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by georgeecollins 8 days ago
TIL! Thank you.

Let’s try: George Collins believes that people can satisfy their material needs by working only a few hours. People usually want more. But at many times and within many social movements— religious, political, artistic— people have chosen to want less. Maybe that is part of the answer.

1 comments

>George Collins believes that people can satisfy their material needs by working only a few hours

And George Collins is wrong. My rent (for two people) is 1000€ (60m²), electricity is 150, food is 600, internet 50, total of about 2000. Say 1000 since we split that in half, and maybe i'll even reduce those needs, live in a smaller space, heat myself less in winter so it goes down to 800.

That's about 35 hours of work for the absolute bare minimum, 70 including my wife. That means no car, using my bike for everything, eating objectively worse food for my health (not talking about caviar there), get rid of pets, etc, etc.

one full week of worth each to cover the bare minimum. and let's be honest, I'm quite well off there. People on median income would _die_. They already do, working the full month.

George Collins would do well to read more sociology and not generalize.

> That's about 35 hours of work for the absolute bare minimum, 70 including my wife.

2000/month is 24k/year in expenses.

Doing some rough math, one person working 35/week would be working for about 13/hour to handle that; for two people it would be 6.5/hour each (US federal minimum wage, which hasn't change in decades, is US$ 7.25/hour).

In the EU wages vary by countries, so minimum wages go from Bulgaria's €620/month to Luxemburg's €2700/month:

* https://eures.europa.eu/minimum-wages-eu-2026-what-they-are-...

(You don't say where you are.)