by the Sandwichman
Yesterday, Sandwichman and his entourage delivered a home-baked devil's food cake inscribed "WORK LESS" to the office of the BC Progress Board as a token of gratitude for their tacit endorsement of the Work Less platform. Very tacit. Video will be posted in good time.
The cake motif might bear some explication. In April of last year, BC Business magazine published an article that profiled the Work Less Party platform. Sarah Efron, author of the piece, also interviewed the opposition. Thus appeared a quote from Jock Finlayson, executive vice president of the British Columbia Business Council, "Tom Walker is a passionate advocate of the idea that you can have your cake and eat it too." Upon reading the quote, I fervently clutched the magazine to my breast and exclaimed, "I am! I am! I am!"
LUMP = LOAF = CAKE
Jock and I go back a ways. We debated each other on radio and in print. It was from reading Jock's op-ed piece ten years ago that I first learned of the lump-of-labor fallacy claim. That's how we met, actually. I wrote to him to ask him to ask him to explain and to tell him it didn't make any sense. He graciously explained it to me. It still didn't make any sense.
Incidentally, Jock is also a member of the advisory group for the BC Progress Board. The executive director of the Board, Tim McEwan, used to work at the Business Council under Jock. Small world.
So while I was getting ready to head downtown to present the cake, it occurred to me that "you can't have your cake and eat it too" is a zero-sum claim. It assumes that there is a fixed amount of cake. The lump-of-labor fallacy is also about a zero-sum assumption, that there is a fixed amount of work.
To make things abundantly clear, Jock Finlayson says that advocates of shorter work time are wrong because they assume there is only a fixed amount of work but they are also wrong because they don't assume there is a fixed amount of "cake" -- with cake presumably serving as a metaphor for income + leisure.
This brings me back to my argument, that leisure is a factor of production and that it is simply wrong to treat leisure as a "normal good" such that the sum of income and leisure is a constant. In fact, when the current hours of work are "too long" (an empirical matter that can only be determined by experience) increasing the amount of leisure will increase the value of the total. In the extreme case, it could even increase the income too. Or, to put it more simply, you can have your cake and eat it, too. This is not to say you can always have it -- it is still an empirical question whether the given hours of work are "too long" but that at least is the implication of Chapman's theory.
ONE MORE SLICE?
John Maynard Keynes also discussed cake at length in his Economic Consequences of the Peace:
"The immense accumulations of fixed capital which, to the great benefit of mankind, were built up during the half century before the war [World War I], could never have come about in a Society where wealth was divided equitably. The railways of the world, which that age built as a monument to posterity, were, not less than the Pyramids of Egypt, the work of labor which was not free to consume in immediate enjoyment the full equivalent of its efforts.
"Thus this remarkable system depended for its growth on a double bluff or deception. On the one hand the laboring classes accepted from ignorance or powerlessness, or were compelled, persuaded, or cajoled by custom, convention, authority, and the well-established order of Society into accepting, a situation in which they could call their own very little of the cake that they and Nature and the capitalists were co-operating to produce. And on the other hand the capitalist classes were allowed to call the best part of the cake theirs and were theoretically free to consume it, on the tacit underlying condition that they consumed very little of it in practice. The duty of "saving" became nine-tenths of virtue and the growth of the cake the object of true religion. There grew round the non-consumption of the cake all those instincts of puritanism which in other ages has withdrawn itself from the world and has neglected the arts of production as well as those of enjoyment. And so the cake increased; but to what end was not clearly contemplated. Individuals would be exhorted not so much to abstain as to defer, and to cultivate the pleasures of security and anticipation. Saving was for old age or for your children; but this was only in theory,—the virtue of the cake was that it was never to be consumed, neither by you nor by your children after you.
"In writing thus I do not necessarily disparage the practices of that generation. In the unconscious recesses of its being Society knew what it was about. The cake was really very small in proportion to the appetites of consumption, and no one, if it were shared all round, would be much the better off by the cutting of it. Society was working not for the small pleasures of today but for the future security and improvement of the race,—in fact for "progress." If only the cake were not cut but was allowed to grow in the geometrical proportion predicted by Malthus of population, but not less true of compound interest, perhaps a day might come when there would at last be enough to go round, and when posterity could enter into the enjoyment of our labors. In that day overwork, overcrowding, and underfeeding would have come to an end, and men, secure of the comforts and necessities of the body, could proceed to the nobler exercises of their faculties. One geometrical ratio might cancel another, and the nineteenth century was able to forget the fertility of the species in a contemplation of the dizzy virtues of compound interest.
"There were two pitfalls in this prospect: lest, population still outstripping accumulation, our self-denials promote not happiness but numbers; and lest the cake be after all consumed, prematurely, in war, the consumer of all such hopes.
"But these thoughts lead too far from my present purpose. I seek only to point out that the principle of accumulation based on inequality was a vital part of the pre-war order of Society and of progress as we then understood it, and to emphasize that this principle depended on unstable psychological conditions, which it may be impossible to recreate. It was not natural for a population, of whom so few enjoyed the comforts of life, to accumulate so hugely. The war has disclosed the possibility of consumption to all and the vanity of abstinence to many. Thus the bluff is discovered; the laboring classes may be no longer willing to forego so largely, and the capitalist classes, no longer confident of the future, may seek to enjoy more fully their liberties of consumption so long as they last, and thus precipitate the hour of their confiscation."
by the Sandwichman
Vancouver, BC -- A discussion paper issued by the BC Progress Board has called for substantially more time off work for British Columbians. Well, not quite. The Progress Board's report didn't actually mention reducing the hours of work. But it did prominently feature a key statistic that, on closer inspection, trumpets the benefits of the Work Less Party platform.
The Progress Board, a quasi-independent advisory group set up in 2001 by British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell, lamented the fact that Canada's productivity ranking among 24 OECD countries had fallen from 5th place in 1970 to 17th in 2004. What they failed to mention, though, is the reason for that low ranking. Fifteen of the countries ranked ahead of Canada work substantially fewer hours per year. And in the 14 European countries with a significant productivity edge, workers averaged 245 hours -- or roughly six weeks -- less per year than Canadians.
The Work Less Party has produced a reply to the BC Progress Board productivity report that calls for a broader dialogue on productivity -- a dialogue based on understanding, rather than overlooking, the role of leisure as a prime contributing factor to productivity.
Read the Work Less Party's Reply to the BC Progress Board's discussion paper on productivity.
by the Sandwichman
Boris Johnson is Conservative MP for Henley. According to Mr. Johnson, the French lump of labour is "Colbertian", which is to say mercantalist (in France, by the way, the lump-of-labor fallacy is sometimes referred to as le malthusianisme). In today's Telegraph, Johnson wrote:
At last someone at the top of French government has rejected the Colbertian lump of labour fallacy, the idea that there will be more work to go round if you restrict the amount that each person does, an economic misconception that has turned potentially productive French workers into lumps of inertia.
Last May, Mr. Johnson wrote in the Telegraph:
The reason the French have massive and chronic unemployment is that they are governed by an élite still gripped by a demented belief in the Colbertian lump-of-labour fallacy. They have excessive taxation, regulation and bureaucracy, and the last thing the French (or anyone) need is more detailed prescriptions from Brussels about the labour market or anything else.
Meanwhile, his Wikipedia entry describes Mr. Johnson as is a "self-centred pompous twit" who "cultivates an image as an eccentric, straw-haired fop, disorganised and scatty..."
''It would be unfair to say it looks as if he dresses at a charity shop, because no charity shop would accept stuff in that condition.'' (Simon Hoggart, The Guardian)
by the Sandwichman
It's official. Bear shits in woods. Sandwichman knew this was coming -- surprised only that it took all of two weeks or so for the proverbial lump-of-textbook-legend fatuity to appear. The troubles in France can be traced to the French populace's unshakeable belief in an idea that cannot withstand a nanosecond of thought, that there's only so much work to go round.
Cookie-cutter "libertarian" think-tank clone Allister Heath asks the perennial question, Is France ungovernable? He finds the redoubtable lump at the heart of the matter:
"At the heart of the French protests is a refusal to acknowledge economic reality.... Given their idiosyncratic ideology, it is little surprise that most French voters dont want to have anything to do with even modest free-market reforms. They appear to believe in the lump of labour fallacy that there is only a given amount of work to be done, that the government must share it around by restricting working hours, and keep out competition from overseas by erecting trade barriers. This view has also badly damaged the work ethic."
Silly French! If only they had faith-based faith, along with Cal Thomas, that "Capitalism — with its associated free market — will [solve their problems]."
Never mind the fact that "there is no relationship between the amount of employment protection in different countries and their unemployment rate." Say what? Mark Weisbrot inconveniently points out that there is no empirical support for the idea that job protection for workers is incompatible with low unemployment. This is not to say that the French job contract system couldn't be improved. Only that the rationale for the current reforms is full of baloney (as is the claim of a lump of labor fallacy). But as I say, never mind facts. "Economic reality" is not about facts; it's about faith in capitalism. But even more than that it's about blind faith in what the hired-help free-market snake-oil salesmen say about capitalism.
Meanwhile, Rick Wolff over at MRzine wonders if the French student-worker alliance "will mature into a movement for an alternative to capitalism."
Allister Heath
Deputy Editor, The Business
aheath@thebusiness.press.net
Dear Allister,
Thank you so much for restoring my faith in the predictability of knee-jerk, right-wing libertarian politico-economic commentary. The "lump-of-labour fallacy" -- har-har-har, hardy-har-har!
Do you have any idea that the "lump-of-labour fallacy" canard is bullshit? Probably not. It a piece of time-tested textbook lore and that's good enough for the likes of you who think that if it confirms your initial prejudices, it's just got to be true. It's bullshit. B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T, bullshit. What reasonable person would believe that the amount of work to be done is fixed, that there's "only so much work to go round"? Obviously, no reasonable person would believe that, therefore (so the textbook argument goes) no reasonable person could believe that reducing the hours of work could possibly create jobs.
There are just two problems with the textbook argument. It comes from nobody in particular and it is explained by too many mutually-exclusive rationales. In fact, I have shown that the lump-of-labour fallacy claim is a pastiche of various bits and pieces of jargon and argument that don't ultimately add up to the claim that is ritualistically made in its name.
The charge that the French believe in a lump-of-labour fallacy is intellectually-lazy name calling that arises because you either don't have the evidence or don't know enough about the issues to make the case for your argument. I would be so grateful to you if you could validate the claim of a lump-of-labour fallacy. I've offered a CASH PRIZE of $5,000 (Canadian) in the past and no one has taken me up on it yet. All you would have to do is first, prove that it is not possible, under any circumstances, to create jobs through a policy of reducing the hours of work and second, prove that your argument is consistent with a previously published statement of the so-called lump-of-labour fallacy that you can verify as authoritative.
I should point out that the preceding cannot be done and I will elaborate on just one reason why it cannot. If the existing hours of work are excessive from the standpoint of physiological or psychological fatigue, reducing the hours of work is a "technological improvement" that can, ceteris paribus, result in an increase in total output. "Ah-ha!" You may say. "If total output is increased by shorter hours that means that the same output could be produced with fewer workers and therefore shorter hours would destroy rather than create jobs!" But if you do say that you have fallen into a trap, because of the conviction that "technology creates more jobs than it destroys," which is, of course, the basis (or, at least, one of the bases) of the observation that there is NOT a fixed amount of work.
Now, either you are consistent in your avowal of the assertion of a non-fixed amount of work or you may wish to argue that "under certain circumstances" the rule doesn't apply. There are further arguments dealing with those special circumstances that I will pass over for the time being. Suffice it to say that it would be a most remarkable achievement -- tantamount to squaring the circle or turning lead to gold -- if you were to validate the lump-of-labour fallacy claim. It would be worth a great deal more than my modest $5,000 prize, let me assure you. May I caution, though, that mere repetition does not constitute validation. Simply saying that Paul Samuelson or Richard Layard put it in a book it doesn't make it so.
Tom Walker
AKA the Sandwichman