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The 'Lump-of-Labor' Case Against Work-Sharing: Populist fallacy or marginalist throwback?" in Working Time: International trends, theory and policy
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BibTeX
@MISC{Walker_the'lump-of-labor',
author = {Tom Walker},
title = {The 'Lump-of-Labor' Case Against Work-Sharing: Populist fallacy or marginalist throwback?" in Working Time: International trends, theory and policy},
year = {}
}
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Abstract
The persistence of high rates of unemployment in Europe, coupled with longer average work hours among many workers in the predominantly English-speaking countries, has revived interest in policies to redistribute working time. A common reaction by mainstream economists to the idea of redistributing hours of work is to contend that proposals such as work-sharing, which are intended to spark job growth, are based on the mistaken belief that there is only a fixed amount of work to be done. That assumption is sometimes called the "lump-of-labor fallacy". Alternatively, the notion has been labelled a "lump-of-work " or "lump-of-output " fallacy. The dismissive phrase has become an article of faith among many in the economics profession, despite the fact that advocates of reduced work time have, for more than a century, repeatedly disavowed the alleged belief in a fixed amount of work. Advocacy of work-time redistribution as a remedy for unemployment is based not on an idée fixe but on the defensible proposition that current work arrangements are less than ideal and that substantial improvement in the allocation of work is both desirable and practicable. This chapter briefly examines the sources of the lump-of-labor claim and its role in
Keyphrases
populist fallacy international trend case work-sharing fixed amount job growth high rate working time lump-of-labor claim lump-of-output fallacy chapter briefly substantial improvement mistaken belief many worker economics profession dismissive phrase average work hour defensible proposition mainstream economist work time alleged belief work-time redistribution english-speaking country lump-of-labor fallacy current work arrangement common reaction id fixe
