"Time is money." This phrase is used so frequently that it has become a cliché. Clichés like this one are so overused that they quickly become annoying. The worst part about this one, however, is that it is patently false. It may be possible, given the right circumstances, to exchange time for money. On its own though, time is far more valuable than money.
Time is flexible. Money is not. Time can be spent on any number of things, including love and friendship. Money cannot buy friends or love (another common cliché that contradicts the time cliché). Time can be spent on many things that money cannot. In addition, spending time can benefit both parties. Trading time for money always benefits the employer more that the employee (otherwise it would be unprofitable). Time can be spent on intangibles, like worship, while money cannot. In addition, anything worth spending money on requires time to benefit from. Even food takes time to eat. Time is an incredibly flexible resource. Money is an extremely limited resource. Time is, in a sense, more raw. It can be turned into money. It can also be turned into a huge array of other things that money cannot be turned into. Once time is turned into money, all of the other possibilities are lost. So, time is far more valuable than money.
Knowing this, why are we so willing to give up more of our time in exchange for money? Many Americans take work with them wherever they go, even when it is not a required part of the job. Spending part of vacation time working has become a very common practice. Even worse, those who do it the most are on salary, not hourly pay. They are not actually being paid any more for their extra work. Many people who become extremely rich through their "hard work" are trading time for money on a grand scale, and many of them are miserable or at least unhappy without the distractions of work. Consider the relationship between cash and gold. The value of gold typically rises at least as fast as inflation. The value of cash diminishes over time, due to inflation. Time is more flexible than even gold, but like gold, its value rises with inflation. Even as the value of money decreases, the value of time increases. This is not just a function of rising wages (which have actually risen slower than inflation over the past 60 years). As travel becomes easier and cheaper, as knowledge becomes more readily available, and as more activities become available, time becomes ever more flexible and thus valuable. Not only is time more valuable than money, its value is rising.
This begs an important question: When people go into fields where their work is very valuable, why do they put up with long hours at higher wages? I am a computer scientist. Entry level salary in this field pays around $65,000 a year. Some deluded companies expect 50 hours of work a week for this pay (there are plenty that will pay more for only 40 hours a week). This pay is enough for a family of 5 or more to live fairly comfortably in most places in the U.S.. In fact, my family of 7 could do perfectly fine on half that. That much money per year would be nice, but time is more valuable than money, even at that pay scale (in fact, it seems the higher the pay, the more valuable the time becomes, because less time is required to be traded to make enough money to be comfortable; also, more money opens up even more options for spending time). Instead of desiring additional pay for higher quality work, we should be desiring additional free time. If time is more valuable than money, then we should be willing to trade only as much time as is necessary to get enough money to be comfortable. We should not be willing to squander all of our valuable time in trade for more money than we will ever need. That is the definition of waste. Working more than is necessary is literally a waste of our valuable time.
The aggressive, and rather excessive, tax systems in most European countries has driven this point home. People who make too much money end up giving a majority of it to the government. Instead of raising wages, at a certain point, employers increase vacation time and reduce hours, because employees will not accept promotions that will ultimately not benefit them significantly. Those near the top of the pay scale (doctors, lawyers, and some tech industry) only work around 6 months out of the year, and sometimes even less. They get copious vacation time, and promotions for this class of workers generally involve little or no salary increase, but instead involve added weeks of paid vacation time. The time thing aside, this has some other pretty great economic benefits as well. Overall though, wealthy Europeans clearly see that time is more valuable than money, though it may have required oppressive taxes devaluing money to open their eyes.
A major peripheral benefit of valuing time more than money is economic. Employees who value time more than money will prefer reduced hours and increased vacation time to pay raises, once they earn enough to be comfortable. Reducing the amount of time employees work will ultimately increase the number of jobs available. A 30 hour work week would add one job for ever three full time employees. That is a 33% increase in the number of available jobs. A 20 hour work week (many workers in the medical, legal, and tech industries make enough to half their hours and pay and still be able to live better than a vast majority of Americans) would double the number of full time jobs. In addition to all of this, shorter work periods would not significantly reduce productivity in most jobs. Working eight hours a day, five days a week is quite tiring. Even just eight hours in a day is pretty tiring. After around five hours, productivity will drop significantly, as employees begin to experience fatigue. This may also result in increased incidents of mistakes and accidents, which can lead to negative productivity. Likewise, after three or four days in a row working eight hours, fatigue begins to set in and not just physical fatigue but also mental fatigue. This will further reduce productivity and increase potentially costly errors. Reducing hours (while maintaining total pay) of more productive employees will ultimately result in higher quality and more productive work. Added to all of this is morale. Morale has repeatedly proven to have a bigger impact on productivity and work quality than nearly anything else. Economically, valuing time more than money is both healthy and profitable. Not only is time more valuable than money, but treating time as more valuable can lead to higher profits and thus more money.
As our tax system is not as oppressive as that of most European nations, we cannot rely on it to force the truth down our throats. Businesses in the U.S. are not smart enough to recognize that increased free time is more valuable to them and their employees than pay raises, so we cannot rely on businesses to change. Our government is stuck on what was initially a temporary 40 hour work week, and it is unlikely to ever change that on its own, even though it is quickly becoming the only viable option for long term economic recovery. The only way companies will reduce time worked, instead of paying more money, is if the workers refuse anything less.
Most companies will not fire a person for refusing a promotion. Next time a promotion is offered, try negotiating for time instead of money*. It probably will not work the first few times, because business tradition in the U.S. does not recognize time as a negotiable commodity. You can either refuse the promotion outright if your boss will not negotiate time, or if the position really is one you want, attempting to negotiate time may at least increase the amount of raise that is offered. If enough people do this with many different employers, businesses will eventually start to take notice.
* Note that hourly employees should probably do the math for this to make sure that the requested time change will still earn enough money at whatever wage increase is settled upon.
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