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Bernie Sanders says that if AI makes us so productive, we should get a 4-day work week
(techcrunch.com)
this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2025
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Work Reform
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We should've gotten a 4-day work week decades ago. Now it should be a 3-day work week at most and I'm being generous. The capitalists are always screeching about the low birth rate, but if people were working 3 days a week and making a decent living off that time, it would help the birth rate because then a household with two working parents could be scheduled on different days and alternate staying home with the child, plus have a shared day off every week.
Anyway, that's just a selling point to make to the capitalists. Whether or not it helps with the birth rate doesn't matter as much as the fact that we're owed shorter work weeks thanks to all the blood, sweat, and tears that labor has put into making the world as wealthy as it is now. What's the point of all this work if not to improve our standard of living? Technology making our lives better is hitting diminishing returns and now it's often not making our lives better or it's even making our lives worse.
The argument for a 4 day work week is that studies have shown it maintains the same level of productivity as a 5 day workweek, but it makes people happier, so it doesn't slow down the economy, but actually improves it. What's the argument for a 3 day work week?
I think the argument would be that the productivity gains that have happened since the 5 day work week was implemented means that if we want that same level of productivity then a 3 day work week would get that. It would be less productive then currently but the argument would be that a lot of that productivity is just going towards the profits of the companies through having to hire less people. Instead if you wanted to maintain current productivity with a 3 day work week you'd have to hire more people which is good with the amount of wealth transfer and inequality that's been happening.
Edit: not to mention how bad the job market has been recently as well.
I would argue that having more hired staff on rotation would be more productive, even with fewer workdays by any one person. By having more people who have experience with a given task, should any one of them become unable to work, someone else can pick up the slack until things have returned to normal.
When a company relies on linchpin personnel, the loss of a person could be devastating, since the company will have to find a capable replacement to hire. That means interviews, introductory payment packages, hoping that delays don't cause further damage, establishing the new hire in the workplace, and so on.
100% agree but companies are of course against it because hiring people is expensive. Since if you have two people working 3 day work weeks they'll still need to be paid the same amount as working 5 days since they still need to make enough to make a living. It also gives benefits to people working since it means you can go on vacation without a bunch of work piling up since you're the only person who can do it.