How the 40 hour work week turns you into the perfect consumer

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The ultimate tool for corporations to sustain a culture of this sort is to develop the 40-hour workweek as the normal lifestyle. Under these working conditions people have to build a life in the evenings and on weekends. This arrangement makes us naturally more inclined to spend heavily on entertainment and conveniences because our free time is so scarce.

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But the 8-hour workday is too profitable for big business, not because of the amount of work people get done in eight hours (the average office worker gets less than three hours of actual work done in 8 hours) but because it makes for such a purchase-happy public. Keeping free time scarce means people pay a lot more for convenience, gratification, and any other relief they can buy. It keeps them watching television, and its commercials. It keeps them unambitious outside of work.

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All of America’s well-publicized problems, including obesity, depression, pollution and corruption are what it costs to create and sustain a trillion-dollar economy. For the economy to be “healthy”, America has to remain unhealthy. Healthy, happy people don’t feel like they need much they don’t already have, and that means they don’t buy a lot of junk, don’t need to be entertained as much, and they don’t end up watching a lot of commercials.

I think a lot of us realize this, but we can't break the cycle. How can you? You fill up your weekends with friends, family, food, and drink because you're always being told "life is too short" so you need to get up and get out and go go go and this costs money. The economy keeps turning, big companies keep making a profit, and you go from Friday evening to Monday morning in a heartbeat. Where did the weekend go and why are you still so tired?



I noticed this while in Indonesia. Even though I was on vacation and I had a month to travel, I felt like I needed to keep going all the time. Can't waste the vacation! Got to get to the next spot and spend more money on souvenirs and food! It felt like the "experience" of being in Indonesia needed to be bought.



What a crazy Western world we live in.