obvious, but when it comes to jobs, the money is the reward. Paul's ideas, though, go way back. It's taken as a given in American life that working oneself to the bone is the innate and natural order of things,

and not something that was developed over time by the capitalists in charge and the economic conditions they have created. The phrase Protestant work ethic was not part of some holy Anglo-American doctrine passed down from, where are things passed down from? Like a mountain? Gross.

No, the phrase was coined by the German sociologist Max Weber in his 1905 book, "'The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism." Weber argues that the Protestant mindset that took root hundreds of years ago was essential to ending feudalism and creating our modern market-driven capitalist system. The theory suggests that Protestants valued work and success

more than those who practiced other religions, and that Calvinist branches of Protestantism frowned upon donating money to the poor or to charity because it was seen as promoting beggary. And you know what? Fine. If your religious worldview is that it's best to work hard and never be a burden on anyone else

and prove you can be more productive than the next guy and not give to charity, then sure, do that. I mean, you'd be a nerd and wrong and kind of a dick, whatever, but that shouldn't be the foundation for an entire system. It's not something we should expect everyone to do. And it leads to the persistent and very untrue assumptions that rich people are rich because they work harder

than poor people. That the working class is lazy and that your grandmother should be happy to die so that the Dow can cross 40,000. In fact, even Weber recognized that people wouldn't have to share those values in order to be forcefully integrated into the system. And that would be shitty, but of course he was right.

And this leads us into the more modern version of the Protestant work ethic. Hustle culture, hashtag rise and grind, get rich or die grinding, the grind leading the grind, grind hard with a vengeance. Yes, in 2022, instead of toiling in the wheat field for 10 hours and spying on your neighbor

who's taking a bit too long of a break, we've got Instagram to prove we work longer and harder than anyone else. Of course, work in this sense is typically flexing, flexing with your hands loosely rested on weights or flexing while in the ocean and arrows rained down on your wings. What is that guy, some kind of angel?

Or like, did somebody fuck a seagull and birth him and all the townsfolk are horrified and trying to shoot him while he retreats into the ocean only to be tragically rejected by his avian brethren and be doomed to wander the earth without a home? That's, that's terrible. Why can't we accept this bird man for who he is? We're sorry, air hunk.

What was I talking about? Oh, right, hustle culture. If you search on Twitter or Instagram for things like hashtag hustle or hashtag Monday motivation, you'll see a mix of imagery seemingly designed to blur the lines between work and leisure. And this is something that ultra rich capitalists are only too happy to reinforce. Billionaire Richard Branson said fun is one of the most important ingredients in any successful venture. JP Morgan CEO, Jamie Dimon said, remote work does not work for young people

or those who want to hustle. You got that? Everyone under 45, you're young and fresh faced. Maybe you have wings. You work hard and you play hard as long as that playing hard involves working hard. The concept of a side hustle is so commonplace in our discourse

that it's easy to forget that it's just like another job. It's played off as a fun way to follow your dreams. But the sad truth is that the number of Americans having to take second jobs has been increasing over the last two decades. But this is a good thing, right? Articles online, it is like clockwork. Anytime something happens in the US economy

that looks like a detriment to American workers, there will be an article somewhere to make it seem like all additional work is just a fun piece of the ultimate success puzzle. And it's actually necessary, as billionaires will always say, if you want to get to where they are. Because of course, hard work equals success, right? Not successful?

You must not have worked hard enough. Kind of successful, but not as rich as you want to be? You simply didn't work as hard as the billionaire who clearly works harder than everyone else. What's the evidence for that? Well, him of course, the wise billionaire said so. You just have to put in 80 to 100 hour weeks every week, Elon Musk says. If other people are putting in 40 hour work weeks and you're putting in 100 hour work weeks, then even if

you're doing the same thing, you know that you will achieve in four months what it takes them a year to achieve. That's right. People are just optimally productive no matter how much they work. You know how you work just as hard in the 12th hour of your shift as your third hour? If you would just put in 100 hours a week at Sur La Table, you definitely would have made shift man a J. The thing about this though, is that it's totally not true. A 2014 study from Stanford found that increased working

hours typically results in less productivity, which drops sharply above 50 weekly hours. What a big surprise. Once people are working more than 55 hours in a week, they're barely getting anything done and might as well have not tried. There's a great amount of value in rest. And a number of studies have found

that taking regular breaks and literally doing nothing helps improve our mood and makes us more productive when we are working. A 2015 study from Australia found that the stress associated with working more than just 25 hours a week caused cognitive decline in people over 40. A body of research suggests that we're most productive in 90-minute work periods, separated by breaks, with the most successful performers working in three 90-minute sessions a day. Our brains simply didn't evolve to focus on work-related tasks for eight or more hours consecutively. But what about those executives who say they work 100 hours a week?

Well, the thing about them is they're liars. It's a lie by big, stupid, rich liars. Well, what's Elon doing anyway? Spending the night at the Tesla factory, tightening panels on his shitty cars, slaving away on Twitter every day? Those memes don't steal themselves. What I'm getting at is that what these rich CEOs consider work is not what you or I or most people would ever consider work.

Back when Quibi was a beautiful, soft, fleeting thing, the media was desperate to frame CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg as a really hard worker who wakes up at 2.30 a.m. just to get all of his work done. But of course, he didn't really have anything to do other than approve or disapprove of what all of his employees, the But of course, he didn't really have anything to do other than approve or disapprove of what all of his employees, the people actually doing the work, were creating.

What he considered work was what the New York Times described as three breakfast meetings, three lunch meetings, and a working dinner. So eating and talking, not exactly the hardest job in the world, especially since he's the boss and everyone has to do what he tells them. It might get a little tiresome,

greenlighting Chrissy Teigen court shows over an egg white omelet in a fruit bowl, but it's got to be a lot easier than like an actual job. And when it comes to Elon, don't forget that he's the CEO of four companies, Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and The Boring Company. That's the one that does the traffic simulating death tunnel so he can sell dirt to the poor,

even though he hasn't actually done that yet. So even if he was telling the truth about 100 hour weeks, that means he's working about 25 hours as the CEO of each company. He is just admitting to us that being a CEO is not a full-time job. Could it possibly be that taking meetings and telling people what to do isn't all that hard? If you have a full-time job, could it possibly be that taking meetings and telling people what to do

isn't all that hard? If you have a full-time job, think about if you would be able to do even two of them, let alone four, and still have time left over to come up with absolutely killer content like this. I think he's close to having a packet ready for the Corden Show. So at the end of the day, there's simply no shame

in not working 100 hours or 80 hours or 40 hours or even zero hours a week. People telling you otherwise are either misinformed or liars or jerks. This Joe Biden work is dignity and corporate fantasy that is somehow in our nature to sit in a box for eight hours a day is silly and wrong. And you could argue that it's a smokescreen for the other main driver of our current life work imbalance, which is economic. Specifically, the need for constant growth measured in an extremely fucked up way.

Now, this is gonna be a vast oversimplification of hundreds of years of economic theory. But the idea is that workers and companies and manufacturers over time get more efficient and are able to turn out more productivity with fewer resources. That results in more profit coming in, which grows the organization

and provides more value to its workers who make more money and thus ensure that each generation is more prosperous than the last. At least that's how it's supposed to work. I don't know if you've noticed, but subsequent generations aren't making more money than the last. At least that's how it's supposed to work. I don't know if you've noticed, but subsequent generations aren't making more money than previous generations, even though they have become more productive.

And yet this overwhelming goal of increased GDP growth still takes precedence. What is the GDP? I am glad you asked, even though I can't hear you and was going to explain anyway. Gross domestic product is estimated by looking at the total value

of all of the goods and services produced in an economy in a period of time. Economists say that that number should go up every year. If it goes down for two years in a row, we're in a recession and that's bad. It's bad for you, it's bad for your job, bad for your little puppy or your kitty and like your lizard, you absolute weirdo.

It's a measurement that came out of the Great Depression when governments were looking for a single overarching statistic to examine when determining if an economy was healthy or unhealthy. GDP, however, is not the objective benchmark for which we should judge human well-being. First of all, it leaves a lot of things out. Unpaid home labor and child care doesn't show up on any balance sheet and won't contribute to what economists consider a nation's productivity. Neither do educational metrics or increasing diversity in the American workplace

or the health of a population. You know, things we really should be focusing on as a nation and which won't be the priority of a federal government that is singularly focused on GDP and economic growth as a measure of how the country is doing. Imagine judging a child solely based on their standardized test scores and how that wouldn't even begin to paint a true picture of that individual. Yes, imagine that.

The GDP is such a poor measurement that even things that are unquestionably bad can have a positive impact on it. For example, oil spills increased GDP. The Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 were good for the US economy since drilling for oil is economic productivity

as is the spending of resources cleaning it up. Other things that raise GDP include spending on bombs and fighter jets, increased police budgets, burning coal, and the millions of pounds of food we purchase and then throw out every year. Anytime you have spent on hold with a health insurance company after a starving ferret bit off your big toe,

it was probably good for GDP and also good for the starving ferret who now has a full belly of toe. Also, your work insurance doesn't cover ferret attacks, I'm sorry to say. Because of the need for constant growth, companies are incentivized to think in the short term, prioritizing quarterly revenue

over the long-term health of the company or anything else. Why would corporations care about climate change, eliminating vaccine patents or treating their employees fairly when all of their economic incentives point in the opposite direction and when there are basically no consequences for being giant dicks?

If Chipotle's punishment for running a Dickensian burrito factory is 1 50th of 1% of their annual revenue, they're gonna keep doing it. I mean, those little child hands can really roll the burritos nice and tight. I get it. I often force children to make my food.

It's still largely assumed that growth is necessary for our economy to function, even without seeing the expected benefits to anyone who doesn't own equity in that economy. It may just be so profitable that again, the people making the most money just don't want to admit that it isn't working. But a growing number of economists

are starting to question the endless growth mindset. They include pinko commie anarchists like Nobel Prize winning economist, Michael Spence, who argues that wealthy nations should accept a less robust growth rate and prioritize things like public health and social services. Maybe that, things that would have long-term positive effects beyond quarterly earnings.

That's interesting, weird. There's also Peter Victor, a hacky sack playing doobie noodling, prize-winning economist, who argues that emphasizing growth necessarily leads to a disregard for the environment and the wellbeing of workers. He's written multiple books suggesting

that economies can stagnate while still keeping unemployment low, providing a high quality of life for the people working in them and decrease greenhouse gas emissions. Victor says one of the big upsides to stagnating growth or even decreasing our growth rate is that we would all work a lot less

and it would be helpful across the board. When technology improves enough so that it takes less time to build the widget that tightens the bolt that maintains the machine at the banana slicer factory, the current workers could simply share in the benefits instead of half of the workers being laid off. And for the first time in modern economic history,

the companies themselves wouldn't be incentivized to cut corners because they don't need to show consistent growth four times a year in order to justify their own existence. Imagine a banana slicer factory with a steady stream of banana slicer workers not under constant pressure to produce more banana slicers every shift. Slicer solidarity!

And heck, on that subject of bananas, imagine planting a banana tree right now. You stick the seed in, you water it, you pray to Satan for a bountiful harvest, and then you watch it grow, right? It grows and you nurture it, and then it stops. It stops growing, and you then harvest those bananas. They are the dick-shaped reward for all of that growth.

It would be weird if you just kept trying to make that tree grow, never picking those dick shaped rewards out of some weird dogmatic obsession with the concept of growth. And so that's really what I'm getting at here. The same way we no longer have to build a fire with a couple of sticks, perhaps we've evolved to a point where we also don't have to work so much,

especially considering that thing I said earlier about how our cave people ancestors didn't use to work so much, especially considering that thing I said earlier about how our cave people ancestors didn't use to work so much and then invented language. After all, isn't this the entire point of our efforts, the Jetsons' future? Now, you probably don't know this because you're not 90, but in that 1960s show about the year 2062, George Jetson only worked two hours a week.

And the wild part is that right now, only 40 years before that deadline, there's no reason we can't make that happen. We are on the cusp of robotic workers, self-driving trucks, and I don't see a reason we can't make those stupid Elroy hats with like the rings on them, you know, the ones. But the only way to do that

is for everyone to collectively realize that our current culture around work is false and bad. Unfortunately, I'm not sure a lot of us would know what they do if they only worked a few hours a week. And what I mean is that everyone in the workforce, from the humble barista to the blowhardiest stockbroker to even me, we all likely have a similar problem where our job, the thing we do to pay rent and buy food and subscribe to really cool online videos, has become our identity. This manifests itself in all sorts of ways.

There is a reason why Smith, Miller, and Taylor are among the most popular last names in the United States. But critically, using your job as the basis for your identity focuses your intention on social status. Your work is no doubt also your social life. It's often our opener subject with strangers. And some economists have even theorized that the greater the disparity between rich and poor in a society, the more all of the participants in that society fixate on

status. And that, of course, creates a cycle. The people at the bottom see those at the top as a work aspiration. The people at the top need to justify their status and instead of crediting, you know, their father's emerald mine or whatever, attribute their position to hard work. They even begin to believe their own lie. And an entire society gets built around this idea that having more money makes you a better person.

And therefore the goal of everyone is to gain wealth. Laws get built upon it. Lower wage workers are treated like objects and sacrificed during a pandemic. The ones that survive have to deal with a barrage of entitled babyship behavior from customers who feel as if their status is higher. So much so that a lot of them are offended

by the idea of these people getting better wages as if that invalidates their own positions. And tragically, those service employees have to just take it because rent is due. The kids are hungry. And perhaps they even believe that the more shit they're forced to eat, the closer they get to increasing their own status.

Keep working, keep hustling, keep climbing until you also become rich or like at least afford a comfortable life. But, and this is very important, the vast majority of us will never ever be rich. I mean, I will because I play the ponies and I have a system, but most of us, like a staggering amount, won't be ever.

Like to put this in perspective, right now we actually have more millionaires than ever before. Close to 22 million Americans have assets totaling over $1 million. Except that's still about 6% of the country. But more important to note, there are also more poor people than ever before because the policies that created all of those millionaires also destroyed the middle class. In other words, as it stands right now,

the pathway from minimum wage worker to dough rolling money bags is very much sealed shut. They lock that door on their way out, you see. And yet our culture continues to dangle that carrot as if it's not a mirage. It's, well, it's this. Why are you cheering, Fry? You're not rich. True, but someday I might be rich

and then people like me better watch their step. So glad that's coming back. Perfect moment from a perfect show. Anyway, while ending the pursuit of wealth may seem like a bleak proposal in a time when it seems like the only way to survive, to own a home, to fucking retire, realizing that we'll never actually get rich

forces everyone to consider how important it is to have a system that caters to the working class, that encourages everyone to push for a system for people to realistically and comfortably exist in, to deemphasize the cultural expectations, to work long hours, and perhaps pivot to the importance of family and friends and relaxation and maybe even a fun new language we can all invent together

to actually get us to that future our grandparents worked toward. On the plus side, there's some evidence that this is already happening. A recent Pew Research survey found that fewer Americans than ever see work as a major source of meaning in their lives. And recent union action, the wave of worker strikes, and the popularity of subreddits like anti-work suggest that we're correctly starting to look at our jobs as a way to make money, to pay for stuff, and not the thing that defines us or our

value as human beings. If we got one good thing from the pandemic, it's these strikes and the realization that we are all owed a little bit of dignity in our- You're pissy. Come on! You like it? I trained it to call you pissy because of your piss problem from earlier. You know what, Katie? What is it, my dumpling? I'm done. I'm going on strike.

Oh, yeah? Pissy? Okay. Okay, well, here's a strike for you. Lou, why didn't your head explode? What? At the last holiday party, I planted an explosive in your brain. We didn't have a holiday party. Remember the pandemic? Oof, what party was that?

Well, someone's head just exploded, and that's what's important. I'm done. Officially on strike. See you never. Just gotta tiptoe around these piss bottles. God, there's so many. Oh, God, I got some on me! Better go through my contacts and see who just exploded. Tiptoe around these piss bottles. God, there's so many. Oh, God, I got some on me! Better go through my contacts and see who just exploded. To be continued. Oh.

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