21 Hours, New Economics Foundation = forced charity

Suppose the ‘normal’ working week in Britain lasted for 21 hours.
Not 35 hours, not even four days, but 21 hours. It’s flexible and
variable, but it’s normal and generally expected, by government,
employers, trade unions and most public opinion.

OK. Here is my guess of what would happen: In less than a month, everybody will go bankrupt and the working poor will riot in the street in retaliation against this stupid socialist policy. If they are lucky, they will be able to identify the socialists who enforce this nonsense.
Nay! say the socialist engineers at the New Economics Foundation because the reduction in the work week will be gradual and therefore, everybody will adapt! Hip! Hip! Hooray!

There is more, though. It will all work out because work hours will be reduced while carbon emissions will be reduced. The two together are part of the whole plan. That is their reasoning that everything will work out. If you do not believe me, read their paper and find out.

I am just like the next guy. I want money and I do not want to work for it. However, the absurdity of the socialists never ceases to amaze: “After all, hands up who wouldn’t like a four day weekend?” says Andrew Simms, the foundation’s policy director.

The funny thing is that what they want to impose can evolve through market forces if only taxes and the inflation of the money supply were ended. Of course, you will never hear the do-gooders ask for an abolition of taxes because they want your pocket book.

They do not want you to be free to chose your work week — although they pretend they do. They expect to legislate the changes in behavior and to beat you with a stick if you step out of line:

The weight of public opinion can shift quite suddenly from antipathy to approval as a result of new evidence, strong campaigning, and changing circumstances, including a sense of crisis. There are some signs of favourable conditions beginning to emerge for shifting expectations about a ‘normal’ working week. Further changes that may help include the development of a more egalitarian culture, raising awareness about the value of unpaid labour, strong government support for uncommodified activities, and a national debate about how we use, value, and distribute work and time.

Pretty rich, is it not? This is their segue into their underlying dishonesty and agenda:

The growing consensus that a level of 350 parts per million (ppm), not 450 ppm, will be required to avoid dangerous climate change only worsens the arithmetic.

Uh….. what consensus? what dangerous climate change?

The garbage produced by the New Economics Foundation is conveniently highlighted by their own words:

Measures to ensure that the move towards 21 hours has positive rather than negative impacts on gender relations and family life include flexible employment conditions that encourage more equal distribution of unpaid work between women and men; universal, high-quality childcare that dovetails with paid working time; more job-sharing and limits on overtime; flexible retirement; stronger measures enforcing equal pay and opportunity; more jobs for men in caring and primary school teaching; more childcare, play schemes and adult care using co-produced models of design and delivery; and enhanced opportunities for local action to build neighbourhoods that everyone feels safe in and enjoys.

Gee, I can not wait until they recommend a policy to transform water into wine and lead into gold.

The madness of socialism is very well exposed by this: “ there is no end to what employers can demand, and no end to what is demanded of our unpaid time as we play our pivotal role in the consumer economy.” This is an internal contradiction. The mad men at the New Economics Foundation who wrote this nonsense define unpaid time to comprise the wide range of leisure and domestic arrangements — all of which are choices made by the working people. Thus, it is intellectually dishonest for these socialists to misrepresent it as being a demand placed upon the working class.

The agenda of social engineering is smoked out:

A much shorter working week would leave time for mothers and fathers to do more than supervise homework, share meals, imbue discipline, and otherwise impress ‘positive parenting’ upon their children. It certainly shouldn’t become a means of confining children to individualised home-based care, deprived 21 hours of the proven benefits of learning in groups and mixing with a wider range of children and adults. High-quality, socialised care for children is essential for breaking down inter-generational cycles of disadvantage, and reducing social and economic inequalities. A 21-hour week would help create the conditions for universally accessible and affordable childcare.

God forbid parents should take care of their own kids. Think of all the poor unwanted day-care workers who would be unemployed!
If the consumer does not want to employ the professional baby-sitters, well, by golly, the socialists will institute socialized day-care to put everybody to work!

As it currently stands, the ‘core’ economy depends heavily on unpaid female labour because women have more time for it, for reasons already discussed.

Great! Next on their list will be to get more men buying sanitary napkins and more women buying top hats.
Socialists really can not get their heads around the fact that some people (regardless of whether they are male or female) actually freely choose what they buy and how they spend their time. The socialist feels entitled to mold human behavior.

The next time that a socialist tells you that he has economic research and development to support his freeloading policy demands, do not trust him. This New Economics Foundation is not producing an economic study. Rather, the 21 Hours is a political manifesto on irresponsible socialist statecraft. As far as intellectual value is concerned, this “study” amounts to nothing more worthy than a pretty nursery rhyme that says “Give us more! Give us more! Shut up and pay! We want a free lunch and we deserve it because we say so!” in no uncertain terms — the intended audience of which is the hoards of gullible socialists who seek a new religion and a way out of competing in a labor market.

EditedToAdd:
I am not the only one who posits a mental problem: Latest think tank insanity! This time the New Economics Foundation