Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- David Suzuki discusses the merits of a four-day work week in improving both working and living conditions:

 It’s absurd that so many people still work eight hours a day, five days a week — or more — with only a few weeks’ vacation a year, often needing two incomes to support a household. Our economic system was developed when resources seemed plentiful if not inexhaustible, and physical infrastructure was lacking. We need an overhaul to meet today’s conditions rather than those that existed decades ago when we were unaware of many of the potential negative consequences of our actions.

Research points to many advantages of reforms such as reduced work hours and universal basic income. In Gothenburg, Sweden, workers at a care home for the elderly were put on a six-hour workday as part of a two-year controlled study. Although hiring 15 new employees to cover the workload drove costs up by about 22 per cent, spending was reduced in areas like covering sick leave, which dropped by 10 per cent. Workers reported health improvements at rates 50 per cent higher than workers at institutions with regular working hours. Patient care also improved. Women with children benefited substantially.
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A better work-life balance also brings many individual and societal advantages. Family life is strengthened, people have more time for creative or educational pursuits, and happier, rested employees are more productive. As more people share in available jobs, social service costs go down and more people are able to contribute to economic prosperity.

A lot needs to be done to reform our economic systems and to address critical issues like pollution and climate change. Reducing work hours is one way to make substantial gains.

- C.J. Polychroniou interviews Ha-Joon Chang about the myths of neoliberalism, including the belief that it's either inevitable or desirable to continue imposing burdens on workers to benefit the wealthy.

- Thomas Frank highlights how Donald Trump was able to harness the understandable frustrations of workers - due in no small part to the impression that other politicians weren't willing to pursue meaningful change of any sort. And Andrew Sullivan discusses the disastrous results for the U.S. of allowing a reality-averse megalomaniac to take power, while Andrew Coyne comments on the need for collective action internationally to stand up to Trump.

- Warren Bell examines the undemocratic implications of Justin Trudeau's broken promise of a more fair electoral system.

- And finally, Simon Enoch tears into Brad Wall's obsession with privatizing SaskTel by pointing out how a selloff would be disastrous for Saskatchewan's residents as citizens, consumers and workers alike.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Ian Welsh discusses how our problems with poverty and inequality arise out of artificial scarcity:

We either already have excess capacity or we have the ability to create more than people need of all necessities.

This includes housing, food and clothing.  We still have enough water, globally, if we are wiling to be smart about how we use it, and in those areas where there are geographical problems they can be solved, in general IF we are willing to be a bit flexible in how we grow our food.
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We are also short of security.  This is another artificial shortage, though harder to fix.  But most countries which have been destroyed recently were destroyed in large part because of outside intervention: whether Western, Eastern or Jihadi.  We are in a cycle of blowback after blowback, with the first step being to stop doing things that will cause devastation.

Education is unequally spread throughout the world, but this is another problem which is solveable: we have the books, which cost cents to reproduce, the telecom networks are almost everywhere, and we can train the teachers. If we wanted to spend more money on teachers and less on finance, we wouldn’t have a problem.
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Oh, and the shortage of spare time for so many; with the shortage of work for others?  Completely socially constructed.  We are doing too much of the wrong kinds of work, and too little of the right kinds of work, and those choices are also social.

Scarcity in the end goods humans need most is almost always, in the modern world, artificial: a social choice.

- Thomas Kochan writes about the importance of a new living wage norm in ensuring a more fair economy, while recognizing that any change will need time to take effect. And the International Labour Organization studies the connection between inequality, economic stagnation and a reduced labour share of income.

- Jeff Sallot rightly points out that blowing things (and people) up is not a solution to a humanitarian crisis. And Mitchell Anderson writes that one of the main factors exacerbating the refugee crisis in the Middle East is climate change which the Cons refuse to try to fight.

- Michael Plaxton examines the caretaker convention which is supposed to limit the exercise of power by a government whose support can't be demonstrated. And Kady O'Malley rightly challenges the spin that "most seats" is the only relevant question in determining which leader gets a chance to form government. But Leonid Sirota wonders whether agreement among the leaders who are in a position to seek the confidence of the House of Commons might itself change the conventions as they stand.

- Finally, Warren Bell reminds us of Robocon as another scandal which should ensure people are motivated to vote out the Harper Cons. And of course, that abuse of democracy is particularly important given the likelihood that Harper and company will try to cheat in yet another election.