You may not know who Mr. Smith is, despite the fact that I've written about him a few times. He's one of Rupert Murdoch's more reliable stooge scribes in the New York Post. No matter how dishonest an idea or story may be, if there's a right-wing angle that can be gleaned from it, you can always count on Kyle to find it, twist it, and lie about it.
Despite that fact, there are (as is often the case with conservative drivel) unrevealing things about what comes out of the right-wing noise factory. Such is the case with one of Mr. Smith's more recent columns, in which he expresses all sorts of faux-rage about the prospect of Swedish workers having shorter work weeks.
As if shorter work weeks, translating into more leisure time, wouldn't pay for themselves by stimulating not only the obvious economic sectors (e.g., travel) but even some of the less obvious ones (bookstores, as people have more time and money to read).
Or, to deal more specifically with Mr. Smith's "thoughts" on the subject, as if people in this country are working 100-hour weeks out of a conviction that it will put them on Easy Street, as opposed to a conviction that it's the only way to avoid living in the gutter.
I suspect that what really animates Mr. Smith's "logic" is the real way in which class envy works. Most wealthy people need their wealth not simply to maintain a lifestyle or follow a dream, but simply to feel a superiority to the rest of society that they haven't earned. And, when society tries to adjust the relationship between toil and reward for the majority, the undeserving minority is filled with irrational hatred and envy.
Write a column about that, Mr. Smith. It might actually be worth reading; G-d knows Mr. Murdoch could educate you on the subject of the undeserving rich. But, of course, that wouldn't benefit him. So don't worry; I'm not holding my breath.
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