Missing: The Strange Disappearance of S. J. Chapman's Theory of the Hours of Labour

Toward a Good Society in the Twenty-First Century

“…Instead, it is a convoluted tale of market failure and then imagined correction in response to union strike threat. Given the erosion of union density and the near total eclipse of work time reduction as a union priority, threat is less plausible today than it may have been either in the 1930s when Hicks proposed it or in the 1950s when it became generally accepted (see Nyland [ 1989 ], Walker [ 2007a ]). …”

“…This model doesn't itself demonstrate the job-creating potential of work time reduction in the absence of economic growth, but it does suggest the job-creating contribution that work time reduction can make in an expanding economy. Actual results would depend crucially on how policies were implemented but there is arguably a case for some experimentation-and for jettisoning economists' lump-oflabor contempt for work time reduction (Walker 2000(Walker , 2007b.…”

“…Social accounting for unemployment would come to a very different assessment of economic efficiency than would an asymmetrical, pseudo-social accounting relying exclusively on the metaphor of the firm. Gains in desired disposable time (as opposed to idleness) would need to be valued as economic gains and losses of free time as economic losses (see Walker [ 2011 ]). …”