[const_cast]

Right, which demonstrates the unfortunate: this has to be done politically, not economically. The only way you can get rid of the 40 hour work week is if you make it illegal, much like we did with more exploitative working practices in the early 20th century.

[munksbeer]

I agree with that, but do people want to work less than 40 hours a week? I know I do, but I don't speak for everyone.

It feels as though we've reached a compromise some time back where people are roughly ok with trading 40 hours of their productivity per week for enough units to live a pretty comfortable life on (comfortable is relative, and we're relatively much more comfortable than 99% of humans who ever lived).