Anyone who does knowledge work in a large company knows a huge amount of the "work" is just a weird game we all agreed to play. Sure everyone is busy, but surprisingly little is really getting done. We agree to work 40 hours because that model worked for people making widgets in factories. People work extra hours to demonstrate socially that they're hard workers, but again, nothing is really getting done.
There is no reason at all you could not reduce all of this to 30 hours a week and get the same amount of productivity accomplished. Why shouldn't people be compensated the same if the end result is the same? For labor intensive job where a human is working as a type of robot then hours of labour is directly correlated with hours of product (with some point of diminishing returns as you overwork people).
I agree in general, but I think I might prefer to keep the 40 hr/wk schedule and give everyone 10 weeks vacation as a baseline. I suppose that creates a headache if everyone takes the whole summer off at once or something, but what it does do is give each person the flexibility to decide if they want a whole year of long weekends, or some other configuration they prefer.
I wouldn't complain about 10 weeks of paid vacation! But for a lot of businesses, it's easier to lose people 1 day every week as opposed to 2-3 weeks at a time several times a year. Just in terms of coverage and workflow. Though that's going to vary for each role/company.
I think you're over-generalizing. Yes, some people work more than 40 hours for social recognition without getting any more real work done. On the other hand, I know people who truly do work over 40 hours out of a feeling of passion or obligation, completing extra work while not advertising the extra hours they're putting in.
To be clear, I'm not talking about people "goofing off at work" (such as myself on HN right now). Socialization is something deeply internalized so it doesn't matter if you know people are watching. I've been those people working on things late a night without anyone knowing, then I realized so much of it was sweat and stress for literally nothing.
The thing is, when you look at the fruits of the labor put in, the result is nearly null. There are people who are working very hard on things that have no real long term (or short term) purpose or function for their employers, it's work that exists because "work" has to be done. When I look at the projects being busily worked on around me, nearly none of them have any value or will make a dent in the overall productivity of the larger company. These people aren't goofing off. This is the ritual of work.
People pray in the privacy of their own home but that doesn't mean there's a god listening. The same goes for the culture of "work" in most large organizations.
over-generalizing cuts both ways when dealing with anecdotes: all those people you know might just be a tiny fraction of the full work force that _does_ twiddle their thumbs behind their desks for a collective 10 hours per week and would see barely any impact on productive output by lowering the number of hours spent behind that desk while keeping the pay the same, because the output stays the same.
There is no reason at all you could not reduce all of this to 30 hours a week and get the same amount of productivity accomplished. Why shouldn't people be compensated the same if the end result is the same? For labor intensive job where a human is working as a type of robot then hours of labour is directly correlated with hours of product (with some point of diminishing returns as you overwork people).