From: weverett@jarthur.claremont.edu (William M. Everett)
Subject: Re: Vote for 3rd party/no-party candidates!!!
Organization: Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 21:23:49 GMT

In article <1992Oct9.134942.19343@news.ysu.edu> ae547@yfn.ysu.edu (Ronda Hauben) writes:
>
>In a previous article, jw59+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jason Webb) says:
>
>>Just to reply to some of your comments...
>>
>>Excerpts from netnews.sci.econ: 7-Oct-92 Re: Vote for 3rd party/no-p..
>>by Ronda Hauben@yfn.ysu.edu 
>>> >> In a previous article, markts@mcl.ucsb.edu (Mark T. Schmidt) says:
>>> >
>>> >> >
>>> >> >
>>> >> >   Clinton? I saw three speaches by Bill in the last 4 days. I think his
>>> >> >   strategy is promise the world to everyone. --> Health care for 
>>> >
>>> >> BUT Clinton leaves out WHO produces the WEALTH i.e. the worker
>>> >
>>> >> Clinton has no program for shortening hours of work and raising
>>> >> wages,
>>> >>  giving workers more say in their unions so they can deal
>>> >>   with the trade union officials who act like overlords 
>>> >
>>> >So, you're dissappointed that Clinton won't promise to make America even
>>> >less productive and competitive by lowering total work hours and
>>> >increasing labor costs.  And your also upset that the government won't
>>> >> regulate unions so that their leadership has even less power.
>>> >
>>> America industry will become *more* productive, not less
>>> if tthere are shorter hours of work mandated by the govt in the U.S.
>>
>
>The historical record indicates that a decrease in the number of hours 
>worked results in a proportional or more than proportional increase in
>productivity for several reasons.
>
>1)workers are more rested and so they are able to produce better work.
>
>2)morale is better.
>
>3)employers then have the incentive to put in more advanced machinery 
>because if they want to increase productivity they MUST invest in
>new machinery since they can't just arbitrarily extend the hours worked.
>
>
>
>History has shown that every decrease in number of mandated hours of 
>work has resulted in an increase in productivity even when new machinery
>is not installed, and most often the legislated decrease in hours
>does result in the installation of new machinery thereby greatly
>increasing productivity.
>

>
>Eventually 2 hours or 1 hour is the social goal.
>>
>>>  
>>> That was the expereince in England when the shorter hours legislation
>>> was passed. Workers can be more productive if they work fewer hours.
>>
>>Evidence?  When I was in England, Ford relocated to Germany because the
>>workers were demanding higher wages.  The strong labor unions have been
>>the source of tremendous problems for their economy.
>>
>>

>>>  
>>> Higher wages function the same way. Its the workers who produce the
>>> wealth in the U.S. By their having better working conditions, there

>
>As workers produce the wealth - if they are well rested, are given the 
>most advanced machnery to work on and are given high wages,
>they are able to produce more wealth.
>
>It's not entrepreneurs who produce wealth (as some of the candidates
>try to make it seen) - it's workers who do the work that makes the 
>production happen as any strike makes clear.
>
>Also, the higher the wages, and the more stringent the labor legisaltion
>mandating shorter hours, health and safety, etc. the more incentive there is for
>the employer to put in a more advanced machine which will require less
>labor to produce more.
>
>
>Thus the result of higher labor standards, higher wages, etc. is 
>more wealth for the society.
	
	As I understand it, we shorten work days and increase pay; this is
good. So, employers pay their employees all the money they have and have 
them work 0 hour work days. According to your theory, this would be the best
possible strategy. This is obviously not the best possible strategy. While
certainly productivity in terms of work/hour would go up, the total amount of
of production per money spent depends on ((productivity * time worked) /pay)
so just because productivity goes up does not mean that production will
go up. At the stated extreme case, you have very high productivity, but no
production.
Xref: sparky sci.econ:8162 talk.politics.misc:52639