Why a Four Day Week is now necessary

New machines and outdated systems result in much disruption and confusion. I believe collectively we understand little of what’s happening around us and, increasingly, our path forwards.

Science, technology and economics continue to be treated by modernity as ends in themselves, rather than tools to enhance well-being. Subsequently, by supporting the status quo, we’re tacitly compelled to justify an unjustifiable society.

With respect to labour, it’s not necessarily 'overwork' that’s the issue but the type of work and the conditions under which it’s expected. If we embrace technology we need to confront its costs.

The 4 Day Week Campaign seeks to draw attention to the attitude around, and structure of, work prevalent in Britain. The current paradigm is simply not getting the most out of people and needs rejuvenation.

The advocation of a four day week is, fundamentally, a quality over quantity argument. A mindset shift.

Quantity constitutes the substantial side of our world. It’s a basic or fundamental condition. Considered by itself, it’s a necessary presupposition that explains nothing. Quality, on the other hand, is the desirable determinant. Reduction of quality to quantity is intrinsically nothing but a reduction of the higher to the lower, and is rightly associated with the mass character central to the aimless pursuit of 'growth'.

Here, I present a series of ten dichotomies emblematic of the modern British predicament and why a four day work week is a necessary step to address it.

1) Quality vs. Quantity

A quantity-oriented mindset, epitomised in the preference of five over four because it’s a higher number, reduces everything to simple numerical units, including humans, believing everything to be interchangeable and machine-like. Machines, following this, represent the predominance of quantity over quality. Quality, however, the standard and way by which things are done, is of much greater importance. Our status in the natural world, for example, is determined by the quality of our thinking. I’d prefer as I hope many would four working days of smarter, more considered industry over five reluctant and unproductive shifts.

The quantity over quality mindset has engulfed modern life. From Britain’s perspective, the question should never be whether there will be X million or Y million jobs, but what or how much shall we produce, and what, in consequence, will be our standard of living. Quantity reduces our understanding of reality to line graphs, common among economists, that convey falsified over-simplifications. To demonstrate popular contemporary outcomes of this, see how in entertainment and cinema quantitative incentives encourage studios to release an abundance of mediocre material over something of meaning and depth.

2) Physical vs. Sedentary

The sedentary nature of the best-paying jobs is clearly a health hazard. Many people confront a situation whereby it’s essential for them to be in front of a computer for much of their lives. Besides the physical problems, it creates a fractured existence of disassociation between mind and body when performing tasks. Most people, therefore, no longer experience the satisfaction of work done in their immediate reality. The natural world supplies counters, context and balance to our thinking. In the largest sense, that balance is achieved by linking the ideal and real, conception and perception, mind and matter.

Downstream of this people run, cycle or lift weights in an attempt to stimulate/reharmonise their bodies and overcome claustrophobia. We have an innate sense for these things. In an age where it’s possible to outsource the need even to walk to collect food from a shop, the four day week allows us more time to engage in purposeful physical activity. Team sports or exploration or cultivating land are and will be, I believe, crucial for our sanity. People need time away from screens.

3) Prosperity vs. Growth

There’s a paradoxical lack of enthusiasm, positivity and meaning held by young people in highly developed societies of material abundance. It’s now obvious that uninhibited pleasure does not benefit organisms, that needing more to be satisfied less is addiction, that magnitude will contribute nothing to the soul and that there’s no technique in economics which enables us to forecast permutations of the spirit. The 'economic growth' vision for Britain is a dead end which, by denying that people have aspirations and needs beyond the accumulation of goods, offers nothing except neuroticism, anxiety, loneliness and apathy.

People have deep connections to many things beyond being an employee. When this is ignored, it’s demoralising. It’s always been integral to the destinies of cultures and religions that people create, share and produce things that are their own. Furthermore, societies naturally unite under common causes and share understanding as a vehicle for the promulgation of ideals. When true to these ideals, and by protecting them, they survive and prosper. The growth mindset has moved us from a state of having prosperity to one of appearing prosperous - where representation is preferred to reality. Here, deception is required to maintain the illusion of 'growth' whereas prosperity speaks for itself.

4) Nature vs. Mechanisation

As our means of sustaining the population has surpassed organic constraints there’s been many undesirable and unanticipated consequences. Electronic machines required for this sustenance are a major force acting upon us. Formerly, we had direct knowledge of the limited range of things that concerned us. Now, we live amidst a bombardment of information and images. Furthermore, everything is becoming mechanised, including ourselves, into indistinct masses. Technology, if it’s to work for us, has to serve an agenda of revivalism instead of subordination. Britain should aim both to devolve away from technology but also to intensify how it works for us.

The only thing we can trust is the felt presence of immediate experience, and this begins with the natural world. In this respect, we’d do well to anchor organic perennial value considerations alongside technological acceleration. I believe we need more moments to observe once again, instead of following patterns. Nature benignly gives to all enough, denies to all a superfluity. The meaning we’ve lost from simple activities, like collecting fire wood or existing by the cycles of the day, hasn’t been recovered since mass mechanisation.

5) Fulfilment vs. Unfulfilment

In a primitive community or among pioneers pre-division of labour, one works solely for themselves and their family. What is consumed is identical to what is produced. There’s a deep and immediate connection between output and satisfaction. In 2024, we’re at the extreme end of this ceasing to exist. At the expense of initiative, professional formation now tends to teach the execution of certain movements always in the same way, without having to understand the reason or the result. True liberty consists in finding out, or being forced to find out, the right path and to walk it. Personality, furthermore, is formed through such tensions and conflicts.

Fulfilment begins by being honest with ourselves and fixing root causes of issues rather than the symptoms. Our existence is conditioned by our environment, so it needs to be cultivated instead of degraded. Life, it seems, has lost endeavour precisely because we laboured like demons to make sure that it no longer needed any. Modernity has thus become anti-creativity - we spend too much time watching the clock as living becomes an extension of the production line. We betray the experiences and fulfilment achieved through natural processes more aligned with a fourdayweek-like perspective.

6) Long termism vs. Short termism

Everyone my age who wants to own a home and have a family has been presented with a corrupted future. This needs to be corrected for the existential reality of the country. The priority placed on economic principles has totally imbalanced the natural procession of society and, subsequently, the lifestyle and security of previous generations no longer exists. The short-termist model provides no incentive to work hard because there’s no future to work towards. The long-termist model allows us to evolve consciously by reconnecting with our work, finding purpose in it and thinking about why it’s useful. The four day week is a much needed pressure release valve for this suffocation of vitality.

At this point, ignoring the future of work is at least as risky as continued compliance with the status quo. Given the four day week is now possible, this would allow us to step over the growth model and prioritise long-term sustainability, prosperity and societal health. It’s an intuitively simple way to establish a fresh and fear-averse mindset. A three day weekend also allows adults to more easily supplement or rectify their education, aim their capabilities in a considered manner and more easily curate a vision for the future by overcoming chronic inability and fatigue.

7) Local vs. Global

The ethos of locality, its materials and landscapes, is valued because something of ourselves has been put into our work. Nothing has protected small businesses and local produce from the onslaught of big business. Cheap global goods have undercut British skill, craftsmanship and traditional knowledge. People will always desire and value goods of artisanal quality over something mass produced because meaning and history is embedded within it. There is spiritual value in this – encouraging it develops a positive mindset, imbues things with character and makes a place somewhere people want to be. Britain needs to retain a global value creation mindset but must retain local habits, traditional values and societal stability.

Furthermore, whereas before one’s reality amounted to what was immediately experienced, similarly one’s work was what was immediately achieved. A tremendous imbalance has arisen whereby for most of us our attention and disposition extends to the world every second, yet we rarely see or experience the result of what we do. Similarly, our capacity for communication and influence extends to infinity. While eliminating geographical distance our civilisation has managed to produce a new internal distance. Moreover, being constantly hardwired into global infrastructure is exhausting. To reprioritise tangible reality, more time 'unplugged' could support local business and encourage the development of local projects which re-establish an organic feel to British communities.

8) Real wealth vs. Nominal wealth

Civilisation began when we learnt to appreciate the value of a fixed abode for ourselves and our family, attached to soil that was cultivated and made better while fostering the sense of individual property. Our responsibility is to rediscover what’s important and what has meaning. Our vitality, social cohesion and inner rhythm is vastly more important than GDP and the sacrifices made in its name. Britain needs to build things, develop and invest in its people. We should begin creating a legacy once again and forging a positive vision for future generations while cherishing all that we’ve inherited.

Even though it’s of course desirable to have a high nominal salary, it amounts to little in the grand scheme of things if one neglects more important things like honour, kinship and a future. It’s possible to have a long, prosperous life without desiring or believing relevant anything material. Richness in community and family is also wealth. Abundance is nothing without a sense of duty, loyalty and purpose. The four day week will help reprioritise time and fundamental human net-positives in a culture hooked on abstract conceptions of work.

9) Prioritising what matters vs. Prioritising what we’re told matters

As women have entered the workforce, traditional formulations of family have been all but eradicated. Subsequently, the onus has fallen on each of us individually to dedicate time towards responsibilities such as bills or logistics which previously would have been shared in a family unit. It’s not only population density, inflation and low wages that make it difficult to have a family, dually employed couples have massively reduced capacity to look after children. This will continue to have profound secondary affects for society if this is not addressed. It may prove to be the largest part of the system’s cost.

We are so trained, both by language, formal teaching and resulting convenience, to express our thoughts in terms of materialistic analysis. People also seem content to describe as pleasures, for want of any better, mediocre distractions. In reality, we don’t need better goods or distractions but deserve space. The model for most of history has seen the male provide and the female rear – it’s not difficult to see what kind of impact the recent development of both sexes working has on the prospects of family life. From the perspective of 'the couple' or 'the family' we need some time back which, let’s say, has been accrued by the economy.

10) Innovation vs. Rent-seeking

Value creation originates from inspired moments in favourable societal circumstances. Yet, we’re pre-occupied with work that increasingly produces no real wealth. This society gives a distinct lack of priority to its engineering-design analytical capability. Instead of squeezing the residual value out of everything made in the past, people need space to build and produce anew. A four day week not only allows people to come back to work with a fresh perspective and mindset, but allows people time to innovate and work on personal projects alongside being a responsible and dedicated employee.

Hectic rush and hyperattention produces nothing new but instead creates pseudoneeds. We’ve not had the time to reassess the implications of the old structure of working with our new interconnected digital tools. Discipline and excellence are best when they come from our own desires, not from repression. Technology must be utilised as an innovation tool and not an addictive rent-seeking machine. The latter feeds off people being stressed and anxious, living overcomplicated consumerist lives – the polar opposite of what we should want or need.

...so what?

Compare the two visions and ask which world you’d want to live in...

A world of quality, that is physical, prosperous, natural, fulfilled, is oriented long-term, locally and with real wealth that prioritises family and relationships while retaining access to all the innovations and tools which we should continue to innovate with and enjoy

Or...

A world that is quantitative, sedentary, falsely chasing growth, mechanistic, unfulfilled, short-termist, global, with nominal wealth and materialistic in a society that prioritises rent-seeking.

If something is better and possible, I advocate that people should try to achieve it if they can. No one does less work, the whole point is that they do more. People will become more involved in their work and their productivity will increase when we step over the outdated five day working week model. This switch, furthermore, will build foundations on trust, accountability and real relationships instead of schedules, formulaic interactivity and data.

The irony, and greatest counter to those opposed to the four day week, is that nothing contained in the first vision prevents prosperity or the supposedly sacred 'growth' from being maximised. Growth is only beneficial insofar as it serves the organic needs of society. All it requires is a long-termist shift in mindset away from quantity towards quality, which offers a more desirable and sustainable vision for Britain.

The reality is that we do actually have a choice. It will be necessary, however, to approach things with more nuance, flexibility and intelligence. No one said it would be easy, but nothing worth having is. Time is an interesting thing and not well dealt with. Once we’ve realised what’s important and what’s worth incentivising for our future prosperity - achievement is possible by a people assured of their journey, who embody a spirit beyond debilitating mindsets and rational idea systems.

The period of difficulty we currently live through will prove itself to be incredibly useful only when we’re able to admit our mistakes, learn from them and pivot away in a considered manner. The four day week represents the beginning of some much-needed wider alignments towards more natural and organic mental frameworks and ways of living.

Labour will always be sacred - this should not represent a path to being idle or doing less. We must learn to develop a healthier relationship with excess freedom as technology accelerates. It’s about consciously taking control rather than being at the mercy of external forces, allowing ourselves to initiate change and rejuvenate in the process, not to always be playing catch up.

Frankly, it’s deeply concerning watching my future be corrupted by an irresponsible, confused and stagnant status quo. We should strive to create a positive legacy that includes the achievement of a four day week. This is a tangible solution to actual problems. It’s time to take stock, set some boundaries and adjust our collective attitude and practice in real-time.

Just because we spend more time doing something, doesn’t mean it’s better.