I didn't mean the "naked at the beach" thing to be taken literally.
Trust me I don't want to see granny at the beach with ther sagging missiles dragging in the sand, or a bunch of guys' hairy asses.
I could care less about having a bunch of material wealth. Just having a roof over my head, a car, and a computer is all I need to be happy. It's just that most people are overworked and underpaid, and that's why so many people are unhappy.
I mean, think about it...most people sleep for 8 hours, then go to work for 8 hours. But when you throw in getting ready for work, getting to work, lunch, then driving back home, it turns into like 10 to 11 hours out of your day, then you've only got like 5 hours each day to do what you want. To me that's just not enough time. And it's not that I'm lazy, it's just that I'd much rather spend most of my waking hours doing what the heck I want to do, and being with the people I want to be around. Life is just too damn short.
I feel sorry for the poor "souls" that have to work 50-60 hour weeks...then you're talking about having only like 2 or 3 hours a day to do what you want.
Everyone is a slave to the almighty dollar; slaves to all the greedy corporations/businesses -- having people work more hours gets them more money.
Here's a pretty good link I found regarding this issue. I cut out a few excerpts from it:
http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=691"Leisure is essential for a democratic society involving people in all aspects of self-government. Instead of working frenetically to produce “stuff” that we don’t have the time to enjoy, wouldn’t we be better off with less “stuff” and more time of our own? Research repeatedly shows that, once important needs are met, additional belongings bring no additional happiness. [1] Yet work is strongly related to stress. [2]"
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"It’s more than stress to the human nervous system. Manufacturing too much stuff stresses every aspect of the environment. The voracious appetite of corporate growth destroys homes of the wolf and bear in North America. Swiftly disappearing are the last refuges of chimpanzees in Africa and orangutans in Borneo and Sumatra. Mangrove forests give way to beach resorts as long line fishing kills 100 sea animals for every fish eaten by a human.
Vastly more creatures fall prey to the 80-100,000 chemicals spewed into the air, water and land. Countless molecules of chlorine and fluorine go into pesticides and plastics that destroy immune and reproductive systems. Elemental structures of lead, mercury and, of course, radioactive particles are Thanatos to living systems."
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"New managers who began running Kellogg had no enthusiasm for the shorter work day. They polled workers in 1946 and found that 77% of men and 87% of women would choose a 30-hour week even if it meant lower wages."
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"Despite all of this, there is something problematic with advocating a 30-hour work week at the beginning of the 21st century: a 30 hour week is not short enough! There is mushrooming unemployment amidst mountains of useless products. An hour of labor now produces more goods than has ever been the case in the history of humanity. Combining these means that there is no reason for anyone to work more than 20 hours per week.
Every year, clever folks figure out how to churn out more stuff with fewer hours of labor. Jeffrey Kaplan observed that “By 1991, the amount for goods and services produced for each hour of labor was double what it had been in 1948.” [18] This was a doubling of labor productivity in only 43 years. Jon Bekken calculates a more rapid rate: “Automation and other innovations result in our productivity (output per work hour) doubling every 25 years or so.” [19]
In other words, the amount that people produce during an hour of labor doubles every 33 years [give or take 10 years]. We have the ability to produce twice as much during the work day or cut the work day in half and produce the same amount.
Arthur Dahlberg, a consultant to both the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations, wrote that capitalism was already capable of satisfying basic human needs with a 4-hour work day. [20] He maintained that such a drastic cut in working hours “was necessary to prevent society from becoming disastrously materialistic.” [21]
The issue was revisited in 1991 by Harvard economist Juliet Schor, who concluded that it would be possible to have a 4-hour work day with no decline in the standard of living. [22] Similarly, J.W. Smith argued that “over 50% of our industrial capacity has nothing to do with producing for consumer needs.” [23] Years before issues of climate change and peak oil grabbed the public, Smith forecast:
We’re facing an ecological nightmare as we push to the brink the earth’s ability to support us. We could eliminate much industrial pollution and conserve our precious, dwindling resources by eliminating the 50% of industry that is producing nothing useful for society. [24]
In a more recent analysis, Smith sifts through the US economy sector by sector to conclude that “we could all work 2.3 days per week with no drop in our living standard.” [25]
It’s a rare economist who is capable of realizing that there is no reason to constantly scramble for the possession of more objects that fall apart more rapidly. British philosopher Bertrand Russell also thought that four hours of work per day should be plenty to supply the necessities of life. [26]
Russell was thinking similarly to Benjamin Franklin, who wrote over 200 years ago:
…if every Man and Woman would work for four Hours each Day on something useful, that Labour would produce sufficient to procure all the Necessities and Comforts of Life, Want and Misery would be banished out of the World, and the rest of the 24 hours might be Leisure and Pleasure. [27] Labor has become vastly more productive since Ben Franklin contemplated the work day. However, total output grows even faster than labor productivity. By including population growth and people seeking to live the lifestyle of the English-speaking rich, Ted Trainer ciphers that “by 2070 given 3% economic growth, total world economic output every year would then be 60 times as great as it is now [28].
This would be a 6000% increase in stuff in 63 years – not exactly healthy for forests, oceans, wildlife and humans. If we want our children to be able to live on this planet, the single most important environmental legislation may be restricting people from working more than 20 hours per week."
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"There remains an enormous problem that permeates every other barrier to shortening the working day. As long as production is based on the maximization of profit, each corporation is pushed to extend working hours as long as possible for fear the competition will do it first. As Marx described with Lugosian clarity:
The prolongation of the working-day, beyond the limits of the natural day, into the night, … quenches only in a slight degree the vampire thirst for the living blood of labour. To appropriate labour during all 24 hours of the day is, therefore, the inherent tendency of capitalist production. [30]
In the 21st century, we should update this to say that capital feeds with two fangs: one to suck the blood of labor and the other fang to drain life from Mother Earth. Can the 20 hour work week become a wooden stake held by the environmental movement as it is pounded by labor? Maybe; but not necessarily. A stake that is driven too shallow will allow the demon to awaken with renewed strength.
When US workers struck for the eight hour day in 1886, they were going beyond pay issues and demanding that labor have a role in controlling the process of production. Today, we need a progressive alliance to challenge not only how many hours we work, but the quality, durability and even the necessity of goods we produce. Drastically cutting the hours we work will help save the Earth’s ecology only if it is part of an overarching goal to improve the quality of our lives while reducing the grand mass of manufactured objects."
I don't believe what I believe because it's what I desire to believe. I believe what I believe because it's what logic and reason cause me to believe. All I want is to live with the truth -- nothing more, nothing less.
