Schor, Juliet. The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure. Basicbooks, 1991.

Date: August 5, 1994

My initial reaction to the title of this book was that increasing real wages and decreasing real production costs (via technology) under fixed time constraints should lead to a decline in leisure if the marginal utility of leisure increases with respect to the consumption of goods and services. Such a relationship is not only plausible, but completely expected.

In the first chapter, Schor declares that capitalism contains biases toward longer work hours. She explains that leisure increased in the U.S. prior to the Great Depression due to social reformation, but that leisure gradually was forced to succumb to the forces of capitalism. Perhaps due to a gap in my familiarity with labor liturature and data, I find it surprising that she qualifies her argument as being contrary to accepted economic thought. Her argument would likely be concluded from a basic discussion of marginal utility and the value of leisure in any principles text; as the opportunity cost of leisure increases, individuals substitutes into other forms of consumption.

This book offers some interesting historical background and discussion of labor and work hours. Of particular interest is Schor's discussion of employment rent, originating with Ford Motor Company. Her observations lend some support to the arguments for higher salaries for teachers and government officials (e.g., congressmen). Although it is doubtful that the quality of public education would increase greatly in the short run, more competitive wages would surely attract more qualified and dedicated teachers in the long run. However, public demand for education is an entirely different issue.

Schor's account of employers' struggle against shorter hours deviates from basic neoclassical assumptions and borders on conspiracy theory. Unfortunately, she offers little in the way of sound choice theory to explain how employers continually force labor to work longer hours than are desirable, on average. She resorts to ad hoc arguments that some conservative employers are able to influence the rest into requiring the status quo workday. Schor's deviation from neoclassical theory is discussed specifically in the fourth chapter. She sites empirical evidence to support her interpretations that Americans are "overworked." However, her evidence from psychology surveys is less than compelling.

I chose to largely forego the reading of the second half of this book. Rather, I merely glanced at some of the charts before closing it.

J. Sprigg