Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy has once again called for longer working weeks has returned, this time with an emphasis on schedules like the 996-pattern used in parts of China.
Murthy’s comments revive a debate which began in 2024, when he argued that Indian employees should work 70 hours a week.
I could see a black mirror 15 million merits type of society. Pointless work for pointless pay. But gotta keep the poors in a position that they get something they want from their meaningless work even if it’s got no real value but they want the shiny.
But then what happens to the individuals that reject consumerism? It clearly shown the main character racked up a shitload of cash by doing that. Couldn’t you then do very little work?
You can’t get cash rewards for consuming less. Spending is the least important variable in the accumulation game. All else being equal, spending less means you can spend more at other times. So if I penny pinch all year, I can splurge on New Year’s eve, that sort of thing. That doesn’t make you rich. That doesn’t elevate your status in societies where all the needed and useful resources are paywalled.
Income and time is what matters. And if you can get income while keeping all your time to yourself, that’s what elevates status. In other words you don’t trade your own time for income. That means there must be some slaves or extremely poor people that are constantly exploited to enable the elite living conditions.
A society doesn’t need parasitic elites. But if you want a better society you will have to pry it from the elites’ cold hands, because they won’t go along with a scheme that makes the world a happy and healthy place at their expense.
If I have 400 billion, but in a happy and healthy world I can only have 100mil max, which is 3 orders of magnitude less, I would rather burn down the whole planet than lose 1 cent. My interests are everything to me. My personal condition is what I experience first hand, while the rest of the world is just a theory, a story on a newspaper page, an image on TV, etc. I won’t accept tangible personally felt losses for gains which to me are theoretical.
Of course if I inhabit a worker instead of a billionaire, things are different, the calculus is different, but crumbs are always crumbs. Whether I am a worker or billionaire, man or woman, I refuse to crumb myself. I want a 10 course dinner, with hookers and blow to boot, with every trimming. Always. I’d rather have food I can’t eat than not have enough. No matter who I inhabit, the previous statement is true.
If what you want is in a tree, you have to shake that fucking tree. If you want fish you have to catch it.
Some assholes wanted to exploit people, so they killed, threatened, organized and propagandized and accomplished it. We need to understand this and take notes. Know yourself and know your enemy and you will always win.
If we want something else, if we want a different system, there will always be people that are super happy with how things are now. These folks have done very well under the present system. These folks will block our way. They are the tree, the fish, they are the soil that we have to plow and sometimes pave, to get to where we need to go. It will be ugly. It will not be without struggle.
If we just remain passive, and modestly undemanding, and we just politely wave our slogans on street corners, we know exactly what happens next.