Sadly, Autonomy has entirely the wrong end of the stick here

Autonomy wants us to know that a four day week would aid in solving the inflation problem. Sadly, Autonomy has entirely the wrong end of the stick here:

A four-day week with no loss of pay would save parents thousands of pounds a year in childcare and commuting costs, according to a thinktank that suggests the policy could help to alleviate the cost of living crisis.

Someone with a child under two would save £1,440 in childcare and £340 from commuting on average across a year if they did not have to travel to work one day a week, the leftwing think tank Autonomy calculated.

Campaigners and economists in favour of a four-day week have tended to focus on the benefits to workers in the form of increased leisure time and potential improvements in productivity that enable companies to carry out the same amount of work but in less time.

We can have the most lovely arguments about what causes inflation - demand shock, supply shock, modern monetary theory, money printer go brrr - but what inflation is is not in doubt. We have, relatively, more money chasing, relatively, fewer goods and services. The relationship between the amount of money around and the goods and services available has changed - therefore each piece of money is worth less, buys fewer of those goods and services. That’s just what inflation is.

This is not a problem to be solved by maintaining the same amount of money and reducing the number of goods and services. Which is what Autonomy is suggesting. Yes, there’s muttering that we could produce the same in four days that we currently do in five. Well, maybe. But they’re then saying that there should be less commuting, less childcare - less output as a result. So, the end game of the proposal is that inflation increases - we have still that same amount of money but fewer goods and services. So, the relationship between the two gets even further out of whack, each piece of money is worth even less.

The actual solution is to reduce the money supply or to increase the output of goods and services.

At which point we gain a solution. If it is possible to increase productivity then why not do that? Why not, for the same effort we put in now, increase the output of goods and services?

For upon examination that we can produce in four days what currently takes five is not in fact about workers being more rested, happier, more joyously productive. In all of the detailed studies it becomes the lesser time available for work means the killing off of unproductive activities. Those interminable meetings, the discussions in HR about equity and leadership on reaching out and all that malarkey. The increase in productivity actually comes from people stopping doing unproductive things - because there’s not the time left to do them - and only doing productive things during those hours of work.

So, our solution is to do that but to do it for 5 days. Output increases, which makes us all richer anyway. Inflation reduces as we’ve more output to soak up that excess money, the cost of living crisis goes away.

Sure, Autonomy’s right in one sense, the solution is increased productivity. But do that by killing the bureaucracy of modern work anyway rather than reducing time worked.

The actual analysis of these four days week ideas is that everyone entirely wastes one day a week at work on useless irrelevances. So, let’s stop doing that then, eh?