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The Glories of the Nine Day Week.
by Harold Howe II

Many of our frustrations in daily life could be abolished by a simple change in the calendar - replacing the seven day week with a nine day week. In the process, our economy would become more efficient, our leisure time more rewarding, our schools and colleges less crowded, our religious activities more meaningful, and our family lives more successful for both children and adults.

In today's world, human beings give only limited attention to their use of time, which is divided into two categories, time that is beyond their control and time that they control completely, even though they may not be aware that they do. Days and years are in the first category and cannot be changed by earthlings. The day is defined by the length of time it takes the world to spin around once on its axis. Humans divide it into 24 hours for their convenience. The year is made up of 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds, the length of time required for the earth to complete a full orbit around the sun. We make our calendar fit into it with the leap-year and other minor adjustments that allow us to start our years in the same seasons year in and year out.

The week and the month, on the other hand, are totally controlled by humans. Nothing in the universe requires these time frames to exist at all. The traditions of our efforts in fashioning weeks and months are very powerful. Consequently, changing them is not easy. Some humans believe that God invented the seven-day week and that it should not be tampered with for that reason. On the other hand, valid research about numerous past societies of the world challenges that view. There is a clear record in the long history of humans that depicts the use of weeks made up of three, four, five, six, and ten days - all operating quite successfully for their supporters. A broad generalization about these past experiences suggests that human beings have a deep need for periodic routines in their lives that are smaller than years or months but longer than single days. Weeks respond to that desire.

We are so accustomed to the seven day week that we seldom give any attention to other possibilities. In fact, the records of the past strongly suggest that the number of days in the week have usually been controlled by two aspects of life on earth - the influence of religious beliefs and the leverage of the market place in human affairs. In the early years of civilization, both hunters and farmers found it a necessity to come together periodically to exchange their goods, and meeting that need in their lives created the week. The religious element in bringing about the concept of the week is more complex, and I hesitate to comment on it lest a viewpoint of mine annoy a reader of this document. Even a whisper about changing the seven day week raises the hackles of Christians, Jews and others. So I will simply assert two points: religion is a significant element in discussing this matter; and the economic development of a society may well be the ultimate key to its capacity for fashioning a week that fits its needs. Against this background, the remainder of this essay will be an exploration of whether a shift to the nine day week could bring important gains to human affairs when compared with the seven day week, which has prevailed for several thousand years.

Dr. Carlos M. Varsavsky
The origin of the nine day week comes solely from the thinking and research of Dr. Carlos M. Varsavsky, a native of Argentina and the holder of a doctoral degree in astrophysics from Harvard University. In 1975 he submitted to the Ford Foundation a request to support "A Proposal to Study Alternatives to the present Seven Day Week." Ford provided the funds needed, and the result in 1976 was an eighty page document entitled "On the Possibility of Changing the Present Seven Day Week." This document was never published, although some efforts were made to bring that about. Dr. Varsavsky asked the Ford Foundation for a large grant to try out a model of his nine day week concept. No additional grant was made, and he died unexpectedly in 1983. Since then, his papers have resided unused in the Ford Foundation archives. Recently I was helped by the Ford Foundation's Archivist, who sent me copies of the Doctor's work for the purpose of writing a brief essay about the possibilities of the nine day week. Here it is. All of the assertions above in this document and those that follow are taken from Dr. Varsavsky's work. Although the text is mine, the concepts and analyses are his, and he is occasionally quoted. Also, I add an occasional opinion.

Explaining the Nine Day Week
By far the best of several choices for modernizing the ancient seven day week is the nine day week. This is so because the number nine is divisible by three and is therefore flexible in a way that will become evident shortly. In the meantime, consider the major shortcomings of the seven day week, which has most human activities turned off for two days every week or else kept going with expensive, time-and-a-half pay. During those two days, it is difficult to get your car fixed, your tooth ache attended to, or your attorney's help with some emergency. Schools, colleges, and numerous other institutions are closed. Hospitals can't close their doors on patients, but the services they provide on weekends are often questionable. Never go in for an operation on Friday. Your surgeon is likely to be golfing Saturday if post-operative troubles appear.

All these situations and many more would be helped if Dr. Varsavsky's "continuing week" was in operation. His nine day week assumes that all activities in human affairs will be in full normal action for 360 days a year - divided into ten months of four nine day weeks each. This plan can be achieved, he argues, by dividing all workers, students, and others in the vast variety of jobs into three "cadres." At any given time, two of these would be on the job and the third would be on vacation, or at "leisure," to use his word. The normal work period would be six days and the period of leisure three days, one of which, if desired, would be committed to religious interests three times a week.

Dr. Varsavsky rounded out his map of the nine day week's full year by setting aside five days to celebrate carefully selected events like Christmas and the Fourth of July - days when everyone would be free from work except those needed for maintaining safety and order. The diagram below illustrates the arrangement of one nine day week, which would be repeated 40 times during the year. XXX shows the leisure time of three days; the letters OOO and QQQ represent the six work days but are split into two categories because some workers may want three day part time employment and six days of leisure - an individual choice that the Doctor thought would be particularly useful to senior workers who were tapering off toward retirement. Also, part-time work might serve families well by having one or both parents choose part-time employment in the interest of their children. The letters A, B, and C designate the three "cadres" that all workers are assigned to in approximately equal numbers in their workplaces.

DAYS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
A - X X X O O O Q Q Q

B - Q Q Q X X X O O O

C - O O O Q Q Q X X X

Listen to Dr. Varsavsky on the flexibility of this arrangement:
"We can picture the nine day week as made up of three periods of three days each that we call triads. Today most people work five days per week or 71.4% of the time. To maintain about the same ration of work to leisure on the nine day week, people would work two of the three triads, or 66.7% of the time. But in fact there will be many job openings for people willing to work just one triad of 33.3% of the time." He goes on to praise the overall gain in leisure time created by the new work week and its significance in the quality of life in families and for individuals.

Consider some of the gains made possible by the nine day week and selected from many more discussed by Dr. Varsavsky in his long document:

• More efficient use of buildings and other facilities that are either closed down on weekends of the seven day week or relentlessley crowded because everyone wants to use them simultaneously. Schools, for example, will be open for 360 work days each year, yet individual teachers and students will enjoy 120 days of leisure time in addition to the five for major holidays. By putting currently unused time to work, substantial new space will be available, probably enough to avoid the crisis in school construction that faces American school systems today because of certain enrollment growth. The present calendar for schooling of about 180 days a year is based on the obligation of most students to help families on their farms in the nineteenth century. That requirement is long gone today, and some schools are already using the summer to contain their growing enrollments. The nine day week would not only give them added space, it would also reduce the need for new construction so that new investments in air conditioning for making public schools feasible in the summer would be possible.
• Recreational facilities will get a new lease on life from the nine day week because only one third of the workforce will be using them every day of the week. Ski lifts, golf courses, beaches and the like will have continuous use in a fashion that will improve both the experience of the enthusiasts using them and their operators. Crowded facilities and waiting lines will disappear.
• The frustrations of current traffic jams on workday mornings and evenings near major cities will be reduced, and parking spaces will be more easily available - all because one third of the car owners will be sleeping late or heading for the hills or beaches.
• Because all service activities would be operating every day, our difficulties with taking time out from work would be ameliorated. We could get our cars fixed during our three day weekends; all stores would be open every day, and they would be less crowded; museums would never be closed; lawyers, veterinarians and dentists would be always available.
• Gains in the productivity of capital and therefore in the opportunities for work caused by the nine day week are a major element in Dr. Varsavsky's study. He sets forth quantitative analyses in numerous fields, all of them showing a positive prospect for the future. Some of the areas he considered in detail are: manufacturing, extractive industries, transportation, education, wholesale and retail commerce, public and private administration, leisure time and services to individuals and organizations.
• Religious organizations that now claim one day out of seven for their main activities would get a boost from the nine day week. One day of each three day leisure period would be available to those who want it for religious purposes. In a sense, there will be three Sundays in every nine day week. Of course, the attendance on each of these "Sundays," would be reduced by about two thirds, but the additional ease of communication and opportunities for depth and intimacy in worship would be much enhanced. Another possible gain is the likelihood that religious gatherings three times a week will result in some growth in the need for religious leadership - Priests, Rabbis, Ministers and others. Most Americans would see that change as a step forward in our society. The desire to have all members of a congregation together would be at least partially met by the option of religious gatherings on the five days set aside by Dr. Varsavsky for special purposes. When action replaces planning in the life of the nine day week, my guess is that the good Doctor will be glad he has passed on as the issues related to religion come to the table. Although he has made a strong rational case for the nine day week, the aforementioned commitment to tradition might carry the day. On the other hand, I can't help recalling that the nineteenth century was filled with certainty that human kind would never fly and that earlier times insisted the world was flat. Wonders never cease!

Difficulties
The creation of three separate "cadres" for operating the many aspects of life at first seems daunting. What if you are in love with a young man in cadre A when your job puts your leisure time in B? How does a family avoid having children at school in a different cadre from their parents' working times? Endless such problem examples can be dreamed up. Also, very small businesses or even individual activities like writing would seemingly be difficult to fit into a triad structure of living. The main response to these issues by Dr. Varsavsky is to emphasize the flexibility of the nine day week concept. As long as the three cadres can be kept reasonably but not exactly equal in numbers, shifts from one cadre to another will be expected and encouraged. He argues that most such problems can be successfully addressed. At the same time he recognizes that considerable learning by doing will be needed, and that is his reason for first seeking a small scale model of the nine day week in operation.

Dr. Varsavsky's study of the nine day week was completed in 1975, a time when the internet may have been on the horizon but not generally understood. The same can be said about the electronically based communications revolution of the last twenty five years. He mentions none of these recent rapid changes in our lives. Nor does he address the rampant new semi-religion in the United States, the worship of professional football, basketball, wrestling and other such endeavors. These activities dominate the leisure of the seven day week. My only comment about this situation is the guess that the nine day week with its three successive triads of leisure might open up new opportunities for more rich and rewarding experiences than that provided by the hours-on-end of beer drinking seated before the boob tube watching muscular mayhem. On the other hand, God forbid, it might result in three Super Bowls. Who knows? In these unexplored areas, there is at least one point that seems sure - as we move into global planning for many of our activities any interest in the nine day week should carry with it the possibility of world wide attention.

What's Next?
Musing on this matter one day in the early 1990s, I decided to write some letters about the virtues of the nine day week to the world's two most powerful people of that time - President George Bush of the United States and Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, once the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the U.S.S.R. and then its President. I hoped that they might get together about a jointly supported model of the nine day week for a period of ten years or so to learn more about the possibilities of improving peoples' lives through Dr. Varsavsky's suggestions. I thought that these two world leaders might find the nine day week a more rewarding exercise than arguing about atom bombs. Sad to say, neither of these efforts was productive. My letter to Mr. Gorbachev was never answered; the one to President Bush was answered by one of his minions in a page and a half of turgid prose explaining that the President was busy with other matters.

Perhaps the nine day week will remain a dream rather than becoming a reality. At the very least, however, it can open our minds to thinking about time more imaginatively than we usually do. In a world changing as rapidly as ours, that viewpoint can be valuable. I hope that this brief statement will help to keep that window open.

About the Author
Harold Howe II served as U.S. Commissioner of Education under President Lyndon Johnson.

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