http://www.rabble.ca/news_full_story.shtml?sh_itm=57a0a364642dd4f601431cc0a5c1f2b9&rXn=1&Would that be work to live, or live to work?
There's a natural tendency to confuse how well off you are, with how much “stuff” you have. Stuff is visible, and has a price tag. Time, on the other hand, is invisible and apparently free.
>by Jim Stanford
September 13, 2006
Time for a pop quiz. Who is more efficient, the Americans or the French?
Obviously, it must be the Americans. They spend more time at work than the citizens of any other industrial country. And they have the GDP to show for it: $37,500 (U.S.) for every American. That's 35 per cent more than the French (at $27,700 per capita).
But hang on. The average employee in France spends less time on the job than workers in any other country in the industrialized world. That's 270 fewer hours a year than the average American — and there are fewer French employed in the first place: about 41 per cent of the total population (including children and older people), versus 48 per cent in America.
Crunch the numbers, and it turns out that for every hour spent working, the French produce slightly more value-added than the Americans. In fact, most of Europe has higher productivity than the United States — contrary to the old stereotype about “rigid,” inefficient Europe.
So the French work less, but they work more productively.
As a result, they have high incomes, yet spend a lot more time protesting, dining out and making love (not necessarily in that order).
Now that's what I call efficient.
There's a natural tendency to confuse how well off you are, with how much “stuff” you have. Stuff is visible, and has a price tag.
Time, on the other hand, is invisible and apparently free.
FULL article at link above.
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