I am also not describing a scenario where we limit hours. While I do have ideas on solutions, I am not even proscribing a particular solution. As I said, we must first agree that we are capable of changing things. Some want to imagine everything is as it is due to unchanging natural laws, when in fact individuals and collectives made a lot of decisions along the way. I suggest we question those decisions and imagine how things would be different.
One thing I can be extremely clear on is that I do NOT think the US government legally limiting work hours is any kind of solution. I am all about looking at society as a whole and reasoning on society-wide changes we can make voluntarily to achieve a better world.
Personally, I don't think that "solution" is as obscure as it is made out to be. This problem isn't new and has been studied for years. When a worker feels forced to work such arduous hours (as opposed to someone in finance or tech who puts the extra hours to get ahead), in a fair system, I assume one would ask "why didn't he just find a new job". The answer I come to is he can't - the threat of poverty is far to great in the US to even think about the uncertainty of leaving your current job, especially if you are living paycheck to paycheck. If you fix this problem then I believe most labor abuse would go away. I don't think it involves some sort of "reimagining" of novel solutions. Furthermore I think solutions involving overtime laws are just band-aids.
Unfortunately any kind of solution that tries to address the market side effects of labor will die in the US by the socialism boogeyman
Too bad you are being down voted and being misunderstood. I fully agree with you that in this day given our over all productivity, humans should be able to, in theory able to design systems to minimize work without co-coercion. But as you partially correctly observed, typical human nature ( ranging from bureaucratic govts, to seeing survival as a zero sum game ) is a hindrance to achieving this goal. Where I completely disagree is that you will completely not change people's mind en masse even if you showed them a working example, so in a manner speaking any strategizing that one does is moot.
One thing I can be extremely clear on is that I do NOT think the US government legally limiting work hours is any kind of solution. I am all about looking at society as a whole and reasoning on society-wide changes we can make voluntarily to achieve a better world.