Take Back Your Time - Fighting Overwork and Time Poverty in America

Zusatztext “Take Back Your Time is a call to action for all of US who believe that the aim of a society is to benefit its people! not to maximize profits.” --John Sweeney! President! AFL-CIO “This book is not about time! really; it's about power. It's about realizing our own power to be in control! not slaves to inexorable economic forces. Read this book and take a long deep sigh of relief.” --Frances Moore Lappe! author of Hope's Edge and Diet for a Small Planet “Take Back Your Time documents how Americans hurried! harried lifestyles use more natural resources! generate more waste! and leave less time to care for the Earth we all share. The world and its inhabitants would breathe easier indeed if we were to slow our breathless pace.” –-Gaylord Nelson! Earth Day founder! former U.S. Sen and author of Beyond Earth Day: Fulfilling the Promise “…makes a compelling case for the direct relationship between overwork and a host of critical social problems from physical and emotional stress to overconsumption of resources! environmental degradation and declining levels of civic participation. A tour de force!” --Al Gedicks! Professor of Sociology! University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Informationen zum Autor John de Graaf is an independent producer of award-winning television documentaries, including Affluenza and Escape from Affluenza, and is the national coordinator of Take Back Your Time Day. Klappentext Forget oil or gold time is the most precious commodity in America today. Americans have less free time than anyone else in the industrialized world. In fact! modern Americans work longer hours than medieval peasants Here! well known experts and writers explore the effects of overwork! over-scheduling! time pressure and stress on our health! relationships! children! the environment! and more. These renowned authors come together to support a national movement to Take Back Your Time! and they propose personal corporate! and legislative solutions. Take Back Your Time is the official handbook of the national movement behind Take Back Your Time Day. Ultimately! lake Back Your Time Day organizers plan to institute public policies that put work in its rightful place and allow us all to live richer! fuller! more well-rounded lives. Introduction JOHN DE GRAAF In this book, you’ll find a wide range of perspectives regarding time poverty and begin to see the connections between all of them. Frances Moore Lappé pointed out to me the critically important observation by farmer and environmental writer, Wendell Berry, that in the United States, we too often solve problems issue by issue when it would be more effective to solve them by “pattern.” What is it about the pattern of our lives that exacerbates so many of our social and environmental problems? This book suggests that a key aspect of our pattern problem comes from an unconscious choice we’ve made as a nation since World War II. Without thinking about it, Americans have taken all their productivity gains in the form of more money—more stuff, if you will—and none of them in the form of more time. Simply put, we as a society have chosen money over time, and this unconscious value pattern has had a powerful and less than beneficial impact on the quality of our collective lives. True, we didn’t all get the money; in fact, the poorest among us actually earn fewer real dollars than they did a generation ago. Our most significant financial gains went to the richest 20 percent of Americans. Nevertheless, as a whole society we now have much more stuff and considerably less time than we used to. 2 That’s the pattern, and this book shows that the consequences have been and continue to be troubling. The argument here is that if we begin to change the pattern in favor of more time rather than more stuff, a host of other beneficial changes in...

Sommario

Preface
Introduction

Part One: Overwork in America
1 The Even More) Overworked American, Juliet Schor
2 An Issue for Everybody, Barbara Brandt
3 The Incredible Shrinking Vacation, Joe Robinson
4 Forced Overtime in the Land of the Free, Lonnie Golden

Part Two: Time is a Family Value
5 Overscheduled Kids, Underconnected Families, William Doherty and Barbara Carlson
6 Recapturing Childhood, Betsy Taylor
7 What about Fluffy and Fido?, Camilla H. Fox

Part Three: The Cost to Civil Society,
8 Wasted Work, Wasted Time, Jonathan Rowe
9 Time to be a Citizen, Paul Loeb
10 Time and Crime, Charles Reasons

Part Four: Health Hazard
11 An Hour a Day Could Keep the Doctor Away, Suzanne Schweiker
12 The (Bigger) Picture of Health, Stephen Bezruchka

Part Five: Environmental Consequences
13 Haste Makes Waste, David Wann
14 The Speed Trap, Robert Bernstein
15 On Time, Happiness, and Ecological Footprints, Tim Kasser and Kirk Warren Brown

Part Six: Historical and Cultural Perspectives
16 When We Had the Time, Benjamin Hunnicutt
17 Can America Learn from Shabbat?, Rabbi Arthur Waskow

Part Seven: Taking Back Your Time
18 Enough--the Time Cost of Stuff, Vicki Robin
19 The Simple Solution, Cece Andrews

Part Eight: Workplace Solutions
20 Jobs to Share, Carol Ostrom
21 A New Bottom Line, Irene Myers, Larry Gaffin, and Barbara Schramm
22 Working Retired, Beverly Goldberg
23 A Case for Sabbaticals, Bob Sessions and Lori Erickson
24 America Needs a Break, Karen Nussbaum, Christine Owens, and Carol Eickert
25 It Would be Good for Business Too, Sharon Lobel

Part Nine: Rethinking Patterns of Culture
26 Recipes for Relief, Anna Lappe
27 Time by Design, Linda Breen Pierce

Part Ten: Changing Public Policy
28 Europe's Work-Time Alternatives, Anders Hayden
29 A Policy Agenda for Taking Back Time, Jerome Segal
30 What's an Economy For?, David Korten
Appendices
A. Organizing Take Back Your Time Day in Your Community, Sean Sheehan
B. Teach-Ins and Study Circles, Cecile Andrews
C. How to Pitch (not Place) a Story, Eric Brown
References
About the Authors
Art Credits

Relazione

Take Back Your Time is a call to action for all of US who believe that the aim of a society is to benefit its people, not to maximize profits.
--John Sweeney, President, AFL-CIO

This book is not about time, really; it's about power. It's about realizing our own power to be in control, not slaves to inexorable economic forces. Read this book and take a long deep sigh of relief.
--Frances Moore Lappe, author of Hope's Edge and Diet for a Small Planet

Take Back Your Time documents how Americans hurried, harried lifestyles use more natural resources, generate more waste, and leave less time to care for the Earth we all share. The world and its inhabitants would breathe easier indeed if we were to slow our breathless pace.
-Gaylord Nelson, Earth Day founder, former U.S. Sen and author of Beyond Earth Day: Fulfilling the Promise

makes a compelling case for the direct relationship between overwork and a host of critical social problems from physical and emotional stress to overconsumption of resources, environmental degradation and declining levels of civic participation. A tour de force!
--Al Gedicks, Professor of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse

Dettagli sul prodotto

• Autori: John De Graaf, John de Graaf
• Con la collaborazione di: John De Graaf (Editore), John DeGraaf (Editore)
• Editore: Berrett Koehler Publishers
• Lingue: Inglese
• Formato: Tascabile
• Pubblicazione: 31.08.2003
• EAN: 9781576752456
• ISBN: 978-1-57675-245-6
• Pagine: 288
• Dimensioni: 152 mm x 229 mm x 18 mm
• Categorie: Guide e manuali > Diritto, professione, finanze; Scienze sociali, diritto, economia > Sociologia > Sociologia del lavoro, dell'economia e dell'industria; Zeitmanagement, Zeiteinteilung, Beschäftigung (ökonomisch), Freizeit