[kelnos]

It's the human equivalent of the race to the bottom. A company with deep pockets (or VC funding) might sell a product at or below cost to try to muscle out competitors. The end result is either a monopoly (where the company can then raise prices up to whatever profitable levels they want) or long-term lower prices and weak margins.

In the same way, an individual worker might want to work longer hours in order to be more attractive as a candidate for raises or promotions. But often management sees a small number of employees willing to do this, and then starts to expect all employees to do it. In the absence of unions or other collective action, the other employees are forced to keep up. They've raced their labor price to the bottom.

I agree with the "civic hygiene" angle: it's much healthier for people not to do this, and provide better working conditions for themselves and others. But that requires everyone to do the right thing all the time. There will always be enough people who want to get ahead, and are willing to make themselves miserable to do it. I don't think most are being malicious: they don't realize the societal effects of their actions. But those effects happen regardless.

The difficulty of collective action is really the heart of this. If every employee just up and decided one day that the standard would be a 32-hour work week, and people would only work Monday through Thursday, it would... actually happen. Companies would complain, threaten to fire people, fire some people after all. But if everyone could actually stick together for the greater good, it would work. But people can't do that, not 100%. Some can't for legitimate reasons ("I can't risk getting fired or I won't be able to pay rent / buy food / stay in the country"), and some won't for selfish reasons ("If I break ranks and lick the company's boots, I'll be rewarded").

[azanar]

There was a possibility I proposed, which I think you missed. Maybe they _aren't_ miserable. They might be suffering in some ways. They might even complain about it. That doesn't mean they are miserable. They may find other joy that makes up for the suffering.

If we can't agree on this, we'll probably not agree on anything else. It'll mean you've decided on a premise that I think is false. I'll just keep seeming ignorant to you.

_Should_ they be miserable? Perhaps. Maybe they have a false consciousness. Maybe they need to understand better the societal effects they are responsible for. These are debatable. To _presume_ this is true, though, seems to me kind of arrogant.