---
title: "Unemployment is not the problem"
url: https://perrotta.dev/2025/03/unemployment-is-not-the-problem/
last_updated: 2025-03-28
---


[Unemployment is not the problem](https://whynothugo.nl/journal/2025/03/27/unemployment-is-not-the-problem/) by Hugo Barrera:

> Modern society faces a paradox: the more efficient we become, the fewer
> workers we need to sustain ourselves. Yet we still demand that people work
> long hours just to earn survival. If 50 people working full-time can produce
> enough for 100, why do we deny the other 50 access to those goods—instead of
> letting all 100 work half the hours and share the benefits?
>
> [...]
>
> But if we already produce enough, why must we keep labouring like we don't?
> The real disincentive is forcing unemployment on some while overworking others
> in a system that, by its own efficiency, has made so many jobs unnecessary.
>
> The solution isn't to invent useless busywork or cling to outdated 40-hour
> weeks—it's to distribute necessary labor fairly. A shorter work week wouldn't
> mean less gets done; it would mean what must get done is made by the work of
> all, freeing time for life beyond work. The obstacle isn't economics, but our
> insistence that survival must be earned through toil, even when toil is no
> longer needed.

We humans are little complicated beings.

AI uprising or not, first we need to figure out ourselves.