The only country that has a statistically significant # of people working consistently over 40 hours a week, are in the US. These people eventually work themselves to an early grave, and often end up costing society a lot in the form of requiring expensive healthcare because of their unhealthy lifestyle.
This slippery slope goes both ways. I'll run down both slopes just as a thought exercise:
If we give you the freedom of choice to work yourself to death, then efficiency goes way down. proof? Well, let's look at the US, where minimum wage is dirt cheap and between immigrants sending money home and the simple fact that people can't make ends meet without working more than 40 hours (bad social security), it actually happens a lot. This part of the US job market is markedly less healthy than for example europe. It's simply inefficient: These conditions are causing rampant crime (SEE: factor 100, not exaggerating, higher incarceration rates, which is also due to drug policy, but bad social security and crappy entry-level job market isn't helping surely), and crime is actually more expensive. It costs society the same amount of money to throw 5 people of a 100 in jail and have the remaining 95 work like dogs, then it is to give all 100 a better education and a better social security safety net, and have 95 work normal hours and have 5 on paid low-level subsistence.
In the end, either (A) society gets to decide how much you get to work, or (B) if you are so poor that it costs society more to let you live (due to either having to incarcerate you, or paying for your acute hernia due to overworking yourself or collapsed lung because you hit a tree due to exhaustion), society takes out a gun and shoots you.
So, unless we're all willing to take the moral stance that society is justified in killing anybody that doesn't clearly prove that they are a net positive contribution to society, then 'individual freedom of choice' is a pipe dream in this aspect, and more liberal, in the sense that you're intentionally letting society pay for an individual's poor health choice.
And going down the other slope: If society gets to dictate how you should live because it ends up having to pay the bills if you live badly, then society gets to ban pork, cigarettes, alcohol, driving of any sort, all housing will be built strictly to exact code and nothing else, the state will take care of your finances, etc, etc. extreme communism.
Let's just go with: socio-economic models are a heck of a lot more complicated, and extremist positions such as 'always just let everyone do whatever, no laws!' are usually deplorably wrong or misguided. There are no easy answers.
NB: Note that few to no countries make it illegal to work over the established normal working week hours. However, they DO declare that this construes overtime and adds economic disincentives. For example, overtime is taxed more heavily, or the state sets a higher minimum wage for overtime hours, etc.
The only country that has a statistically significant # of people working consistently over 40 hours a week, are in the US. These people eventually work themselves to an early grave, and often end up costing society a lot in the form of requiring expensive healthcare because of their unhealthy lifestyle.
This slippery slope goes both ways. I'll run down both slopes just as a thought exercise:
If we give you the freedom of choice to work yourself to death, then efficiency goes way down. proof? Well, let's look at the US, where minimum wage is dirt cheap and between immigrants sending money home and the simple fact that people can't make ends meet without working more than 40 hours (bad social security), it actually happens a lot. This part of the US job market is markedly less healthy than for example europe. It's simply inefficient: These conditions are causing rampant crime (SEE: factor 100, not exaggerating, higher incarceration rates, which is also due to drug policy, but bad social security and crappy entry-level job market isn't helping surely), and crime is actually more expensive. It costs society the same amount of money to throw 5 people of a 100 in jail and have the remaining 95 work like dogs, then it is to give all 100 a better education and a better social security safety net, and have 95 work normal hours and have 5 on paid low-level subsistence.
In the end, either (A) society gets to decide how much you get to work, or (B) if you are so poor that it costs society more to let you live (due to either having to incarcerate you, or paying for your acute hernia due to overworking yourself or collapsed lung because you hit a tree due to exhaustion), society takes out a gun and shoots you.
So, unless we're all willing to take the moral stance that society is justified in killing anybody that doesn't clearly prove that they are a net positive contribution to society, then 'individual freedom of choice' is a pipe dream in this aspect, and more liberal, in the sense that you're intentionally letting society pay for an individual's poor health choice.
And going down the other slope: If society gets to dictate how you should live because it ends up having to pay the bills if you live badly, then society gets to ban pork, cigarettes, alcohol, driving of any sort, all housing will be built strictly to exact code and nothing else, the state will take care of your finances, etc, etc. extreme communism.
Let's just go with: socio-economic models are a heck of a lot more complicated, and extremist positions such as 'always just let everyone do whatever, no laws!' are usually deplorably wrong or misguided. There are no easy answers.
NB: Note that few to no countries make it illegal to work over the established normal working week hours. However, they DO declare that this construes overtime and adds economic disincentives. For example, overtime is taxed more heavily, or the state sets a higher minimum wage for overtime hours, etc.