If one person works late then other people have to match them. So you end up with a tragedy of the commons/race to the bottom. Which is exactly the situation that calls for laws.
That's a really interesting problem, but falling back on laws to protect you from it seems to be accepting a sub-par solution without having fully explored the issue. This is something that ought to be solved by measurement and corporate culture - if you can properly measure your output, this time-based race to the bottom shouldn't be an issue, it becomes an output-based race to the top, and there's nothing wrong with that, you just bow out of the race when you reach your work-life balance.
> if you can properly measure your output, this time-based race to the bottom shouldn't be an issue, it becomes an output-based race to the top, and there's nothing wrong with that, you just bow out of the race when you reach your work-life balance.
True, but the assumption is false. As an industry we're terrible at measuring outputs, and sadly this causes management to fall back on measuring inputs.
And even that, you don't get a free choice of. Working 75% as long as the rest of your team doesn't get you 75% of the salary, it gets you fired.
I in fact do work 75% time for 75% salary, and somehow I managed to work it out as a mutually voluntary arrangement with my employer without using the coercive power of the State.
Good for you, but that requires an unusually enlightened employer. There were some people who managed to arrange safe jobs in the pre-OHSA days. Doesn't mean government intervention wasn't necessary.
The "government" doesn't exist independently of the people (even when it fails to represent them equally, either through unequal interest or unequal capacity to exert influence.) It is a mechanism through which the people "stand up for themselves to get" things that they want.
Quoting PG on HN is perhaps a bit like preaching to the choir but this is very appropriate: http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html