[sergj]

You are oversimplifying a lot of the problems. And saying that the problems won't even arise until we start to sell these cars is just nonsense.

Also enforcing a 4 day work-week? How does this lower unemployment, except on the paper? And keep in mind this solution would come with it own bag of problems, like administrativ overhead for more employees etc.

[Siecje]

And each employee making less money but cost of living not going down. With more administrative overhead wage would decrease or the cost of living would increase in order for companies to keep the same profit margins.

[loup-vaillant]

Actually, no. By employing more people, you can cut the money you need for unemployment insurances. You can actually have your cake and eat it too.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6618615

[loup-vaillant]

> You are oversimplifying a lot of the problems.

I only have so much space here, and I only have so much time to actually think these things through. So I'm just going to ignore this fully general counter argument.

> And saying that the problems won't even arise until we start to sell these cars is just nonsense.

Let me put it this way: if no self-driving car is ever sold, these won't be a problem. These problems are conditional on a working self-driving car actually existing in the first place. The only problem right now is getting the car to drive.

Now of course, foreseeable future problems do influence current decisions. But let's not get into Timeless Decision Theory.

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> Also enforcing a 4 day work-week? How does this lower unemployment, except on the paper?

Why wouldn't it?

Speaking for about 400 actual companies of various size in France, the slight increase in hourly productivity does not match the rather sharp drop in hours per week per employee. To keep their total production from going down, they had to (and did) hire more people (about 15%, I guess, it depends). It meant more employment. In the real world. Now.

Also, the salaries were maintained. No pay cut. And the costs did not increase either. This is because they have a deal which allows them to pay less taxes (specifically, those who go to our national unemployment insurance). So, so increased costs and no pay cut. In the real world. Now.

The only thing that's only on paper right now is the macro-economic calculation: what if everyone did the same? So far, it checks out: it doesn't cost nor bring any money. You just have more people working a bit less.

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There is this saying that employment is not a cake, that more work spurs more employment or something. But at any given point in time, it is a cake. Basically, work equals demand divided by productivity. In a consumption society, to have more work, either you increase demand, or you lower productivity. There's limits to the first, and the second one is Ludism. So there's a point where you have to divide work among the workers somehow. You can let the market deal with it, and that gives you unemployment, or you can enforce shorter work weeks.

Unemployment is bad, because it drives down demand, which ultimately drives down work, which under the current system increases unemployment… One of the causes of World War II by the way.

Shorter work weeks on the other hand, provided there's no pay cut, drives demand up, through the sudden decrease in unemployment. Also, less unemployment means better salary negotiations, which means more money to the workers, and less to the "stakeholders". (Mind you, it can go too far and stifle investment. Currently however, workers get 10% less of what they did 30 years ago. And that money don't tend to go to investment. It mostly goes to the Global Casino.)

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Source: http://www.roosevelt2012.fr/ (In French, sorry. I hope automatic translations are good enough.)