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AN ONLINE JOURNAL_
by Clake and Klake

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Monday, March 12, 2007

I just sent a letter - You can read it too!
posted by clake at 3:34 PM

Dear Mr. [Steven E.] Landsburg,
Your article about the leisure disparity among classes is as provocative as it is stupid. I'm sure it was intended to spark debate and get people thinking, but it paints an unfair picture of the "leisure" enjoyed by the poor. They work less hours than CEOs, and they also get paid very little for doing it. If you had to do the kind of thankless labor many low-income workers perform, you would be out the door at 5:01pm every day, just like every other hourly worker in this country. This is, of course, unless you were among the vast number of people who work dreadful hours all night to keep groceries stocked and hospitals running. Also, they do their own laundry, clean their own houses, and prepare their own meals. How much of this counts as "work" in your world? I suppose painting a picture of the poor as enjoying an endless vacation at your expense helps you work through your personal guilt, but it is an absolutely incorrect image of how things really are.

Sincerely,
[Crs.] Lake

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Follow-up, 3/13/2007:

I received this reply from Mr. Landsburg at 6:43 p.m. last night (his words are in blue):

>
> it paints an unfair picture of the "leisure" enjoyed by the
> poor. They work less hours than CEOs, and they also get paid very little
> for doing it. If you had to do the kind of thankless labor many low-income
> workers perform, you would be out the door at 5:01pm every day, just like
> every other hourly worker in this country.

I don't see where you've addressed the main question, which is whythis has changed so much since 1965.

This is, of course, unless you
> were among the vast number of people who work dreadful hours all night to
> keep groceries stocked and hospitals running. Also, they do their own
> laundry, clean their own houses, and prepare their own meals. How much of
> this counts as "work" in your world?

All of it, as I thought the column made clear. The big trend is not"less time at the office"; it's "more time at leisure". Hours spenton laundry, cleaning and meal preparation are all down across theboard, but they're down farthest among the least educated.

I don't buy this rebuttal at all. While it is debatable whether or not the bottom 10% truly do find themselves, on average, with more actual leisure time than the top 10% (I don't believe this*), the main problem people are having with this article is the attitude that is taken by the author. He peppers this article with a lot of meaningful remarks indicating that he feels the poor are doing quite well with all their leisure time. Then in his concluding paragraph, he makes an oblique dig at progressive taxation. It makes it seem as if the point of the entire preceeding article was to muddy the water regarding the growing disparity between the rich and the poor by demonstrating that "it all evens out" in the distribution of money versus leisure. Why feel that there needs to be anything done about the shitty pay at the low-end of the labor market while CEO's keep earning comicaly bigger paychecks? The poor are making out like bandits, right? Of course, his most infuriatingly offensive comments are couched in vague sarcasm, which I suppose means he doesn't have to address them in his rebuttals.

I also notice that he sent me this response (barring any huge delays on Gmail's part yesterday eve) at 7:43 p.m. Eastern Time (I assume he wrote it from Rochester, NY). It's a bit late to be taking the time to answer an email from someone who obviously thinks you're an idiot, don't you think?

----------------------------
* If you're going to count the chores you do at home as work, then shouldn't you take the things about a big-time executive's job that she absolutely loves doing and count them as leisure? What about meetings on the golf course? What about dinner with a client who's actually a really nice person and you mostly just shoot the breeze about sailing and baseball? What if Donald Trump really enjoys firing someone - should this be scooted over to the "leisure" column?

Comments:

I know what you mean, bruddah. And so do a lot of other people. You should read the responses they got to this article:
http://www.slate.com/id/2161615/
# posted by Aeryk : 8:42 AM

Well said! Steven Landsburg is a pretentious dick.
# posted by Anonymous : 2:02 PM

Longest opinion ever:
I took a leisure studies class in undergrad. It was one of the most provocing classes I took. My prof was a huge fan of the six hour work day. He thinks it can solve the majority of the economic class disparity issues. I am actually a proponent of this because I am an irrational idealist and he made a good case.
I would prefer Landsburg mow his own lawn instead of hiring someone else to, and give any writing enthusiast who is stuck in lawn care a permement part time stab at his a cushy job writing BS or whatever else he does. I argued this in a discussion section once in grad school about economics and poverty and people had a mental block, but there are things like job sharing which allows two people to have decent salaried insured positions and leisure to actually contribute to their families and community. I cannot stand the idea of someone thinking they are too good to do crap work.
I have spent many hours trying to picture the ideal utopia in terms of civilization's division of work and leisure, and am living them out in the novel I am writing and am excited that other people find the ideas of work, leisure and class interesting. When it gets down to it people don't know how to use their leisure time (TV as leisure is plain pathetic, though I am very bloody victim of it). Good work beats bad leisure 10 to 1. Our culture is consumer driven and the consumer is currenlty driving for a lower price above all other things and you cannot build a society on that. Locally grown organic sustainable goods is a very good movement. This and the six hour work day. That is where its at. Blah Blah Blah. Unfortunately my novel is probably as rambling as this comment but I have found that I love writing it more than anything else and that despite that I will never hire a cleaning lady to clean my toilet while I type away. My great grandparents were middle class in the depression and they hired tons of people in the community to help with odd jobs. This is good, creating a society that limits the number of people who have access to decent jobs is bad and CEOs are the main culprits by earning millions that could employ a whole county of high school drop outs to solve global warming. I am for the philantropy of employing people to do good decent work.
All in all, I am glad that you attacked the guy and think that you had very good comments.
# posted by Anonymous : 3:15 PM