The Oil Drum

Right. Seems like the 5% average and the unchanging 8-12 hour day result from the interplay between laziness and greed.

My commute is 6-9 minutes, depending on wind and lateness, by bike. But I still work an eight-hour day. Not much choice in about that in Alberta right now.

No laziness, and the greed is on the part of the employer.  I think that employers, like slave owners, have always wanted to squeeze the most out of the laborers, and a workday of 12-16 hours (includng the commute) was the most they could get without, um, accelerated depreciation of the labor assets.  Getting the 8-hour workday (and 5 days per week, and higher pay for overtime) took a long struggle.  Employment at what is considered "part-time", but at reasonable wages and benefits, is scarce (in the USA).  Meanwhile many are unemployed.  We could have arranged our lives during the fossil fuel fiesta so as to work far less, in return for much more leisure time (albeit with fewer material toys).   That is the way it was 10,000 years ago.  But that would not mesh with the growth religion, the rich needing to get richer and all that.  As for the commute time, if it got much above 10% of the work time, it was, again, a loss of possible "productivity", so more shacks were constructed in the company town.