What if Price tags shows Hours of Work instead of Money?

[savetheFORUM]

Imagine walking into a shop and you see a pair of shoe priced at 20 hours of work instead of a specific amount of money and a phone could cost 200 hours. Would you still spend your money the same way you do now?

Yes, I will spend my money instead spending time. The cost of the time won’t be similar for everyone. In my country a daily labour cost of time would probably be $1 per hour, but higher job holders or businessmen's time costs would be $10+ or more. So it won't be possible, at least in my country.

Even the production cost shows in time; besides that, there would be a price in fiat as well if the seller wanted to sell their product to all persons. Otherwise, only poor people that like daily labour or similar will spend their time to purchase these products.

OP said 'along with the normal price' though. There is some time allocated in order for us to accumulate such amount. Even if let say I work hard or work at longer hours in order to produce this xxxxxx.... amount, there are still instances that I am still willing to spend it in some item because it was my dream and they are my inspiration for grinding.

The question is only hypothetical or imaginary. So prices/time tag can vary from person to person.

This is not about the time of the production of the item but if that is, then I can't imagine the hours spend for most products. But as what is said above, it does not mean it will match their price. Not all people likes labour but many only do it to earn to live. After all, it was still the rich or those that work less time are the ones that can avail a product easily at most times.

[Unknown Op]

It is a good choice to make people more careful by paying for the working hours instead of the price it is going to help them understand  real effort behind every single purchase. But I think, as income levels are different for different people, are getting differently according to their level of jobs and skills so everyone is getting different amount for an hour it is a possibility that the same items which is the presenting to hours of work for one person and it might requires entire day of work for another person so the calculations is not based on the individual income but its general which is going to create problem. The calculation should be based on individual income it is going to encourage people to make a difference between what they actually want and what they need instead of buying thing because they have money and they can afford it. Just giving them awareness alone is not going to solve all the problem because there are people who buy things to impress other. Main benefit is helping people realise that they are not only spending money but also spending their time and energy to earn and purchase anything.

[crwth]

If we look at it hourly, you can see how much it would "cost" per hour. Then you'd know the opportunity cost because you would be thinking, "What else can I do with that time?"

It's a different behavioral approach to seeing "$50" and "5 hours of labor" as the same thing.

That's going to be dependent on your attitude, IMO.

[Soulistic]

Honestly, I don’t think this will bring about any real change; after all, if a person is truly concerned about the value of their time, they will naturally stop wasting it on trivial things. Unfortunately, easily accessible pleasures are the first choice for the majority today. I believe the fundamental relationship between pleasure and consumption needs to be transformed; otherwise, people won’t pay any attention to the numbers—whether those numbers represent a price or a duration of time.

[M47AK16]

Imagine walking into a shop and you see a pair of shoe priced at 20 hours of work instead of a specific amount of money and a phone could cost 200 hours. Would you still spend your money the same way you do now?

Nope, someone's time can be the same with the others but how valuable it is differs. Just like for someone who needs to work at least 20 hours to pay for that shoes while the others can work on it 5 hours and less.

So, we see how valuable time is in producing money or with the jobs that we can do. There's a movie about this and that's the "In Time" of Justin Timberlake.

Although this is the reality of the different wages hourly rates of each country, someone in the other side of the world only takes a couple of days of work to purchase iPhone. But on the other it will cost them 50 and more days of labor.

Also, we do not make the same money all the time to make that doesn't make any sense. Sure if you are someone who has a salary, then you could potentially use something like this, and that would make sense. But if you are not, and you are like me, I make games right now, and that means whatever I make on steam will be my income.

Maybe I will make only 50 dollars after months of working, or maybe I will make 10 million dollars; well, I won't make either. I am sure it would be more than 50 dollars and less than 10 million dollars, but you understand what I mean: there is no guaranteed price. So how would I be able to calculate that? Or a business person, this month his shop sold a lot; next month not enough? How will he make that calculation?

[Roseline492]

Imagine walking into a shop and you see a pair of shoe priced at 20 hours of work instead of a specific amount of money and a phone could cost 200 hours. Would you still spend your money the same way you do now?
We are used to looking at prices in our local currency but we hardly think about how much time we have spent working just to gather up that money. For someone earning very well, buying things might mean just some few hours of work while someone earning small could spend weeks or even months for the same item.

With this analogy is definitely going to make things very harder for everyone since the prices of things would be measured by the hours it took them to manufacture the product, so even if your intentions is to make people not to be spending too much but is actually going to be worst than inflation and one item is going to cost differently in the market because the time it took someone to produce a product will be different from the time another person will produce it so actually with this it will not only reduce the way people spend but it will also destroy a lot of business because the purchasing power will drastically fall.

[leonair]

Imagine walking into a shop and you see a pair of shoe priced at 20 hours of work instead of a specific amount of money and a phone could cost 200 hours. Would you still spend your money the same way you do now?
We are used to looking at prices in our local currency but we hardly think about how much time we have spent working just to gather up that money. For someone earning very well, buying things might mean just some few hours of work while someone earning small could spend weeks or even months for the same item.

Time is more valuable than money. So of course I will buy that product with money instead of spending my time. Suppose now my hourly income is $15, but my income may not always be like that. If I keep learning new skills and working hard, my hourly income can be $15 to $50 at any time. So instead of using my valuable time to buy any product, I should definitely use that time for money. People's time is for thinking new thoughts and working to earn money, not for buying any product in exchange for time.

[Judith87403]

Money does make busing and selling easy but sometimes  we forget the time and effort behind what we spend. I’m just wondering about what people think of this. If shops truly displays prices in the amount of hours we spent working along with the normal price, would people become more careful with the way they spend or would it still not make any difference? Would you think twice before buying something if you knew how many hours you had to work to pay for it?

If you live with the mentality of checking how much effort you put in making money then you willl end up being stingy and you will hardly even take good care of yourself because you will become too calculative of how you spend. The only benefit is that it will help you to save up a lot of money. In other way round, it will be more complex for people who do jobs that requires them to use their manpower to execute because when they remember how they labour to make that money, it will be difficult for them to spend. Instead of looking at the angle of our working hours, it will just be better to buy only things we need and not the things we want.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Imagine walking into a shop and you see a pair of shoe priced at 20 hours of work instead of a specific amount of money and a phone could cost 200 hours.

Don't you already do this? When you go to the supermarket, and look at the price tags, don't you subconsciously ask yourself how many hours you will have to work to buy this?

It's a nice thought experiment. How a poor person looks at the ground beef and how a billionaire looks at it. For one, it might be one entire day of work, while for the other just a few seconds.

[Btcdeybodi]

Imagine walking into a shop and you see a pair of shoe priced at 20 hours of work instead of a specific amount of money and a phone could cost 200 hours.

Don't you already do this? When you go to the supermarket, and look at the price tags, don't you subconsciously ask yourself how many hours you will have to work to buy this?

It's a nice thought experiment. How a poor person looks at the ground beef and how a billionaire looks at it. For one, it might be one entire day of work, while for the other just a few seconds.

Funny enough there are people that walks into a supermarket and pick stuffs without even looking at their price tags. Checking at the price of things before buying them is practically a poor man doings, you won't see a wealthy man in that settings. If one will need to be checking at the prices to see how much they are worth, it means you will even have to do the calculation of things you've bought before you get to the cashier.

There's really no much difference in a price tag showing numbers of hours just as OP illustrated because no matter how many hours it is, people earn differently per hour which means that it can take someone 200 hours to make $2,000 while it can take the next person 50 hours to make $2000. What it means is that the person who made that money in 50 hours may not really care about the price tag in hours.

[Curious T]

Everybody already knows how long it takes them to earn any amount of money they have. There is no person who is not wealthy who doesn't know how much time it takes them to make money, especially people who live in countries where they are paid hourly. So it won't make any difference. People don't generally spend money simply because they have it, they spend money because they need to. Even if you spend a whole day working for money, it won't hinder you from spending the money on something you need. Besides, whose working hours will be on the product? People spend different hours to get a particular amount of money. It takes some people 4 hours to get 100 dollars, while some people it takes them 10 hours.

[Webutxo]

Money does make busing and selling easy but sometimes  we forget the time and effort behind what we spend. I’m just wondering about what people think of this. If shops truly displays prices in the amount of hours we spent working along with the normal price, would people become more careful with the way they spend or would it still not make any difference? Would you think twice before buying something if you knew how many hours you had to work to pay for it?

This is going to end two ways, the first one is that the products that are sold at cheap price and know very well that they last long hours will be reducee because they will feel they are been cheated and the products with less hours that people don't know will be exposed. People will start to prefered products that will server them than buy the ones that will not. The concept is good but common, it's trash. It will not survived the economy under a months or two.

More than half of the products in this life are hype, some are fake, some are not upto standard and are very bad. If this is some reality thing, the world will be on flawless, too real to happen though. How did you even think of something like this, it's giving that movie called Time.

[lionheart78]

I also think there is not much difference.  Just like the earlier reply state, people works to earn money.  And the amount of work where fix rate is given, is the amount of money a person can earn.

In replacing the tag price with the hours of work, people will still spend their money the way they do.  They will skip those items that will make them work for eternity and just buy items within the scope of their working hours in their lifetime.

It is still like paying money, but instead of cash earned, the person pays it with his time.

[Sarah Jordan]

Imagine walking into a shop and you see a pair of shoe priced at 20 hours of work instead of a specific amount of money and a phone could cost 200 hours. Would you still spend your money the same way you do now?
We are used to looking at prices in our local currency but we hardly think about how much time we have spent working just to gather up that money. For someone earning very well, buying things might mean just some few hours of work while someone earning small could spend weeks or even months for the same item.

Money does make busing and selling easy but sometimes  we forget the time and effort behind what we spend. I’m just wondering about what people think of this. If shops truly displays prices in the amount of hours we spent working along with the normal price, would people become more careful with the way they spend or would it still not make any difference? Would you think twice before buying something if you knew how many hours you had to work to pay for it?

If people begin to reason things like this then we won't even get ourselves even the cheapest thing that one can afford.
People that knows what their income can afford will definitely go for things in their capacity and even save up for it. Who earns very well will get the things they admire and want once. It does not mean because you work hard or less you won't spend money on yourself.

[Versatile_choice]

If we look at it hourly, you can see how much it would "cost" per hour. Then you'd know the opportunity cost because you would be thinking, "What else can I do with that time?"

It's a different behavioral approach to seeing "$50" and "5 hours of labor" as the same thing.

That's going to be dependent on your attitude, IMO.

In addition to what you have Said, If we  Look at it hourly I think it would make most people infact; everybody to be very hard working as we will want to disengage ourselves from something that can't add any value to our life's, not given it 5 minutes of your time because that 5 minutes its money. But to be realistic this won't work because we need to have time for our wife's and family's and also have some time to rest .

So it is better they keep it the way it was rather than changing it from days to hours, I know it's going to make a lot of sense because the money we will get at the end of the month will be much more high compared to the amount we are supposed to get if they are paying daily until 31 days which is approximately 1 month.

[Donk1]

Well there is a difference between what you need and what you want, so perhaps in most cases i would say it doesn't really matter when you have the money and you set your eyes on something worth buying then what is there ,You buy it. Basically the purpose of making money is for either spending or saving, and I believe whatever someone purchases even if it took them hundreds of hours to get the money, still it doesn't make any difference, it's their choice except the person is trying to live a fake life, one of intimidation,trying to be like people you aren't which is wrong. You know one thing people don't understand is that if you look good, people will judge you if you look bad, people will still judge you so just live your life the way you think is right or perhaps to your own standards not because of others. That's all.....

[EluguHcman]

Imagine walking into a shop and you see a pair of shoe priced at 20 hours of work instead of a specific amount of money and a phone could cost 200 hours. Would you still spend your money the same way you do now?

I would also hardly believe it if you say that you're not aware that there are still people who spends lavishly and not even that that they have so much or enough monies before they are in that lifestyle.
No matter how hard it is to work and make money, there will definitely be those that will spend their hard earned money irresponsibly and would not care how much efforts it takes them to make the money.

In some local communities around, I have also learnt how the use of mobile gadgets such as the iphon brands being so much expensive has really become a desirable device that even those who their net worth and incomes can not afford are still finding means to buy the gadget. They also sees themselves like meeting up to their visions in life just by having the phone without considering the cost and the hard ways of earning.

Of course there are still also those who have the funds to buy but they find it unnecessary on spending on expensive liabilities like that.

[Sanitough]

If we look at it hourly, you can see how much it would "cost" per hour. Then you'd know the opportunity cost because you would be thinking, "What else can I do with that time?"

It's a different behavioral approach to seeing "$50" and "5 hours of labor" as the same thing.

That's going to be dependent on your attitude, IMO.

Yes, everything will now boil down to how you value your hours of labor and the amount you are making with that certain span of time. If you are not financially discipline, you will buy everything you want regardless of your income, regardless of how many hours you have to work to afford that thing. But if you have a good attitude towards earning and you value the time you have worked so long, then this kind of set-up will certainly make a big difference.

[abhiseshakana]

For me personally, the price of an item is rarely the first consideration when considering purchasing something. The first top priority in any financial decision making process is always the need for such goods and the benefits of the item in improving my and my family quality of life. After that my question mark will be what will I have to sacrifice if I decide to buy those items. Something that offers no benefit, even though it is extremely cheap, I will not buy it, because when I bought it I classify it as a small leak in my personal finances and one of my financial principle, small mistake big money, big mistake more money.

It’s not that I’m against fulfilling wishes, because not all desires are bad but we just need, enjoying life is not a mistake, as long as we have calculated the risks and are not acting impulsively. So, put working hour we invested on price tag of items we want to buy can makes us wise in spending money

[Royal Cap]

Would people become more careful with the way they spend or would it still not make any difference? Would you think twice before buying something if you knew how many hours you had to work to pay for it?

First of all I want to say that to do this, the shopkeepers will have to give different price tags because each person's income is different. So, for low income people, where the working hours will be more, the working hours will be much less for those who earn well.
However even if such a system is implemented.  I think people will slowly get used to it. Just like we see in the case of money, because the thing is that for someone who can spend wisely, the price tag in hours or money is almost irrelevant, because he will spend according to his own ability.