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In the past people worked around 10 or even 12 hours a day (or more, but it is hard to believe that a human could work more than 12 hours for some time), so many coutries, especially the socialist ones, determined that a worker could work at the most 8 hours a day. However it was already a long time ago when the technology was much inferior and there was very few or no automation in the producition, at that time there is no computers and advanced technologies (robots, artificial intelligence etc.) of the, so known, "4th industrial revolution".
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Nowadays we could automatize almost all. On the other hand, in capitalism it finds contradictions, because if the capitalist automatize the whole production, it will be benificial to him and most workers will lose their jobs. Structurally, if the most capitalists automatize their production, great part of population will have no job, no lose their buying power and then the capitalists wouldn't sell their products much it could conduce to a crisis due to "overproduction".
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Only in socialism could be benificial to automatize everything what would be possible and nowadays with this kind of technologies the socialism could easier be applied and hold high productions without using much human working.
Consider it in a capitalist context. What do you guys think about the 8-hours working a day?
I think the working day of 8 hours is overhidden. It should be at most 6 hour a day and 35 a week, especially in physical labour.
I never understood how people can manage working forty hour weeks for forty or fifty years of their lives. Even when I was working 50 or 60 hour weeks to make ends meet I knew that something had to give.
I now have the privilege and option so I recently cut my own working hours to 32 per week and it's a big improvement. I'd go even further but I can't accept the additional loss of wages, especially since there isn't a proportional reduction in work responsibilities.
I'm absolutely convinced that twenty hour work weeks are more than sufficient to keep society moving forward and people taken care of. Another interesting idea is to have everyone take year long paid sabbaticals every five years or so to give everyone a chance to enjoy the best years of their lives and learn for themselves who they are and want to be.
Even in a capitalist context less working hours gives benefits in productivity and worker satisfaction. People with more time and resources to spend on what they appreciate in life makes them better workers too. Maybe it's a little too conspiratorial from my side, but it looks as though forty hour work weeks and as little possible paid time off are kept as standard because it's easier to control a populace which is kept busy and exhausted. If we all had extra time and brainpower we'd revolt against wage labour and private ownership of our production pretty quick.