Is private healthcare a means of promoting excessive workload???

[IrateCitizen]

This thought just recently occurred to me, and I'm surprised that it didn't before.

In other industrialized nations, where health care is administered through the government, workers enjoy a shorter workweek and more vacation time. In France, recent legislation guarantees that a worker cannot be forced to work over 35 hours per week. In other industrialized nations, the work week has risen to an average of close to 45 hours, and there is no mandate of vacation time (even in Japan workers are guaranteed 5 weeks).

One of the early goals of the labor movement was not so much the demand for lofty increases in pay, as it was for time off from work. Over and over again, we have been told that increases in technology and productivity will enable us to spend more time away from work, and more time living our lives. Yet, as recent history has shown, our increases in productivity have found us working MORE hours instead of LESS. Most white-collar jobs start at 1-2 weeks vacation per year, and an incredible number of jobs have NO vacation time. And these more hours coupled with a decrease in vacation means less time to spend with our families, pursuing our hobbies and outside interests, and maintaining our balance in life.

There have been instances of companies that have adopted 30-hour work weeks, and these instances have discovered that workers still were able to complete the workload from a 40-hour week. However, there is one barrier to adopting this kind of standard across the board.

BENEFITS.

When a company provides a portion of health care to its employees, it takes on a percentage of that cost. Therefore, it is much more "economically feasible" for the company to hire 10 people and work them 45 hours/week, as opposed to hiring 15 people and working them 30 hours/week. While this may be good for the bottom line, it is NOT good for the employees for whom it means spending less time with their families and loved ones.

The abolishment of for-profit health care insurance, and the institution of a state-run system would go a long way toward redressing this grievance. No longer would there be such an economic incentive for companies to overwork employees. Workers, in spending less time on the job, would be free to spend more time with their families (thus hitting the "family values" issue). And society, as a whole, would reap the benefits from such a move.

Any thoughts on this from the rest of the left-field bleachers??? :D

[IrateCitizen]

1. Any interest in this? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

[Mairead]

2. Sounds like a good analysis to me

Though there are other factors beyond health insurance. The fully-burdened budget line for an employee is typically on the order of 150% of salary.

I think France is doing it the right way: mandate that people be able to find a decent job. Force employers into doing the right thing by cutting the maximum work week down to 20 hrs, if that's what it takes to open things up.

[MountainLaurel]

3. Makes sense to me

But then I'm a cynic and a :tinfoilhat: when it comes to corporate America's benevolence to its employees. (A lot of companies will tout that providing a healthcare plan is simply a selfless act they perform to help out employees.) I had some former coworkers who had worked at one of those ccol techie companies that provided free munchies and beverages for staff. Of course, the goal here was so that they could work 14-hour days without having to leave the office.

[RichM]

4. This kind of thinking is commie-pinko, subversive, & heretical. IOW,

it is exactly right.

[roughsatori]

5. You are correct and I too am irate over our health-care system

A friend who is a poet and French tells me that the provision of health-care by his government is what makes it possible for him to devote his life to his art. He has a health-condition that does not prevent him from working, but needs constant monitoring and medication. If he were a citizen in the USA he would have to get a full-time job to get health-care.

He is able to live on the tiny bit of money he makes as a writer. He would not be able to do so if he did not receive health-care from the government. I think it would actually help the development of the arts in the USA to provide health-care. (I understand that many Americans could not care less about promoting the arts), but...).

[htuttle]

6. Interesting. Here's how it is in a worker's paradise:

Seeing that I work in one (worker owned and operated).

We voted ourselves a healthcare plan with a flat-rate co-contribution a number of years ago. We decided that people working at least 30 hours a week would be qualified (there's about 150 employees total). It hasn't put us out of business yet, so other 'regular' businesses could certainly provide health care at 30 hours per week. It would be better if it were a single-payer universal health care plan run (or regulated) by the government.

On the matter of how many hours per week we all work: Anyone else remember a study from a long time ago of some remaining hunter-gatherer tribes that discovered that on average, a hunter-gatherer adult only does what can be described as live-maintaining 'work' about 8-10 hours per week? That's some progress!

[JanMichael]

7. How are incomes treated in your company?

Is there a prescribed ration of 3:1, 5:1, or some other number?

[htuttle]

13. There's a set ration

It's 3:1 right now.

[IrateCitizen]

18. Well, your figure is a little off, but you've got the right idea!

... a hunter-gatherer adult only does what can be described as live-maintaining 'work' about 8-10 hours per week? That's some progress!

I think it was more in the neighborhood of 4-6 hours per day, on average. In any case, you're correct in noting the lack of "progress" that we've made on this issue.

And while these hunter-gatherers may not have had easy lives -- disease and injury were not treatable by means of modern medicine -- the lives they had were in many ways RICHER than ours. They gained immense pleasure from the deep interaction they had with each other. They were never concerned about "things" the way we are. They were generally HAPPIER than we are -- actually much more so.

At the heart of this is actually classic Marxism, although I wouldn't hasten to connect it as such. What Marx really proposed was not that the workers should get "their piece of the pie" as much as that they should equally share in the gains of productivity. In doing so, they could work 4 hours per day instead of 8 -- thus giving them more time to spend with their families, enriching themselves in the arts, communining with nature, and so on. In short, they could spend more time building a much richer society.

The only reason that class warfare came into this at all was that since the time that men began to live in towns and cities, there developed divisions in wealth and class. And it had always been the interest of those at the top to ensure that all the benefits of technology, productivity, etc. flowed to THEM rather than being used to enrich SOCIETY.

[Mairead]

44. "I think it was more in the neighborhood of 4-6 hours per day, on average"

If that's the !Kung San you're thinking of, it is 20-30 hrs/wk these days, but as the anthro who studied them pointed out, that represents the amount of effort required in today's greatly restricted and degraded environment. Even as recently as the 1920s, a person could live well on 1-2 hours work per day. They could go back to that if only they could migrate to a richer area--the Kalahari desert is not a good place to live.

[IrateCitizen]

56. I am talking about the !Kung San! How did you know, Mairead?!?!

They were profiled in the book Affluenza that I just finished reading. In any case, I think that it's important to note that hunter-gatherers even in some of the less hospitable places on earth are able to survive working a scant 30 hours per week (and obviously that doesn't include commuting time!) shows how we've actually regressed in many respects as we have become "civilized".

Not that I'm suggesting we go back to hunter-gatherer lifestyles, but at some point the workaholic insanity has to stop, and we have to begin LIVING again!

[Ardee]

50. Cabbie! airport please.......

The vicious circle of expensive health care negating employer providing such expensive benefits........

If memory serves htuttle works in a co-op, a bit different from the premise offered by IC,imo.

The need to wring the most productivity from the fewest workers in order to cut the burden of benefit costs would seem to backfire when workers overtime and workload lead to increases in industrial injury and health problems stemming from such overwork, like stress induced injury and illnesses.

I wonder if there is a study on the numbers and cost of workers comp injuries and missed work due to illness between nations that mandate lower work weeks and provide nationalised health care and our own nation. I do know that worker compensation costs are incredibly high here........

There are, Ill bet, many myths associated with the way we do business and the way we provide, or fail to provide, for our workers........national health care arguments contain a number of those myths.

[jiacinto]

8. A 30 hr work week?

Sounds like a fantasy and completely unworkable. It also sounds like a defense for laziness.

But I do think that a 40 hr work week is enough with at least 1-2 weeks vacation.

The other thing is that when you cut back hours people inevitably get paid less.

The other thing is that state run healthcare is never going to happen. The AMA and the Insurance companies will never let that happen.

Enjoy your Socialist fantasies.

[prolesunited]

10. Well, the lazy French

people seem to be managing. :eyes:

Did you ever stop to think that the trajectory your life is taking these days Carlos is the universe trying to tell you something?

[IrateCitizen]

25. That's like asking a rock to theorize quantum physics.

Did you ever stop to think that the trajectory your life is taking these days Carlos is the universe trying to tell you something?

I wouldn't count on it.

[Mairead]

12. Carlos -- that 'completely unworkable fantasy' is the *reality*

Try reading it again why don't you.

[jiacinto]

16. Again this shows how out of touch you are

Most Americans would never support what you advocate. Enjoy your Socialist fantasies.

[IrateCitizen]

22. How very conservative/RW-reactionary of you, Carlos!

Enjoy your Socialist fantasies.

I guess if you can't honestly debate an issue, resort to smear tactics!

[PretzelzRule]

26. Thanks!

I will!

Enjoy being a DINO! :hi:

[jiacinto]

29. I am not a DINO

Then again, at DU, people consider anyone who isn't a Socialist to be a DINO.

[IrateCitizen]

31. You're right. You're sounding more like a RW-reactionary.

Especially with your apt willingness to smear with terms like "socialist fantasies" rather than discussing issues in depth.

IOW, if you want to be respected for your arguments, offer them in terms other than pithy put-downs and smarmy condescension.

[JanMichael]

32. Both comments are unfair Carlos. I don't think you're a DINO at all.

And I don't think your comment about DU is at all accurate either.

See? This Socialist can be nice:-)

[Misinformed01]

34. apparently nicer than your wife

n/t

[Misinformed01]

33. Carlos, I don't mean to sound ugly

But, out of all the DUers, you are the one that I am betting on to be voting a straight Republican ticket just as soon as your salary increases to the point of comfort.

I am sorry, but for 2 or more years-can't remember when you got here-you have been posting about your finances. Hell, sometimes I feel as if I know your financial situation better than my relatives.

Sorry, dear-but I will be glad to give you my email address-so you can write to me and let me know that you have Grown Up and Become a Republican.

[jiacinto]

35. You do sound ugly

Very ugly.

[JanMichael]

36. She's being honest.

Can you necessarily blame people for drawing conclusions like that?

[Misinformed01]

37. I know I do

But, it chaps my ass to see you complain about insurance bills one day; and then complain about "Socialist fantasies" of healthcare the next.

Wanted to make another comment, but realized I was going to be bitchy-

[IrateCitizen]

39. If you're expecting Carlos's neat "compartmentalization" to disappear...

You'll be waiting a long, long time. Although I have come to like Carlos personally from PM conversations we have had here, I find him to be completely irrational in his unwillingness to consider points of view that challenge his perception of reality. In fact, his irrationality is so visceral that he often ends up sounding like a RW reactionary in response. Hence the use of terms like "socialist fantasies".

[Ardee]

52. what to do, oh dear Carlos, what to do.....

why on earth do you go off on these tangents, become so intractable and ,dare I say, infantile.......ok I wont say it...:eyes:

Im sure, being a college man and all, that you can think of any number of things once unthinkable that are now commonplace . Universal health care in america is probably one of these whose time is coming. I urge you to be more elastic in your thinking dear boy, to avoid such rigidity that makes you a potential object of ridicule ( in extreme cases).

Why do you call it a socialist dream I wonder? You are aware ,Im certain, that last year 70 million americans were not covered by any health care for a portion of the year and over 42 million were uncovered for the entire year. Is it a socialist dream to want better for your fellow americans? If it is, sign me up now...........

[RichM]

45. Excellent remark! LOL!

Very perceptive & accurate. You've characterized him perfectly.

[MadHound]

38. Actually Carlos, go read the latest Hightower

Interesting stats in there, like how sixty nine percent of the US population support universal single payer healthcare. And are you going to sit there with a straight face and tell me that the vast majority of workers in this country wouldn't want a shorter work week?

I think you're getting a little brainwashed with all of the corporate bullshit going around these days. Come up for air, and check out the reality of things. The people of this country are generally much more liberal than the corporate media would lead you to believe.

[IrateCitizen]

40. It's not even that people are more "liberal" -- they just aren't happy.

Our society does an excellent job at sowing unhappiness. We worry about bills we have to pay. We worry about losing our jobs and benefits. We acquiesce to working longer and longer hours for less pay per hour, even as productivity rises. We are convinced that that new car, new boat, new suit, or new house will make us happy, but find that we are less happy when the bills come due. We consume ourselves with "keeping up with the Joneses", even as the Joneses are leading us off a cliff.

Deep down inside, people want to just feel happy again. They want less worries, and more opportunities to enjoy life and feel the human connections that give us real meaning in life. They're just conditioned each and every day to act in ways that run counter to this goal.

[MadHound]

42. True, true, we're all being driven nuts by the stress, and it is showing

Over the past forty years society has gone from a one income family model to a two income family model, and if you are poor its 2.5 and climbing. This has several negative aspects in our society. I'm not advocating that all women have to become stay at home mothers, what I am saying is that a family should be able to get by on forty hours a week period. Split it up between the husband and wife, have full time house-husbands, stay at home moms, whatever. I just think that our society would be in better shape if we the average family wasn't forced to have two breadwinners. As it is now our society is turning into a behavioural sink and its showing.

[IrateCitizen]

43. #1 purpose of the American economy -- production of consumer goods

That is the way that Ike's economic advisor explained it to him, and it has been the set purpose of the economy ever since.

One of the primary reasons for the need for 2 breadwinners is the way in which most Americans are enamored with "things". Our economy is not built upon providing needs, but rather on manufacturing "wants".

Just look around you at any time during the day. You can't go ANYWHERE without being subjected to some kind of advertising. And if you look at the WAY in which advertising is conducted, it is built around promoting consumerism as a path to happiness.

Except it isn't. It's a path to UNhappiness. Chronic unhappiness.

Part of the problem is breaking through this false vision of reality that has been constructed for us. Children are conditioned to believe in consumerism from the time they're old enough to talk now.

Until we break this myth of money=happiness, we'll keep fighting these same battles -- at least until our rampant consumerism renders the planet uninhabitable.

[IrateCitizen]

14. What unadulterated tripe! Can't say I'm too surprised, though...

It's always easier to discount something by calling it a socialist fantasy and simply saying it can't be done. But, considering the source, I guess I shouldn't have expected any better. :eyes:

This whole 30-hour week thing is far from an excuse for laziness. It's a recipe for achieving full employment AND allowing people to spend a little bit of time LIVING.

Another aspect of it is that people get to spend more time with their families, thus helping to STRENGTHEN them rather than BREAK THEM UP. Talk about stealing the "family values" rhetoric right out from under the Republicans!

The other thing is that when you cut back hours people inevitably get paid less.

So the fuck what! People really seem to be happy right now with all that money they're making to buy more and more useless junk that they don't need. Maybe if we'd do something to make us realize the value of human interaction and move away from the cynical society we've become, more people would realize that money does NOT equal happiness. In fact, preoccupation with it in pursuit of more and more "things" often inhibits it.

The other thing is that state run healthcare is never going to happen. The AMA and the Insurance companies will never let that happen.

Whatever. Once upon a time, people said that abolition, civil rights, workers' rights, women's suffrage -- the list goes on and on -- would never happen. But if it helps you to cling to your defeatist view of the world, then have at it. But I'd have to ask you, in my best "Dr. Phil" voice, "How's that workin' out for you, Carlos?"

Enjoy your Socialist fantasies.

Typical tripe from our resident self-defeatist.

[jiacinto]

17. I am being realisitc

As for not making "more money" tell that to people who can't make ends meet. That's easy to say when you don't have student loans to pay and other bills.

[Misinformed01]

19. "other bills"

Like ridiculously expensive health and life insurance premiums?

[IrateCitizen]

20. You really do think that everything occurs in a vacuum, don't you?

As for not making "more money" tell that to people who can't make ends meet. That's easy to say when you don't have student loans to pay and other bills.

With regards to the "student loans" issue -- the cost of higher education is another integral part in all of this. Do you realize that if you had attended a higher university in virtually ANY other industrialized nation, you would not be buried under a mountain of student debt? The whole idea that a person must actually mortgage themselves in order to gain access to careers that are not economically or potentially stagnant is patently cruel.

You like to pretend that none of these things are interrelated. The main difference between you and I, Carlos, is that I realize that they are ALL interrelated. EVERYTHING is connected. The more you try to compartmentalize all of these things -- health care, higher education, disintegrating communities, high divorce rates, violence in society, etc. -- the more you actually defeat yourself.

I would hope that someone who reads as much as you do would have made these connections by now. I would hope that you eventually do. I would hope that I'm not just banging my head against a wall talking about this with you... but somehow I'm just not optimistic. :shrug:

Anyway, if our "socialist fantasies" were implemented, you wouldn't have to worry about "making ends meet". :evilgrin:

[jiacinto]

21. And I would be taxed to death in the process

Look, I sympathize with many of these ideas. But the US is never going to become a socialist country.

[IrateCitizen]

23. Where did anyone but you mention "socialism"?

This isn't about applying labels -- it's about creating the best society we can.

Obviously one based solely on creation of wealth has not done this. There has to be a better way.

Some of us are trying to develop ideas to enhance this. You, on the other hand, only dismiss out of hand. The things we're proposing aren't that radical -- they've been implemented in various forms in such bastions of unadulterated socialism as France, Germany, Canada, Holland, Italy, Switzerland, and so on.

But hey, if it serves your argument better to be irrational and resort to labelling and smear without offering up honest criticism, have at it!

"How's that workin' for you, Carlos?"

[IrateCitizen]

24. But we're already a socialist country for corporations!

How do you think the military survives? What about the highway industry? Airlines? Fossil fuels? Nuclear power? Agribusiness?

Socialism is implemented for all of these industries, and often at massive cost to those who pay taxes. But hey, if it serves you better to have a bloated military involved in countless conflicts around the globe, dirtier air and water from pollution, erosion of topsoil due to large-scale agricultural policies, and food with abnormal genes and covered in pesticides than to have health care, reasonably-priced education and a shorter work week enabling you to spend more time involved in "the pursuit of happiness" -- well, all I can say is for you to enjoy your Conservative purgatory!

[prolesunited]

30. I think part of the problem with some people

is that they crave the corporate capitalist lifestyle. They want to live in places live Aventura, gleaming cities on the hill where everything is a Disneylike fantasy of order and cleanliness.

What they fail to realize is that they are just like the rest of us at the bottom rungs, scraping to get by. If only they could reach that pinnacle, they would be set. To hell with the rest of us at the bottom. If they advocate for a different system, we are going to "steal" their money when they arrive.

Problem is, all they end up doing is treading water and beating their head against a system that by its very nature is designed to keep them down. Oh, sure. A few self-made people manage to slip through the cracks, but that's just to keep people motivated.

What they don't seem to see is that by all of us working together, we can make things better for everyone. Call it idealistic, but it beats letting your soul die.

I've lived in poverty, received government assistance and had no health care. My situation is vastly improved now, I can't turn my back. It just makes me more determined to help create a better system.

That's what I mean about the universe teaching a lesson, some people apparently aren't paying attention, though.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

46. "Taxed to death"

When I was a college student, my parents for some reason enrolled me in life insurance run by a Norwegian-American fraternal organization, so I began getting their monthly magazine.

Well, there were Norwegian-American proto-freepers even then, and one of them wrote in with a rant about people in Norway paid all their income in taxes.

A reply came in from a genuine Norwegian, whose cousin had sent him a copy of the rant for comment. The Norwegian said that the rates that the original writer had quoted were marginal rates, and yes, taxes were high, but here's what he got for them:education through university, health care, family allowances for people with children, subsidized daycare, excellent recreational facilities, support for the arts, and four weeks of paid vacation, among other things.

He noted that Americans had to pay for higher education, health care, and daycare on their own, and that they got very little vacation time, so he figured that Americans pay unofficial taxes when they have to pay out-of-pocket for things that people in other countries get as a right of citizenship.

He also mentioned that much of American taxpayers' money goes to support the military. While a member of NATO, Norway has a very small military, so more money was freed up for social purposes.

[Q]

15. "Enjoy your Socialist fantasies"

- They're much better than your RWing fantasies. Noticed that you used 'lazy' and 'socialist' in the same post. What's next? Your support for child labor and curses against unions?

[ProudGerman]

53. 30 hr work week isn't a defense for laziness

It's actually a step towards sanity. Even working a "lite" 40 hour work week (I'm usually in the neighborhood of 50+ and that does NOT include commuting both ways), do you realize how much of your life is, to put it bluntly, wasted? You'll spend more time with your coworkers than the woman you married and the kids you have or will have. When I figured that out shortly after I started working full-time, it just killed me.

I find that the most unbelievable part. People are willing to agree to spend more of their waking hours with people they generally just tolerate, than with people they love. It's insane, this belief that "being a hard worker" is measured in hours put in. Work should not be the primary focus of anybody's life. Primary focus being what you devote the majority of your time to. It just sickens me that I'm expected to spend more than half of my awake adult years either working or spending time in relation to work.

I'm also sick and fucking tired of spending my weekends recuperating from working the previous week. But I'm working on that part, sacrificing even more of my young years studying for a chance to change my current predicament.

Even if I were to do something I actually enjoy doing, I wouldn't want to spend more than half my adult years doing it instead of with loved ones.

[stlsaxman]

55. I have had to give up playing music because my 50+ hr/week job has

health insurance and I can't afford to do what my very being tells me I must.

There's a hole in my heart where my sax used to be and it has left my heart broken.

[chadm]

9. Yes, forcing employers to give benefits...

means they are less likely to hire more people with a lighter workload. Even beyond this, I don't understand the connection between a job and health insurance. I think we need to do everything possible to make people less dependant on jobs...but of course the Cheap Labor Conservatives think otherwise.

Kucinich is the only one who supports my position on this critical issue.

[Selwynn]

11. Yes.

I don't have much to say about this in my mind (and I mean no offense to anyone who isn't convinced) it is an obvious truism.

It's not that I don't care about the issue, its just that I don't have anything to add.

[AndyTiedye]

27. My Employer gives Full Benefits for 30 hours/week

I thought that was pretty common.

[IrateCitizen]

28. Not in my experience...

I've always been required to maintain a minimum of 40 hours to get full benefits.

[Heddi]

47. Yep. one company I worked for

SPECIFICALLY made people work 37.5 hours a week, considered them FULL TIME, but kept them under 40 hours so they wouldn't have to pay benefits.

the only people that got insurance were the owner, his wife, and their ass-kissing bookeeeper.

OH, and that 37.5 hours a week didn't include overtime. I generally worked 50-60 hours a week, but because it was considered "OT", and even though I worked MORE than 40 hours a week EVERY WEEK THAT I WORKED THERE, they were able to get through some loophole in the law and were still able to deny me benefits...even though I worked more than 40 hours a week...

utter utter bullshit.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

48. There are some altruistic employers

I know of two small businesses in Portland (a bookstore as big as my living room and a coffee house) that give their employees health insurance in one case and subsidize it in the other.

In both cases, the owners are women with leftist political views. They have been quoted as saying that their employees are central to the success of their business, so they deserve benefits.

Meanwhile, one of the biggest chains of convenience stores in the Pacific Northwest not only doesn't provide health insurance but doesn't give sick leave, either. (I learned this from conversations overheard on the bus.) Desperate for every hour of pay, employees go into work when they're barely able to get out of bed.

Other large corporations also fail to give their employees health insurance.

If those two small businesses that I mentioned can give health insurance, what's wrong with the large companies?

[Armstead]

41. Here's how it evoilved -- I think

This is how one health-care advocate explained it to me. Otehrs can correct, but this is the gist of it.

Sometime in the early decades of the 20th Century, companies began offering health benefits as an incentive to attract qualified employees. As the idea spread, more companies offered it simply to keep up. Labor also pressed for it with reluctant employers.

So it came to be less of an optional "goodie" and instead was an expected part of the package. And that became the status quo.

This worked okay, because insurers were more reasonable. Also, there were not-for-profit health plans like Blue Cross-Blue Shield. And the jpob market was more stable -- you didn't have to worry so much what would happen if you lost your job. Plus, Medicare and Medicaid were created to fill the gap.

Also rates were figured more by geography than by demographic categories. In otehr words, you didn't pay based on your age, health, etc. It was simply accepted that the younger ones took up the slack for the ones who needed more care.

But then gradually health care reflected the overall psychotic breakdown and greed of the US of fucking A over the past 25 years. Consumers wanted more coverage, and some began whining about having to pay extra to cover the cost of old people.

Insurers became more "competative" and offering "designer health plans." They also become more profit driven, and started looking for ways to cut costs.

This all escalated into the mess we have today. But by now it is so entrenched, the idea of changing it seems radical.

[Heddi]

49. I have a friend who is Sweedish, and lived in Sweeden her whole life

and recently moved to the United States.

Yes, Sweeden is taxed enourmously, but these are the benefits they get for their excessive taxation:

--free healthcare
--free college education
--free childcare

WHen she moved to the US, she got married and got pregnant. She was really...dismayed that the US only gives Pg women up to 12 weeks of UNPAID absence w/o the risk of losing their jobs.

In Sweeden, mothers AND fathers have the option of taking THREE YEARS off of work, AND THEY GET PAID!!! They can extend that time to five years, but take a cut in the amt. of $$ they receive.

They also get 'mandatory' vacation time every year, and work shorter hours.

Now, some people :eyes: would have you believe that shorter working hours leads to lazy sots collecting dust and welfare.

Not so.

What the shorter working hours, and mandatory vacation time, and benefits to pregnant families produces is a society that is MUCH closer with their children, their families, etc, than America has.

There isn't the glut of households where mom and dad both work til 6pm, Jr's a latch-key-kid for three hours after school, and never sees the parents.

Jr. doesn't have to spend the summer vacation with Grandma, or with daycare because mom and/or dad only have 5 days of vacation a year.

In sweeden, the FAMILY comes first, then the job. And the Government has put protections into place that HELP people keep the family first and the job second.

In America, YOU ARE WHERE YOU WORK. Your worth as a person is DIRECTLY EQUAL with the amount of hours that you spend at your job. You wouldn't BELIEVE the rolling-eyes I get when I tell people I'm a full-time student and don't work. You'd think I'm the urchin of society or something. Or when I worked part-time, I was TREATED like a part-time person. Like a half-human.

We reward people who work 80 hours a week--not just in $$, but in status. THey must REALLY be a good person to put in 80 hours a week! Look at the way she works!

But we don't consider that the person who puts in 40+ hours of OT is spending 40 LESS hours a week with their family, or their loved ones, or with themselves.

America has a problem with free time. Not idle time, but with not-working time. If you're not working ALL THE TIME, then you are a waste of a person. You don't deserve to live.

Why is it any wonder that America has one of the highest rates of Heart-Attacks in the world? Could be our fatty foods and lack of exercise----but who can cook a balanced meal when you're working 20 hours OT a week! Who can exercise when you're at work from 6am til 8pm?

How can a marriage survive when we're taught from birth that THE JOB IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN YOUR LIFE!?

How can we expect our kids to grow up well rounded, with morals and ethics when we're never around them? When we're never allowed to spend time with them?

ANd this work-a-holic-ism is being passed down to our children. We have to schedule play-dates.

Long gone are the days when you could just go to someone's house and say "wanna play?" Oh no. Now we have soccer and homework and after-school and before-school and student government and karate and band and cheerleading and volunteering and spending-time-at-the-babysitters and all that stuff.

The kids are working just as much OT as the parents are.

America has a 'free time' phobia.

And I should point out that MOST (the majority?) of European Countries have mandatory vacation policies for citizens. Doesn't matter how much you work, or where you work, you're guaranteed X weeks of vacation a year.

Unlike America, where there is no standard. Some jobs give you 1 week after 1 year, other jobs give you 1 week after 5 years. I worked at a place where your sick time and vacation time were in the same pool, and you earned them both---1/4 of a day for every week you worked. So if you were sick, you couldn't take vacation. If you took vacation, you better PRAY you didn't get sick afterwards....

[prolesunited]

51. Excellent post

You summarized what the disconnect in our country is all about quite well.

[IrateCitizen]

57. I'm with prolesunited -- you summed this up perfectly.

We Americans are part of a soulless society in which we are defined as people by what kind of job we have. If you go to other countries and ask people, "What do you do?" you may get answers like, "Skiing, football, hiking... " and their job would be on down the list.

Here in the US, you ask the same question, and the immediate response is what you do for a job.

I really find it quite sad that people define themselves this way. It's a sad commentary on our society.

I guess I'm trying to add to what you wrote in your post, but I really can't. Better to leave it to stand on its own.

[Heddi]

60. My Swedish friend said the same thing

that when you meet someone in Sweden, or England, or Germany, the LAST thing you ask them is "what do you do for a living" or "Where do you work". It's considered rude and something that you wouldn't DARE ask a stranger.

But as you said, in the good ol' You Ess of Aye, the first question as the hands are shaking is "So, what do ya do for a living? Where do ya work" which basically translates to "How worthy of a human are you? How much money do you make?"

And of course, this all goes back to (or is it the beginning of) our utter compulsion with material goods.

My sister-in-law has a $400k house, 2 new cars that are leased and traded in for newer models every year. They have a boat, and a jet-ski, and all the top-of-the-line appliances anyone could hope to have.

The problem is that everything she "owns" is mortgaged, leased, or on a line of credit. She doesn't OWN anything. The bank, the credit card company, the mortgage company, the leasing company---THEY own everything she has.

But in society, she is treated as a better individual because she drives a 2004 Acura, and her husband drives a 2004 SUV. They're better because they live in a conglomerate subdivision where every street is a cul-de-sac, every house looks the same, and you have to have colour-coordinated trash-cans, lest the homeowners association takes a lein on your property and kicks you out.

She and her husband spend NO time with their child. She's working OT, or has expanding hours. He's a car salesman who works from 8am til 10pm. The kid is at daycare or the babysitters for more hours than he spends with his parents---either alone or together.

To them, and to far too many Americans, material possesions are the sole reason for being alive. Being able to impress other people is the sole reason for being alive. Having a child with the 'latest, coolest' name is the sole reason to be alive.

They strive to be SO mainstream that it's painful to watch them.

I've seen people I know who are like them throw away closets full of good, sometimes unworn clothes (with tags still on them) because they're "last year"---who gives a fuck? I own jeans that I had when I was in fucking HIGH SCHOOL (that was 10 years ago, btw)---my husband has socks that he's had since COLLEGE (That was about 10 years ago as well).

Americas infatuation with the UNNCESSARY things is what makes our country the....laughing stock that it is today.

The friends I have that are European look at America with the same eyes that we look at a dumb dog with. You feel sympathy for its plight, but in the back of your mind you laugh when it bumps into door jambs, and wonder if it would be best to put it out of its misery before it suffers this world any longer.

[Armstead]

54. kick

[IrateCitizen]

58. Carlos... oh, Carlos... where art thou?

I was surprised to leave you leave so quickly when so many people called you on your disingenuous debate tactics. Usually you stick around and keep on repeating the same tired cliches, exaggerations and mischaracterizations.

I must say I'm really disappointed....

[prolesunited]

59. LOL! I think we had him outnumbered yesterday

I enjoyed the discussion immensely. Thank you for starting such a thought-provoking thread.