kleinbl00 had some great comments on this mentality that I can't currently find. As I recall the gist of it was, we do this to ourselves. Ain't no one forcing you to work 40 hours a week. I work 15-20 hours a week on top of my coursework, but when I graduate you can be damn sure I'm going to be working 40 hours a week in some form or fashion. I'll work more if they'll let me. Why? Because while I could live easily on 15 hours a week in the shithole that is Norman, Oklahoma, I want to live somewhere interesting, and I don't want the first major health problem I have to cripple me. That's my personal reason, others probably have their own.And yet in all the time that’s passed since Fuller made that statement — and all the technological advances since then — we’ve clung stubbornly to a 40-hr workweek.