Even The Economist and the Adam Smith Institute are now in favour of the Universal Basic Income, which was once proposed by Richard Nixon. Even the Government at least pretends to have introduced the Living Wage, which is of Papal origin.
And the four-day week is now entering the mainstream after a quarter of a century as the signature policy of Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party. "Eight Hours Labour, Eight Hours Recreation, Eight Hours Rest" read the old miners' banners. But who can say that today?
The four-day week has brought out the shrieks of the "relentless work is a moral obligation for other people but not for us" brigade of trustafarians with academic sinecures. For that is what right-wing think tank positions are. Private academic sinecures. But academic sinecures nonetheless.
If anyone comes out with that line, then remember that no one in his family has done a proper day's work since they stole the monasteries' land under Henry VIII, or in some cases since 1066. Ask what, exactly, the "Director of the Genghis Khan Institute" did all day, never mind for four days of the week.
They always pretend to have an understanding of "business". But they never do. Or if they do, then it is impossible to see how they could have acquired it. That they are paid by commercial interests applies, and applies rather more directly and transparently, to a very large number of people who most certainly do not enjoy their level of access to politics and the media.
Look how differently it's being covered from when Jeremy proposed it.
ReplyDeleteHe had his faults, but he is already one of the great unsung prophets.
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