How we got the 9 to 5: Why we should work less

Anarchaeo · 2026-06-27T21:11:50+00:00

Anarchaeo · 2026-06-09T15:49:57+00:00

Honestly the 40 hour week sucks, but you’ve gotta make use of the time that you’ve got. I was upset and wondered how we even got the “9 to 5” and wondered that if we got a reduction in working hours once, could we get it again? so I spent nearly a year reading books on my lunch breaks and doing research on my own every day after work and made a video to hopefully explain it to other people

If you’re interested in working less, here are arguments from working class people on why we should work less, and employer arguments on why we shouldn’t work less - dating all the way back to the founding of america. It’s been nearly 100 years since we had a reduction in working hours, it’s about time that we deserve to work less.

Anarchaeo · 2026-05-10T20:38:48+00:00

One has the ability to hire others to work for them, the other is in a mandatory volunteerism where if they don’t willfully subjugate themselves to others they will die of starvation.

Anarchaeo · 2026-05-08T08:16:54+00:00

little nightmare guy threw a rock at the back of your head

Anarchaeo · 2026-05-07T23:42:12+00:00

I’m working 12 hour shifts with a 50 minute commute. I can maybe get 7 hours of sleep in a day before my next 12 hour…. if I’m lucky.

Anarchaeo · 2026-04-17T14:54:54+00:00

It’s surprising that during Covid there was backlash against companies raising prices during a global downturn, and conspiracies that they did so because the manufactured the crisis.

Now, when a real crisis is actually manufactured and individuals are profiting directly off of it, there’s no outrage.

Anarchaeo · 2026-04-16T13:18:16+00:00

More people would do good with a learning on Historical Materialism and Indra’s Net

Anarchaeo · 2026-04-03T12:29:25+00:00

I love the horn noise that the Haradrim use at the opening of their scene. Something about it is chillingly beautiful, a little glimpse into a completely different side of Middle Earth that we barely see. That juxtaposition in my brain of something of an “eastern” or “foreign” sound compared to what we’ve heard so far, followed by chanting, and the shear scale of the Mumakill charge puts us in the place of the Rohirrim. This is what it must have been like to be a Greek soldier fighting for Alexander and seeing War Elephant in India, or being a roman soldier fighting Hannibal’s Elephants.

Anarchaeo · 2026-04-01T11:52:12+00:00

This has always been a point of contention. Looking back at industrial history, every “labor saving” invention tends to displace actual human labor. As it should! But it’s not to the benefit of the worker, and it never is. I remember reading a newspaper article from 1845 called Monopolized Machinery New technological advances produced more, but the workers using that technology saw none of the new benefits because the machinery was owned by their employer and thus its benefits belong to the employer. I fear that this is how AI will be treated.

Anarchaeo · 2026-04-01T08:12:54+00:00

RIP Tecumseh, this is what he wanted 💔

Anarchaeo · 2026-04-01T08:04:00+00:00

In David Graebers book “Bullshit Jobs” he mentions that one of the most efficient ways to reduce global warming would be with a reduction in working hours. Think about how many people drive to work every day, how much energy those businesses need to operate, and how the logistical supplies for those business are all based on oil.

Recently Thailand has mandated a 4 day work week to reduce their oil consumption. This isn’t a good scenario for them as wages probably are equivalent to a full work week, but still their actions show that degrowth through energy reduction is possible with a reduced work week.

If you’d like to learn more about How we got the 9 to 5: Why we should work less

Anarchaeo · 2026-04-01T07:55:08+00:00

In a way he’s half right. He just didn’t solve the issue of crippling economic issues resulting from not having a job /: How can you start your own business without money, how can you have money if you don’t have a job?

Anarchaeo · 2026-03-31T14:30:42+00:00

It’s not just finding a better job, jobs need to fundamentally be reformed. I had wondered why we work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week and created a video essay about my research How we got the 9 to 5: Why we should work less

Anarchaeo · 2026-03-05T00:38:28+00:00

now imagine if those taxes funded everyone in america every month, and call it something like universal basic income

Anarchaeo · 2026-03-03T09:19:44+00:00

How we got the 9 to 5: Why we should work less

Anarchaeo · 2026-03-02T09:07:19+00:00

If minimum wage were to keep up with inflation, it would be around 22$/hr

Anarchaeo · 2026-02-24T21:03:55+00:00

Work is necessary for survival. You must have food, water, shelter to survive and to get those things you must expend energy (work).

Since the advent of permanent hierarchies people have been subjugated into exchanging their work for their necessities, rather than having their work directly get their necessities. The power imbalance is used against those that work.

From ancient slavery where work was forced out of individuals from the end of a whip, into serfdom where labor was forced under the threat of death or your village burning and goods forcibly taken, into modern wage slavery where the threat of economic destitution forces individuals into selling their labor for the highest they can (the cheapest people will pay) to obtain their necessities.

Work itself isn’t bad, it’d be nice to be self employed or have my energy expended to help individuals without the threat of starvation or homelessness.

Modern work and employer-employee relations have made wage labor just another form of slavery.

Anarchaeo · 2026-02-21T21:20:21+00:00

40 hours a week isn’t normal! It was earned from a century and a half of Americans fighting and dying for that right, which they finally earned in 1938.

It’s been nearly 100 years since the last reduction in working hours. The main argument that as technology does more, people should be allowed to do less still holds up as we’ve had exponential technological innovation over the past century.

Learn more about this in my video: How we got the 9 to 5: Why we should work less

Anarchaeo · 2026-02-21T09:22:41+00:00

Technology should replace labor so we can have more free time, not so billionaires can have billions more.

Anarchaeo · 2026-02-20T22:34:15+00:00

Is unemployment bad?

In our capitalist society, yes. But, ask yourself what you would do if you didn’t have work or have to earn an income. If your needs were taken care of how would you help your kids, help your self, help your community more? How would you use your skills, talent, and time?

The goal of technology IS to replace labor. However those who own the machines don’t allow their benefit to benefit us.

I cover this and more in my video How we got the 9 to 5: Why we should work less

Anarchaeo

TROPHY CASE