Catching Up

Okay, I know I promised massive amounts of blogging while I was on vacation, and I will deliver it at some point. I did get a lot written, two seriously long posts plus another shorter one. But I want to get them edited and tightened up a bit; they are too wordy even for me at this point.

So, it is perhaps ironic that I now want to jump into the ongoing blogosphere discussion about paid vacations and federal mandating thereof.

To set the backstory, Ezra wrote an LA Times editorial which argues that Americans are overworked, receiving no federally mandated vacation days, and averaging many less such days taken per year than any other industrialized nation. Matt Yglasias responded, arguing against Ezra, although I didn't think he really refuted Ezra so much as raised a completely different set of issues and concerns (economic instead of humanitarian.) Renowned conservative economist Tim Lee (who also writes for Slate's The Dismal Science column) posted to The American Scene on this issue, taking up Matt's points and making, to my mind, better arguments.

However, I think that both Matt and Lee are arguing with straw men, to a point. Especially Lee, when he writes

Reading through the comments on Matt’s blog, there seems to be a basic empirical disagreement: to what extent does forcing employers to offer more vacation days cause proportionately lower wages? It seems to me that basic economic suggests that in the long run, at least, if people work 5 percent fewer hours they’ll produce 5 percent less stuff. And if a worker is producing 5 percent less stuff, he’s going to receive (again, on average and in the long) 5 percent lower wages.

I don't think Ezra is arguing that we can have a free lunch in the form of less work for the same pay. Instead, he argues that because Americans are more productive,

You would think that we'd take advantage of the fact that we can create more wealth in less time to wrest back some of those hours for ourselves and our families.

To me, this seems spot on. Coming back from two vacations in a short period of time, I know that I am feeling like life is very good indeed. I didn't feel the least bit guilty about taking off for nearly two weeks out of 4, and my life is improved for having done it. I am not feeling nearly as stressed or unhappy about work as I was a month ago.

I don't know if Ezra is quite willing to go so far as I am in terms of making this argument, but my belief is: so what if we are less productive? Who cares? I know that classic economics argues that we always have to grow grow grow, in order to keep raising our standards of living. To which I say, what if I like my standard of living right now? I have a good job, good benefits, a great set of friends, and I live in one of the most beautiful places on earth. How is more money really going to help make my life better?

Now, I do have sympathy for Matt's point, that some people might prefer to work that extra week, because they need the money for this or that. And I don't like the idea of forcing someone to take time off when something fun or exciting is going on at work. But, at the same time, I think the world would be a better place if we were a little bit better at stepping back from work occasionally, realizing that the world will not end if we are unplugged for a few days. I would argue, in fact, that this mentality of all work, all the time, is quite harmful to us as people. If we define ourselves in terms of our ability to produce, rather than our ability to enjoy, I think we are coming up well short of our potential as human beings.

So my tentative suggestion would be something along the lines of 3 weeks guaranteed every year, with explicit directions put in for employers and employees to be able to adjust that number as suits both parties. I think that leaves plenty of freedom for individual circumstances to be catered to, while ensuring that here, in the richest country in the history of the planet, we encourage people to be a little better at seeing the big picture, and see if we can maybe make them a bit happier and healthier for it.