Because at a certain point it will be impossible to argue that "Knowledge workers can get as much done in X-1 days as in X days" because it's trivially untrue. The problem is that the brain is a muscle and gets really really tired solving knowledge problems all day because it is optimized to avoid doing that at as much as possible because it is energy intensive and the ancient human who solved everything perfectly rationally died of starvation while the one that relied on imperfect heuristics and belief got to eat.
Solving super hard Sudoku puzzles 40 hours a week will take a toll on your brain that solving super hard Sudoku puzzles 1 hour a week empirically cannot.
>How do we decide which model is the sustainable one?
Through the exact science you say you "don't buy" because you seem to believe companies operating in a flawed market are better at finding ground truth than literal science.
>Through the exact science you say you "don't buy" because you seem to believe companies operating in a flawed market are better at finding ground truth than literal science.
I'm saying companies believe in science that leads to profit, as the market can stay irrational longer than companies can stay solvent.
Same how science showed switching to EUV lithography is better than sticking to DUV and then all companies adopted that, if science would also show workers working 32h per week results in more profit for them than 40h, then they would all switch in a heart beat to capture all that money left on the table by their competitors still stuck in their ancient 40h workweek.
Companies (currently) compete by offering more money - if the pool of applicants dried up enough, perhaps they'd begin competing by offering more time.
The problem is if they pay you $x per year, they don't care how many hours you work, as long as the job gets done. So something that makes their life a bit more annoying (no replies on Friday) but makes your life amazingly better won't get done.
>Companies (currently) compete by offering more money - if the pool of applicants dried up enough, perhaps they'd begin competing by offering more time.
Because more money is what most candidates prioritize when job hopping, because when buying a house they can pay it with that money but can't pay it with more time off.
The only people who prioritize less hours for less money are
those who are already fortunate enough to have enough money but those can always choose to work less hours for proportionately less pay.
Like it or not, there are so many people in this rat race trying to build wealth that 40h and more money is preferable to 32h and less money. That's why the 40h sticks and the negotiation is done on money.
>Because more money is what most candidates prioritize when job hopping, because when buying a house they can pay it with that money but can't pay it with more time off.
Although you could argue that's already the case in a lot of Europe vs. parts of the US. Of course, it's an imperfect comparison because of the barriers to moving countries or even acquiring a remote job in a different country.
And money is money, it's a known quantity. Time is more ephemeral and for many "knowledge jobs" people work off the clock anyway; so having every Friday off may sound great but you may be (correctly) afraid it's going to turn into a half-day's work anyway.
And there are things you can do to turn money into time, it's possible but not as easy to go the other way around when you're salaried.
Conversion is difficult without e.g. working at at a company that lets you take a week or two or two of leave a year (or just looking the other way). You can have a side business but that's harder to turn into something that's actually financially competitive with a professional-level salary and isn't ethically questionable.
Solving super hard Sudoku puzzles 40 hours a week will take a toll on your brain that solving super hard Sudoku puzzles 1 hour a week empirically cannot.
>How do we decide which model is the sustainable one?
Through the exact science you say you "don't buy" because you seem to believe companies operating in a flawed market are better at finding ground truth than literal science.