Affluenza cure calls for political action Different standard for workweek an opportunity By John de Graaf, Special to The Denver Post

The Denver Post, October 25, 2001



Sometimes an epidemic reaches such proportions that political action is called for, usually in the form of a quarantine. We believe that point has been reached in the case of affluenza.



We line up squarely on the side of those who say our social ills won't be cured by personal action alone. Just as the symptoms of affluenza are many and interconnected, so must be public efforts to quarantine it. There is no silver bullet that by itself will do the trick. It will take a comprehensive strategy, at all levels of government from local to federal.

Back to the road not taken

First, if we want to put a lid on the further spread of affluenza, we should restore a social project that topped organized labor's agenda for half a century, then suddenly fell from grace. Since the second world war, Americans have been offered what economist Juliet Schor calls 'a remarkable choice.'



As our productivity more than doubled, we could have chosen to work half as much - or even less - and still produce the same material lifestyle we found 'affluent' in the '50s. We could have split the difference, letting our material aspirations rise somewhat but also taking an important portion of our productivity gains in the form of more free time. Instead, we put all our apples into making and consuming more.



Established as law in 1938, the 40-hour workweek is still our standard. By law, we could set a different standard, and we should. It need not be a one-size-fits-all standard, like a 30-hour week of six-hour days as proposed in the 1930s (and more recently in a 1993 congressional bill written by Rep. Lucien Blackwell, D-Pa.) or a 32-hour week composed of four eight-hour days, though for many working Americans either of those choices would be ideal.



More important, perhaps, is to get annual working hours - now averaging about 2,000 per year and exceeding those of the workaholic Japanese - under control. Two thousand hours equals 250 eight-hour days. Add to that 104 weekend days and nine national holidays, and you've got 363 days - leaving only three days for vacation, which is about where America seems to have come.



Were the average workday to be six hours, we'd be putting in only about 1,500 hours a year, about the norm in western Europe. That's an additional 500 hours - 121/2 weeks - of free time. So here's a suggestion: Set a standard working year of 1,500 hours for full time, keeping the 40-hour a week maximum. Then allow workers to find flexible ways to fill the 1,500 hours.

Flexible work reduction

Polls have shown that half of all American workers would accept a commensurate cut in pay in return for shorter working hours. But the cut needn't be based on a 1-1 ratio. Workers are more productive per hour when they work fewer hours. Absenteeism is reduced, and health improves. Therefore, as W.K. Kellogg recognized in the 1930s, their 30-hour weeks should be worth at least 35 hours' pay and perhaps more.



In fact, Ron Healey, a business consultant in Indianapolis, has persuaded several local industries to adopt what he calls the '30-40 now' plan. They offer prospective employees a normal 40-hour salary for a 30-hour week. Increased employee productivity has made the experiment successful for most.

Work sharing when recession comes

Plans for spreading work around by shortening hours should begin now for another reason: As the recession comes, will we simply say 'Sayonara, tough luck' to those whose jobs are lost? There is a better way. Say a company needs to reduce production by 20 percent and believes it must lay off one-fifth of its workforce. What if, instead, it cut everybody's workweek by one day?



Sure, all workers would have to learn to live with less - not such a bad idea - but no one would be tossed to the wolves. And we predict everyone would soon love the time off. On the other hand, if we don't make such plans and millions suddenly face unemployment, then all other negative social indicators - crime, family breakdown, suicide, depression, etc. - can be expected to skyrocket again.

Retiring step by step

There are other ways to exchange money for time. Many academics receive 'sabbaticals,' anything from a quarter to a full year off every several years, usually accepting a reduced salary during the period. Why not a system of sabbaticals every seven to 10 years for all workers who desire them and are willing to take moderate salary reductions when they are on sabbatical? We all need to recharge our batteries every so often.



Or how about a system of graduated retirement? For many of us, self-esteem takes a hit and boredom a bounce when we suddenly go from 40-hour weeks to zero upon retiring. Instead, we could design a pension and Social Security system that would allow us to retire gradually. Let's say that at 50 we cut 300 hours from our work year - nearly eight weeks. Then at 55 we cut 300 more. At 60, 300 more. And at 65, 300 more. Now we're down to 800 (given no change in the present annual pattern). We might then have the option to stop paid labor entirely or to keep working 800 hours for as long as we are capable.



This would allow us to begin learning to appreciate leisure, volunteer more and broaden our minds long before final retirement. It would allow more young workers to find positions and allow older workers to stay on longer to mentor them. It would allow older workers to both stay involved with their careers and to find time for more balance in their lives.

Taxes

A strategic change in the tax system, similar to one already underway in parts of Europe, could help contain affluenza. The first step toward a change could come through an idea called the progressive consumption tax. Proposed by economist Robert Frank in his book 'Luxury Fever,' the tax would replace the personal income tax. Instead, people would be taxed on what they consume, at a rate rising from 20 percent (on annual spending under $ 40,000) to 70 percent (on annual spending over $ 500,000). Basically the idea is to tax those with the most serious cases of 'luxury fever' at the highest rates, thus encouraging saving instead of spending.



At the same time, we must make it possible for lower-income Americans to meet their basic needs without working several jobs. A living wage could be accomplished by a negative income tax or tax credits that guarantee all citizens a simple but sufficient standard of living above the poverty line.



Equally promising are so-called 'green taxes.' Their proponents would replace taxes on 'goods' such as income and payroll taxes - which discourage increased employment - with taxes on 'bads' such as pollution or waste of nonrenewable resources. The point would be to make the market reflect the true costs of our purchases. We'd pay much more to drive a gas-guzzler, for example, and a little more for a music lesson or theater ticket.



Additional carbon taxes would discourage the burning of fossil fuels. Pollution taxes would discourage contamination of water and air. The costs of cleaning up pollution would be added as a tax on goods whose production causes it. Such a tax could make organic foods as cheap as pesticide-laced produce. Depletion taxes would increase the price of nonrenewable resources and lower the comparative price of goods made to last.

Corporate responsibility: Going Dutch

Another way to reduce the impact of consumption is to require that corporations take full responsibility for the entire life cycle of their products, an idea now gaining widespread acceptance in Europe. The concept is simple, and it is well-explained in the book 'Natural Capitalism' by Paul Hawken and Amory and Hunter Lovins. In effect, companies would no longer sell us products but lease them. Then, when the products reach the end of their useful lives, the same companies would take them back to reuse and recycle them, saving precious resources.



This cradle-to-the-grave idea is winning considerable corporate support already, with leadership

from Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface Corp., an industrial carpet company, and from businesses that have joined the 'Natural Step' movement, agreeing to full life-cycle responsibility for their products. If companies take such full responsibility, they will have to include the attendant costs in the prices of their goods.



Such responsibility will be made law by 2006 in the European Union, for automobile companies at least. But with so many companies and so many products traveling all over the world, a Dutch law may provide a more effective solution. In the Netherlands, car buyers pay an additional 'disassembly tax' when they buy their vehicle. When the car reaches the end of its useful life, they take it to an auto disassembly plant, where it is carefully stripped of anything that can still be used. Then only the metal shell is crushed and recycled (in the United States everything - wires, plastic and so forth - just gets crushed, and a large percentage is simply lost as waste). The Dutch plants, which are cheap and low-tech, employ many workers and take any cars.



The disassembly tax is part of the Dutch National Environmental Policy Plan (or 'Green Plan') and will soon be extended to include many other consumer goods.

But won't our economy collapse?

What if Americans started buying smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, driving them less and keeping them longer? What if we took fewer long-distance vacations? What if we simplified our lives, spent less money, bought less stuff, worked less, and enjoyed more leisure time? What if government began to reward thrift and punish waste, legislated shorter work hours, and taxed advertisers? What if we made consumers and corporations pay the real costs of their products? What would happen to our economy? Would it collapse, as some economists suggest?



Truthfully, we don't know exactly, since no major industrial nation has yet embarked on such a journey. But there's plenty of reason to suspect that the road will be passable, if bumpy, at first, and smoother later. If we continue on the current freeway, however, we'll find out it ends like Oakland's Interstate 880 during the 1989 earthquake - impassable and in ruins.



Surely we can't deny that if every American took up voluntary simplicity tomorrow, massive economic disruption would result. But that won't happen. A shift away from affluenza, if we're lucky enough to witness one, will come gradually, over a generation perhaps. Economic growth, as measured by Gross Domestic Product, will slow down and might even become negative. But as economist Juliet Schor points out, there are many European countries (including Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway) whose economies have grown far more slowly than ours, yet whose quality of life - measured by many of the indicators we say we want, including free time, citizen participation, lower crime, greater job security, income-equality, health, and overall life contentment - is higher than our own. Such economies show no sign of collapse. And their emphasis on balancing growth with sustainability is widely accepted across the political spectrum.

Time for attitude adjustment

If anti-affluenza legislation leads to slower rates of economic growth or a 'steady state' economy that does not grow at all, so be it. The fact is, growth of GDP is a very imprecise measure of social health anyway. Beating the affluenza bug will also lead to less stress, more leisure time, better health and longer lives. It will offer more time for family, friends and community. And it will lead to less traffic, less road rage, less noise, less pollution and a kinder, gentler, more meaningful way of life.



In a '60s TV commercial, an actor claims that Kool cigarettes are 'as cool and clean as a breath of fresh air.' We watch that commercial today and can't keep a straight face, but when it first aired, nobody laughed. Since that time, we've come to understand that cigarettes are unhealthy, silent killers. We've banned TV ads for them. We tax them severely, limit smoking areas, and seek to make tobacco companies pay the full costs of the damage cigarettes cause. We once thought them sexy, but today most of us think they're gross.



Where smoking is concerned, our attitudes have certainly changed. With growing evidence that affluenza is also hazardous, it's time for another attitude adjustment.



'Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic' was published in June 2001 by Berrett-Koehler Publishing. It is co-authored by David Wann, John de Graaf and Thomas Naylor. You can reach David Wann, a Golden resident, at wanndavejr @ cs.com.



