[nhaehnle]

I think it is fairer to say these things are, for all practical purposes, the result of capitalism. Socialism was really just a backlash against capitalism.

To be slightly more precise and elaborate, historically the fixed work week and working hours became widespread with capitalism (monasteries and militaries had routine as well, but they never caused it to become so pervasive in society).

In capitalism, exact management of working time started because of a combination of two things: First, the owners of expensive machines wanted to have reliable schedules of when their human operators were present, so as to maximize the owners' profits. Second, the power relationship of capitalism made it possible for these owners to severely punish an employee who didn't show up on time, and the owners pushed this possibility to the breaking point (hence the backlash of socialism).

Nowadays, a similar dynamic also applies to most service jobs. The people running retail stores or call centres want their employees to reliably follow a schedule, so that the profit of the owners can be maximized. Power relationships are still such that most people working these kinds of jobs have little de facto choice but to comply.

So much for what happened historically. Now, an interesting question is whether this is inherent only of capitalism, or whether it may be inherent of economic systems more generally.

For example, if we envision a form of market socialism where firms compete in a market but are entirely controlled by workers through some democratic means, would we still adhere so strongly to fixed schedules?

In part, the self-interest of the employee suggests that our relationship with work schedules would relax.

On the other hand, it is now actually in the workers' self-interest to ensure that their machines are utilized as well as possible, and that retail stores are taken care of efficiently, and so on. So I would actually expect that work schedules would remain relatively rigid, at least in service oriented firms and physical industry.

Being able to rely on somebody else's schedule means you can be more efficient, and that's a powerful force of the market.

Even if the attitude to work schedules were relaxed somewhat under socialism, path dependence is a strong factor as well: now that most people are kind of used to 9 to 5 or similar, chances are that any change away from the status quo would be rather slow.

[kstenerud]

"For example, if we envision a form of market socialism where firms compete in a market but are entirely controlled by workers through some democratic means, would we still adhere so strongly to fixed schedules?"

One of two things would happen: Those wishing to maximize profits would push the less dedicated out of the company, or there would be a gradual trend towards putting in minimal effort because everyone else is outputting less than you for the same pay (or you're making those with more seniority than you look bad).

In fact, we've already witnessed the second phenomena in socialist countries and in many unionized jobs.

[nhaehnle]

Genuine question: Have there been examples of socialist countries or unionized jobs where profit was made and shared among employees rather than taken either by private capital ownership or by the government?

At least as far as I know, there hasn't been a country-wide experiment with a setup like that, where employees actually have a self-motivated incentive to work harder. (Now that I think about it, that's really quite a terrible indictment of both socialism and capitalism as it's been tried so far!)

In a sense, early-phase startups are like that, and those seem to work quite well ;-)

The law-firm model is a bit like this as well, I suppose, and small boutique shops in creative fields.

Another example may be existing coops like Mondragon and many other smaller ones. Those are not in the headlines much, but they also seem to be doing well despite competition from firms that are run along more capitalist lines.

[kstenerud]

Co-ops and communes are about as close as you'll get to that kind of experiment. From what I've seen, they start out great, but then as they grow either in size or in age, they begin to show stress fractures from the usual social problems that plague all human political endeavors. It almost seems as if we're doomed to mediocrity in the long run.