I used to work 60-80 hours a week in the summers and 60+ between a full credit load and a couple of part time jobs. I went to bed twice a day for a couple of years because I was working swing shift and going to school.

I now have a 9-5 office job. I am apparently capable of working at least twice as many hours but I choose not to because I don't have to.

There are already people making twice as much (and more) than I do in as much or less time.

I don't think a 20 hour week for knowledge workers would have the effect you claim.

This is called the hedonic treadmill, and is why we don't have a more leisurely lifestyle in general.

John Maynard Keynes famously predicted something like a 10-20 hour work week by the year 2000. You can actually have that today... if you are willing to live at the standard of living of someone in the 1930s.

That would mean a much smaller house, much less technology, a very cheap car or public transit, vanilla food, only a few suits of clothes, and bare bones health care.

Instead we tend to use our gains to get more space (houses today outside dense cities are huge), more tech, more education, better health care, designer hipster food, more entertainment, and so on.

Living in a 1930's home with a 2010 Toyota Corolla in the garage I somehow doubt that. We're talking (where I live) $600-1200 before tax income. In the dead of winter the utilities alone can be close to $500.

Your 1930s house is almost certainly not typical of the median house that people lived in the 1930s. One third of Americans didn’t even have full indoor plumbing in 1930.

For one the fact that it’s preserved likely means it’s one of the finest homes of the era. Two it’s heavily updated inside. Air conditioning, modern appliances, high capacity electrical circuits, fire safety, better windows and insulation, etc.

> For one the fact that it’s preserved likely means it’s one of the finest homes of the era.

Well put.

In 1930s people wouldn't heat the whole house and wouldn't heat it to 70 degrees in the dead of winter. People would heat one room to 50 degrees and stay there most of the time, and put on a jacket. Walking around in a t-shirt in the dead of winter is a very modern thing. You don't realize how much higher your standard for comfort are.

As I pointed out elsewhere, the utilities were just an example of cost. The mortgage is about double what I would make with that work schedule.

In the 1930s you would have a wood burning stove for heat and, if you were outside of a city, possibly limited or no electricity. Almost certainly no phone or a party line.

You can get those utility costs down by living right. :)

That's true, but the more than $2000 / month mortgage isn't something that's so easily overcome.

You comment implies that utility costs would be significantly lower if OP used 1930s technology, but I’d assume that using a wood burning stove to heat their house would be much costlier. Modern technology typically allows one to use resources much more efficiently, even if we tend to use much more of those resources.

The key is to use anything not just efficiently but sparingly. The heat may not be on at night, you can use thicker covers.

But the cost of wood isn't bad. The worst winter bills appear to arise from heating oil from what I've heard anecdotally, which is common in old houses in New England.

Your comment assumes heating an entire house to 60-70 in winter was normal.

I have stepped off the hedonic treadmill. I prepare nearly all of my own food and I eat extremely well. Ingredients are cheap. I don't live in the USA so my healthcare is unaffected. The internet is a thing so I can (and do) continue to educate myself for free.

But yes, I don't have an extensive wardrobe or a large house. So what?

What be gone further. Live on a sailboat. I be free electricity. All I pay for is the gas for cooking, and a bit of diesel. Anchoring is free. And it’s paradise. No cars. No pollution.

You could also do that if corporate profits were lower. Worker productivity has far outpaced compensation for 50 years: https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-6/understanding-the-labo...

If corporate profits were lower, you wouldn't have the giant companies of today pushing USA' economy so high, and pushing the wages to the highest in the world, bar some tiny states.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income

When looking at those tables, keep in mind that taxes in most of those countries (except maybe Switzerland) are significantly higher than the US taxes. In fact, the US median wage earner pays almost no income tax, only payroll.

Corporate profits are after wages. They could have the same profit before wages - but if the share was distributed more evenly, overall profit would be lower, and the worker would be better off.

It's not like this would've affected companies at all. R&D is at an all time low compared to profits. It's not like they couldn't afford to invest in R&D to keep an advantage if workers were getting paid more.

Seeing as inequality is higher than during the Bell Epoch in France - and any other time in recorded history, this doesn't seem preposterous.

> It's not like this would've affected companies at all

How can you be so sure? Tens of billions of profit every year/quarter make these companies very appealing for investors, allowing them to spend unlimited cash to expand their business.

A well run company that has limited profits and expansion will then in turn have less R&D. Think IBM, Oracle - they haven't kept up the pace and got seriously behind MS, Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Google etc.

Not only the companies in this list https://spendmenot.com/blog/rd-spenders/ spend the most, they also offer really high salaries, because they are successful.

I don't have a crystal ball or a degree in economics, but to me it's pretty clear that a successful company will make life better for everyone, including R&D and menial jobs. Say what you want, but Amazon warehouse jobs are better than other no skill needed job in their respective areas.

This isn't how investing in an established company like Google today works (where most people invest most of their money). When you buy Google stock, it almost never affects their R&D budget.

You could argue that startups wouldn't be able to raise as much money, sure. And they DEFINITELY wouldn't be able to if interest rates were higher.

But the America of today (>95% of corporate profits) came from companies that weren't able to raise ridiculous amounts of money because of low interest rates from the last decade.

Startups from the last 10 years might have a lot of market cap - but their profits are very, very small compared to just FAANG+M - let alone the rest of the S&P 500.

> if you are willing to live at the standard of living of someone in the 1930s.

So you'd have to live like it was the worst period of global economic collapse and hardship in modern history?

> That would mean a much smaller house, much less technology, a very cheap car or public transit, vanilla food, only a few suits of clothes, and bare bones health care.

I'm not too far from this, 30 square meter apartment, no car, make most of my own meals, have only a few inexpensive clothing and don't have private insurance (because universal healthcare is better). I have a fair bit of technology but that barely makes a dent in my overall budget, in the last couple of years it's just the internet and the electricity to run them.

10 hours a week (assuming I could get divide my current salary by 4) would barely pay the mortgage/rent due to inflated housing costs. With 20 hours I could pay food/water/electricity and probably have enough left over for some indulgences.

So this is feasible for me, but I just creep into top 10% income bracket in my country, it's definitely not achievable for most people.

People lived at 1930 standards of living because technology at the time only gave them 1930 levels of productivity.

Hedonic treadmill is different. This is about labor flooding the market and driving its price down, and auction-priced (supply-constrained) goods being bid up in price (like housing).

| a much smaller house, much less technology, a very cheap car or public transit, vanilla food, only a few suits of clothes, and bare bones health care.

You would have to be highly skilled to do that, the average worker couldn't get anywhere close to that lifestyle on 10-20 hours a week.

At least I don't think so on the jobs that would actually allow you to work 10-20 hours a week.