About Time - 21 hours

Moving towards a 21 hour working week could solve many of our most pressing social, economic and environmental problems. Anna Coote, Tim Jackson and Juliet Schor outline nef's vision.

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  Nonprofits & Activism

[Chris Fox]

The more systems you create for yourself, growing your own food, creating own energy, needing less energy in the first place, getting out of debt, the less you need to be a slave to the outside systems. Don't have to wait for society to tell you it's ok to work less, I worked my ass off for a few years so I can be more free. Debt is cancer and the less you have of it the better.

[nansir]

Seems this could only be paid for by a huge re-distribution of wealth, highly unlikely in the current climate. However, it would work if it was accepted as part of our evolution toward a moneyless society. If that was accepted it would be perfect. It would also need to be coupled with a programme of de-regulation, eventually giving people complete personal autonomy. Research the Venus Project.

[docgalen]

This is a fantastic idea! Just throwing this out there, but how about a Universal Basic Income or guaranteed minimum income to run alongside the 21 hr week? An idea that we all would be guaranteed an income just enough to keep us out of poverty and then work to get that little bit more. 21 hours would also make many more jobs available and the unemployment rate will drop dramatically. It sounds like a win to me!

[José Andrade]

I am working 50 hours a week too. I wish i was working only 40.

[Atrollin2]

I'm for the idea but it has to be optional.

In my last job I did 48 hours a week, sometimes 50 if I did overtime, and I had to get up at 5:15am to get to work on time. I don't have much sympathy when people complain about working 40 hours, because that feels like nothing to me.

Improving the quality of the time we work and looking for sustainable alternates to meet our current requirements is more important than cutting back and forcing people to live with less.

[ojojodiw]

the shortest path between two points is a straight line. Is it work you want? Or the money? Is it the money you want or the food you want to buy with the money? Sure i understand we invented money as a middleman, money and debt are man made, so is scarcity. The question we all need to ask, is the current technolgy capable to feed/house/cloth everyone? Next question, so why aren't we sharing? Do research on that. Enjoy the ride

[José Andrade]

I don't see the point of working only 21 hours and being paid for the 21 hours. If the idea was work 21 hours and earn the same as 40 hours it would be great but how i am gonna pay the bills with half the income?

40 hours / week is too much tho, we need to start working less.

[honkhonkbeep69]

I agree, we have to evolve beyond money, if we want a future. Even more than that we have to evolve past greed and ego. Search Truth Contest in google and click on the top result. Then check out "The Present" on the homepage. It describes what we can do to change ourselves and our world.

[nansir]

Research the Venus project and the Zeitgeist Movement. We have to evolve beyond money, if we want a future.

[Eric Bradford]

Uh . . . seeing as how money is the key to capitalist power, how do we go to a "moneyless society" without a "huge redistribution of wealth"??? I'm a socialist, who supports a radical reduction of work hours and a transition from the "market" to the "commons" . . . I tend to think that all such changes pretty much have to redistribute wealth, by definition.

[ShopliftersUnite]

yes BUT if you would have too much time on your hands people would consume their idle time on the long run with the same as well. Don't know if you were ever unemployed, but usually it makes a lot of people (incl myself) more lazy and less productive, sometimes even more consuming

[Run4TheShadows]

Trouble is, the slave masters don't just want our money, they want our time as well. The more time at work we spend, the more unfulfilled we become and the more things they can sell to us to use for escapism. Not to mention the more time at work we spend, the more stressed and sicker we become. There's also a lot of money in that.