I love being told to work more by people that don't work at all i mean private jets all over the world, private chauffeur to wherever they need, a nice retirement and all the while getting paid probably 10 times more than me that will most likely die of hunger in a cold shitty house with no power after working constantly for the next 30-40 years...
this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2026
50 points (100.0% liked)
Europe
8907 readers
1209 users here now
News and information from Europe 🇪🇺
(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)
Rules (2024-08-30)
- This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
- No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
- Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
- No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism. We follow German law; don't question the statehood of Israel.
- Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
- If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
- Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in other communities.
- Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
- No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
- Always provide context with posts: Don't post uncontextualized images or videos, and don't start discussions without giving some context first.
(This list may get expanded as necessary.)
Posts that link to the following sources will be removed
- on any topic: Al Mayadeen, brusselssignal:eu, citjourno:com, europesays:com, Breitbart, Daily Caller, Fox, GB News, geo-trends:eu, news-pravda:com, OAN, RT, sociable:co, any AI slop sites (when in doubt please look for a credible imprint/about page), change:org (for privacy reasons), archive:is,ph,today (their JS DDoS websites)
- on Middle-East topics: Al Jazeera
- on Hungary: Euronews
Unless they're the only sources, please also avoid The Sun, Daily Mail, any "thinktank" type organization, and non-Lemmy social media (incl. Substack). Don't link to Twitter directly, instead use xcancel.com. For Reddit, use old:reddit:com
(Lists may get expanded as necessary.)
Ban lengths, etc.
We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.
If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 7 or 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.
If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the primary mod account @EuroMod@feddit.org
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
I'm technically one of these "lifestyle" part-timers, at 35 instead of 40 hours a week. This reduction has had a noticeable impact on my mental health, to the point where I'd dare say my productivity hasn't changed one bit.
But let's be real: I cannot imagine that even Blackrockfritze believes that economic growth is determined by having longer working hours. This is a deliberate attempt to create another group of "lazy people" to lay the blame for the utter incompetence of his government.
I think working time is the wrong place for politicians to regulate.
Sure, there's a huge imbalance. Some people work a lot and some very little.
The key is that the the people who do work more than mandatory minimum hours, are also the people who enjoy working. Self employed or not, doesn't matter. If people like working, they'll work more. It's really that simple.
Politicians ought to focus on regulation of how enjoyable work is. Then the working time would increase by itself, if that's the ultimate goal for whatever reason.
I don't think it is though. Productivity ought to be the end goal.
„If we whip them harder surely they will generate more profit for us masters!“
Kind reminder the Christ Democrats always hated human beings.
Not always.
Das kapitalistische Wirtschaftssystem ist den staatlichen und sozialen Lebensinteressen des deutschen Volkes nicht gerecht geworden.
Inhalt und Ziel dieser sozialen und wirtschaftlichen Neuordnung kann nicht mehr das kapitalistische Gewinn- und Machtstreben, sondern nur das Wohlergehen unseres Volkes sein.
CDU, 1947.
But yeah, that was some time ago.
Not always but defenetly all parties in germany and global politics got wacky in the 80s and said " SCREW THE STATE TO SERVE PEOPLE! SCREW THE PEOPLE! IT SHOULD SERVE ME!"
Under pressure to make changes to boost sluggish economic growth, the conservative has told voters their country’s prosperity will not be maintained “with a four-day week and work-life balance”. He recently effectively accused them of skiving by falsely calling in sick, criticising the relative ease with which sicknotes could be obtained from GPs over the phone.
Someone does not understand what productivity means and how it's meaningfully improved.
If you (you being the proverbial CDU brain here) need people to marginally increase their working hours, in order to achieve higher economic output, you're in deep trouble. The increased output is also marginal and a one time boost. If you want meaningfully higher economic output, with sustained growth, you have to use machines and automation to achieve more with the same work hours. In other words you gotta do productive capital investment. Unfortunately conservative brains can only think of the cheapest solution for businesses first, at the expense of workers quality and quantity of life.
Even that is just a one time boost. If the automation is done there is nothing to be done better. So to grow further people have to be fired or other sources of revenue have to be unlocked.
I still think, sustained growth is impossible in the long run.
I still think, sustained growth is impossible in the long run.
Oh yeah, for sure. All production consumes natural resources at some point in the chain, even services. And natural resources are finite. Even if we recycle everything, we'd still have a finite amount we have to work with beyond which we can't expand. If the driving force behind the production expansion is primarily profit growth, then there's no satisfying that. That's an inherent problem with the capitalist system. If however the driving force is the need for making something that doesn't exist - e.g. more tanks, more wind turbines, more scientific researchers, more musicians, then automation can help a lot. But even for purely profit-driven growth, automation would provide a lot more runway than making people work more hours. I know you're not disagreeing, I'm just saying this for completeness. :D
I have to thank you for pointing out, that you wanted to say that automation would help more than let people work more. That is a fact that I lost sight of. :)
Ah yes, the agenda of the Blackrock fanboy turbo capitalist minion.
Destroy social security nets to make people so desperate they will take any job at any conditions.
It‘s kind of insane yet not surprising how he or most of that anti civilization party sees how this will erode the domestic consumer market and hurt the economy long term. People will have less money to buy things. Less money will circulate and that will worsen things for everyone. The overly rich forgot they have the most to lose here.
Sounds like some "work will set you free" type shit
Leaking this proposal to the media on the day when Auschwitz was liberated is a bit on the nose.
wtf, why would you need a permission to work however long, wait a minute
the conservative has told voters their country’s prosperity will not be maintained “with a four-day week and work-life balance”. He recently effectively accused them of skiving
he was bitten by american ceo wasn't he? 🙃
Merz was working for BlackRock for quite a while
"working"
Specifically he was on their board and afaik only for his contacts to other politicians and public officials.
he was bitten by american ceo wasn’t he? 🙃
It's a ~~global~~ pandemic.
Merz seems to genuinely believe no one works except for him. Yeah, right.
It's always the fault of the workers and not the leeches at the top taking every gain for themselves.
Dammit people being able to work less is progress.
Fun fact about Germany: There is no fun, get back to Work!
He has 22% approval in current polls I wonder how it is so high.
Seniors
I guess mostly bitter people who don’t want other people to live comfortable
In principle not incorrect, Europe has rough times ahead and a lot to do to catch up in defense and digital infrastructure, among others.
That said, it should be carefully investigated what leads to actual productivity increase. Just more hours may or may not do that. And compensation should increase accordingly.
He does not even für one second consider utilising technology for efficiency and growth. There is so much potential in not sending people to work. Yes, even AI can automate processes very well if done right. At some point countries will send machines to war and Merz will still send meat to the grinder.
Makes me want to grab and shake this old man in hopes there is still some problem solving capacity left in his >70 year old brain.