Holidays for serfs

Why Russians work a lot, but do not earn anything

Every time the Russians go on the New Year holidays, the bosses love to speculate that it would be nice for people to work more. In fact, we work a lot, but we earn a little.

Contrary to the idea of ​​the Russians as amateurs of recreation and holidays, we work a lot. Even very - 1972 hours a year. More than in Russia, they work hard only in Mexico (2148 hours), Costa -Rick (2121 hours), South Korea (1993 hours). And even the Americans, in terms of the “clock”, work in the year 1786 hours - for 3 “workers' weeks” less than Russians. On average, the duration of the working year in countries included in the organization of economic cooperation and development (OECD) is 1734 hours.

I must say that in the Soviet Union, also worked a lot, in any case, more than now. At first, an “eight -hour working day” was attached to six working days a week. And only in 1956, by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the duration of the working day of workers and employees on the pre -industrial and pre -holiday days was reduced by 2 hours. Thus, the working week was 46 hours. And in March 1967, the Decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR introduced a five -day working week with two days off. “They gave these women two days off, so they went crazy. They kill time as it hit. Instead of relaxing ... ”, the character of the monologue Mikhail Zhvanetsky“ in the Greek Hall ”was indignant.

Indeed, the problem of free time was not easy to solve. In theory, promotion to communism was to be accompanied by a reduction in labor efforts, especially since Karl Marx attributed the phrase "the wealth of society is determined by the amount of free time in its citizens." In fact, the founder did not speak so, the thought of Marx was more complicated. He really called the free time of the individual - the measure of his wealth, but made an important addition “Real wealth,” wrote Marx, “a time that is not absorbed directly by productive labor, but remains free for pleasures, for leisure, as a result of which the expanse for free activity and development will open. Time is a scope for the development of abilities. ”

That is,

The one who has a maximum of free time can be considered rich, but in what way of this wealth it is possible to achieve is an open question.

From the thought of Marx, we can conclude that free time should be directed to “development of abilities”, and gaining new skills, which in turn will allow you to claim to increase your value in the labor market. In essence, all kinds of business trainers, online businesses, information entrepreneurs, and other experts on social climbinism explain the same. Do not waste time, they say, instead of lying on the couch, reading some telegram channel “Money and Arctic fox”, it is better to buy a training course from us, pumping your skills, went out of the resume and get a dream work! Such that will bring you wealth, that is, even more free time that you will spend on improving your skills and increasing personal performance.

I must upset you, all this works, but not so. According to the calculations of Russian headhanting experts, more than half of the “junior specialists” do not have enough time for personal life - all their free time eats work. Maybe the lack of personal life is compensated by professional successes? It doesn't look like. The same work does not give time for "professional self -development" about half of the potential careerists. They spin like proteins in a wheel - and that’s it.

Further it will be worse, the World Bank suggests that evaluated the profitability of investment in education in Russia. The “Return to Education” parameter refers to the dependence between the number of years of training and earnings: an individual return on education means an increase in earnings for each additional year of education. In Russia, “personal background from education” grew in the 1990s, reaching the peak by the beginning of the 2000s-more than 9%, and since then it has been steadily reduced-to 5.4% in 2018, this is almost half as lower than the average ID.

In other words, you can learn or not learn - your business - but you can’t deceive the economy. The increase in salary in the Russian Federation is guaranteed not “the amount of knowledge” and not “labor exploits”, but some other qualities. And this despite the fact that the population of Russia as a whole is highly formed: only 14%of adults have education, the rest are approximately divided into professional (45%), and higher (41%) education. But “on average” the growth of the educational level of the individual does not increase the salary poorly. So the matter is not about knowledge?

Maybe you need to increase the volume of labor efforts, forgetting about Marx with its free time? Half a century ago, sociologists from Stanford University reported that they seemed to have found evidence of the saying “Patience and Labor will grind everything”. The study was what - the children were offered a choice - to get a cake now or two cakes in fifteen minutes. And then the researchers monitored the achievements of the experimental participants for many years. It turned out that those who were ready to abandon the remuneration “now”, for the sake of increasing “in the future,” turned out to be more successful in life. The best university, best marriage, the best career. Everything is better than the one who wanted to get one cake, but immediately.

The conclusion is obvious - "you can’t easily pull out a fish from the pond."

And three years ago, the same scientists from Stanford said that they established the real cause of the life of the “patient children”.

Everyone who was ready to wait for the sake of doubling the future result, were immigrants from wealthy families.

They could not be surprised with sweets, think, a cake. But the poor children grabbed the treat right away. Since they thought that there might not be another chance.

Everything is correct, explained Professor Yuri Ammosov, the first to tell Russian readers both of these stories at the same time. Both children acted rationally. It’s just that the “price of time” is different in the poor and the rich. The poor cannot afford to wait for the future.

Therefore, talking about the need to work, study, work and hope that your professional achievements will be recognized - do not make sense. If the top of society is interested in the growth of your well -being, you will get rich, even working 29 hours a week, as in the Netherlands. If not, work at least sixteen hours a day - there will be no result. As the second part of the proverb about labor and fish says, "without a pond - you will not pull the fish and with difficulty."

And we actually work not only a lot, but also not bad.

According to the World Bank, 20% of the wealth of Russia falls on natural capital, 33% - for produced, 1% - on net foreign assets, the maximum share, 46% - for human capital. He also ensured the maximum contribution to the increase in the volume of wealth per capita for 2000–2017: 47% (while natural capital - 15.5%.) The total wealth over this period increased by 73% to 1306000 billion rubles. (in constant prices of 2017).

That is, the wealth of Russia has grown not so much by oil as with your labor. But how it happened that you did not get the fruits of your work - you better talk about this with your employers.