Let's assess the effects this change could cause on real numbers.
Note: This is a duplicate of a part of a comment I've written here above as a response, but I don't want it to be buried. Hope that's fine
I'll take Nutrien's 2023 audited financial statement as an example. (Numbers in brackets are what's deducted to get what's not in brackets)
- Sales - 29056
- Freight, transportation, distribution - (974)
- Cost of goods sold - (19608)
- EBIT - 8474
- Interest - (w/e)
- EBT - 1952
- Taxes - (670)
- Net earning - 1282
Out of cost of goods sold (2858) is cost of labour, let's also add (626) from general administrative expenses, and just say it's all wages.
- Effective tax rate - 670/1952*100% = 34,3% (wow, that's a lot for where I live, also ignoring mining tax for simplicity)
Let's see what happens to our efficiency if the changes take effect.
All of costs can be divided into Fixed and Variable ones. Labour, in this case, is Variable because we can manipulate it by employing more staff to compensate for reduction in working hours and keep the sales at the same rate. (Contract workers are usually Fixed Cost, but it's all relative, as no Fixed Cost is ever truly fixed.)
Going from 40 => 32, we have a 20% reduction in working hours. Mind you, this doesn't mean there will be a 20% hit to productivity. It may be more, it may be less (most likely less), for simplicity let's say it's 20%. So, we need 20% more workers to compensate. (2858+626)*120%=4180.8
- New EBT = 1952 + 2858 + 626 - 4180.8 = 1255.2
- New net profit = 1255.2*(1-34.3%) = 824.7. Mind you, the effective tax rate will probably be lower if employment affects deductibles and/or grants tax privileges.
So, our net profit margin went from 1282/29056 = 4.4% to 2.8%. Looks bad at first glance, but it's also a bad year. A year prior net profit margin was at whopping 20.3%, so a decrease from 4.4% to 2.8% would be nothing in comparison.
Will it result in increased prices? Yes, but it will also lead to economic growth, because more free time = people spend more money = companies earn more = companies grow faster, but so does inflation. If they can manage the inflation, I don't see why this couldn't be possible.
In Soviet Union, the rock genre was for a very long time existing underground due to the inability of artists to be properly published.
Only starting with the 1980s could the artists finally publish their songs officially. And even then Soviet government put a lot of measures to prohibit rock music in the country.
This resulted in the appearance of many beloved bands and artists, like
The history of Russian rock is actually quite fascinating. It was inspired by bard songs and often touched darker subjects as well as being satirical and judgmental of Soviet government.
Due to that, some artists, like Yegor Letov from Grazhdanskaya Oborona and Yuri Shevchuk from DDT, had troubles with KGB (Soviet FBI).
Nowadays, rock artists are still being persecuted for their views. For example, DDT is de facto prohibited from performing in Russia.