ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Silicon Valley’s passion for working long hours is perhaps second only to its zeal for losing investor money. So it was not surprising that when a heated debate over work habits erupted last week on social media, it was Silicon Valley-types who had spurred the discussion.

Ironically, the debate largely occurred on Twitter, one of the most effective disruptors of work productivity ever invented. And the gist was this: To succeed professionally, many Silicon Valley types said, one must be prepared to work not just long, but indeed punishing hours — workers must be prepared to give up “nights and weekends.” One famous social scientist even weighed in and claimed that nobody who is “excellent” at their job chooses to work less than 35 hours a week.

Sorry, entire workforce of France.

Working hard — overworking, in some cases — has been part of the American character since the country’s inception; sociologist Max Weber observed the direct line between the Protestant values of Northern Europe of hard work and thrift and the development of capitalism — an insight that applies well to the United States, too.

It’s undeniable that one of America’s core strengths has long been its healthy respect for work.

But just because we are a country that rightly valorizes labor, it doesn’t follow that working too much is a good thing.

Indeed, the case for overwork falls apart on both the micro and the macro level.

Despite what the esteemed social scientist claimed, many professions in fact guard zealously against overwork as they recognize it has a deleterious and in many cases potentially dangerous impact on worker performance.

The hours airline pilots are allowed to work are severely limited, lest pilots fly exhausted.

Many nurses work less than 40 hours a week — 36 hours, in many cases — for the same reason.

Maya Angelou, Ernest Hemingway, and Haruki Murakami — judged by many observers to be quite “excellent” at their jobs — are among the authors who have said they tended to work 40 hours or less a week.

For many people who are “excellent” at their jobs, time away from work is in fact not a diminution but rather a requirement for keeping up a high level of quality while on the job.

I’d prefer my brain surgeon well rested, thank you.

Macro-economically, the data are even clearer: Long hours do not correlate to high productivity.

Japanese workers toil famously long hours, but are among the least productive in the advanced world — Japan has the least productive economy in the Group of Seven.

“The professional culture is input-based (full schedules of meetings, onerous paperwork and menial tasks and similar) rather than output-based, where long hours and late nights are a less a means to accomplish tasks and more of a means of value-signaling, demonstrating devotion to the organization and commitment to the team members,” observed Paul Nadeau, a Japan expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, recently.

Overwork is such a problem that the Japanese government is trying to get its citizens to work less.

“The government has pushed companies to allow workers to leave early on the last Friday of each month (and thus stimulate the business of various bars and restaurants), only to see this ‘Premium Friday’ scheme go virtually unobserved, to the point of being a running joke,” Mr. Nadeau added. South Korea is another East Asian country bedeviled by unproductive workers toiling extremely long yet pointless hours.

Countries with more relaxed attitudes toward working-hour quantity, meanwhile, tend to land higher worker quality.

France and Germany, both countries that tend to rank low on the hours worked charts — France, with its (flexible) 35 hour workweek, Germany with its world-beating amount of vacation time — boast some of the world’s most productive workers. The United Kingdom, by contrast, with longer working hours, has a workforce that is about 30% less productive than its cousins across the Channel. It seems shorter work weeks allow for more efficient work with less slack.

The United States is currently blessed with full employment — a truly great thing, especially after a grueling economic decade. Anybody who wants a job can get one. But look around our country, filled with traffic jams, stress, and exhaustion, teeming with families with both parents scrambling and unable to see their children for more than a few minutes a day. Is the problem with America really that we don’t work enough?

• Ethan Epstein is deputy opinion editor of The Washington Times. Contact him at eepstein@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter @ethanepstiiiine.

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