Vacations, shopping sprees, and work life. (Humanistic Economics).

George W. Bush has suggested that taking vacation trips is almost a patriotic duty. They would reaffirm our confidence in travel and stimulate more demands for goods and services. Unfortunately, vacations are a scarce commodity for most people in the United States--and will remain so unless we alter national policies and priorities.

Before September 11, 2001, nothing President Bush did seemed to receive as much attention as his vacation plans. As soon as he announced his decision to take a month in Crawford, Texas, the Washington Post began calculating just how much of the Bush presidency was being consumed by vacations. The approach became almost Jesuitical. Did weekends count? And weren't these vacations really working vacations since Bush would devote time to national security briefings? Even the White House press spokespeople couldn't get their stories straight. They emphasized the working nature of the president's vacations but also insisted on his right to time for himself, his family, and his cows.

The public apparently agreed with those who advocated time with the cows. A Washington Post poll last summer suggested that 62 percent of the population believed the president was working hard enough, though Democrats and poorer Americans were less inclined to cut him slack.

Unfortunately, the major media paid less attention to another story: the United States is now the hardest working industrial democracy in the world. The International Labor Organization reported that the United States has edged out even Japan. Our vacations are shorter, and many people no longer take even the vacations to which they are entitled. As the economy weakens, vacation time is unlikely to grow. Laid off workers won't have the cash and vital employees may find themselves forced to work just as hard or even harder.

Such laments are generally brushed off with two related and problematic rejoinders: first, hard work sustains our jobs and our competitiveness; second, regulation isn't necessary. People want an ever-increasing number of material goods and willingly work hard to earn them.

Without much argument or evidence, the business press now flatly asserts that, because Western European labor markets are more heavily regulated, they experience higher levels of unemployment and slower growth. Yet this argument doesn't withstand scrutiny. Within the European community itself, nations with high rates of unionization, progressive taxation, and many mandated benefits--such as Sweden and Italy--also have had lower unemployment rates over the past decade than more free-wheeling Spain. In addition, labor markets in Europe were even more restrictive in the 1960s and 1970s, but their rates of unemployment were generally less than the United States' during that time frame.

France provides a good current case study. Four years ago a center/left coalition mandated a reduction in the standard workweek from thirty-nine to thirty-five hours with no cuts in pay. The business press predicted immediate loss of foreign investment and jobs. Yet in the last four years, unemployment has fallen from about 12.5 percent to 8.5 percent. French economists attribute only part of this decline to the new jobs that hours reduction created, but it is hard to argue that these regulations necessarily kill jobs. Other studies place France right at the top in terms of worker productivity per hour.

It is also ironic that U.S. education and business leaders embrace longer hours just at a time when even Japan has growing doubts about its hours. Some of Japan's business and educational leaders now concede that workaholism is not merely a psychological problem but a barrier to innovation. Japanese production line workers may be more facile in using math than in redesigning existing products or national economic priorities. Many Japanese leaders now worry that these workers spend so much of their lives in narrow cognitive tasks that they are unlikely to be broadly creative.

Do people in the United States really want to work this hard? Both law and corporate practice give most U.S. workers little choice. For many, the only alternative to long hour jobs with mandatory overtime is part-time work with no benefits and low wages. Even when overtime isn't mandated, the cyclical nature of our economy leads many to maximize their hours when times are good.

Boston College economist Juliet Schor points out that workplaces help shape lifestyle choices in other ways as well. Keeping up with the Joneses has always been more American than apple pie. In the 1950s and 1960s, it may have occasioned the kind of bland and oppressive conformity symbolized by Levittown, but at least neighbors rather than bosses or bureaucrats set the standards. In neighborhoods where income ranges were relatively small, many could meet the standards.

The role of the neighborhood in our lives today is much less substantial. The Joneses with whom Mom and Dad hope to keep up are supervisors at work. In the modern workplace, the power and income spread has reached unprecedented levels. Keeping up at work now requires endless new consumption. Even as some of us gradually gain more, those above us do also--thereby raising the bar. More than a quarter of those earning over $100,000 report that they would need very large increases in income just to meet their "needs." Schor has demonstrated--through studies of purchasing patterns for such highly visible consumer goods as cosmetics and branded clothing, and through consumer surveys--that much consumer spending is designed for positioning ourselves in this increasingly stratified and competitive universe.

These trends have had an impact even on the time we spend away from work. Vacations themselves become increasingly associated with consumer spending. A recent feature in the New York Times pointed out:

   Vacationers have always shopped, of course, picking up mementos wherever
   they stayed. But now, shopping, once a byproduct of travel, has moved to
   the top of vacation agendas, competing with and sometimes superseding,
   museumgoing, theater and sports.

As private shopping takes on such importance and as the economic distance between rich and poor grows, many people come to see no other solution to their problems besides individual purchases. They spend money on health clubs or secluded island getaways and lose any commitment to public spending for parks and recreational amenities. As these in turn decline, the need for private escapes increases all the more. And as our asphalted urban areas become heat islands, air-conditioned private malls assume the role of the new shaded village commons.

Yet, however overwhelming these trends may seem, they leave gaps and occasion doubts for many of us. The loss of vacations--not merely as time for shopping but as time off for family, leisure, and recreational activities--is a sensitive subject. Nonetheless, making vacations an option for all will require more than speculation about presidential vacations.

Laws that extend to workers a fair opportunity to unionize, that mandate adequate wage and hour standards, and cushion workers against unemployment and arbitrary dismissal have implications that extend beyond economics. Reducing the massive inequalities in reward and providing more stability in jobs and wages can lessen the need for endless work.

In addition, reducing the disparities in wealth and power between frontline workers and top-level management is a cultural as well as economic priority. It wouldn't by itself end all forms of emulative consumption but it would create better conditions for less defensive discussions of the roots and consequences of our culture of materialism. When workers enjoy more equitable pay, more input in day-to-day affairs, a voice in the selection of their own supervisors, and more control over their own time, their performance improves. In addition, criteria for advancement might be more related to ability to perform and work with others than to one's choice of power suits or Rolex watches. The chance to choose time off for vacations might then be seen as part of the good life rather than as an occasion for fascination or envy.

John Buell lives in Southwest Harbor, Maine, and writes regularly on labor and environmental issues. He is coauthor, with Etta Kralovec, of The End of Homework: How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning (Beacon Press, 2000). He invites comments at [e-mail].