Medieval peasants got more vacation time than modern workers (2013) • Hacker News Board

Re: Medieval peasants got more vacation time than modern workers (2013)

#91

Post by tomcooks » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 1:54 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #43

comment123456 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sad thing is that this kind of propagandistic sentences are crafted to make people believe that. Usually people don't understand producitvity so they understand what you said from the sentence. A German reading that will think "Ha we work less and produce more" but that is NOT what productivity means. Productivity is the ratio between man work and output. So if someone works only 1 min a month and earns for that…

National productivity numbers aren't using a mathematical gimmick though, they hold up if you look at yearly output/hours per year. One of the reasons for Germany's high productivity is that manufacturing is a large sector there.

I think it has more to do with education. In Italy, Portugal and Greece students find themselves being overqualified for the antiquated production methods of industries in their countries, together with no investments from the government (e.g. italian 110m startup public investments against France's 60 billion)

And agricultural output in PIIGS countries having been destroyed by EU regulations, goods are literally wasted because of quotas.

Re: Medieval peasants got more vacation time than modern workers (2013)

#92

Post by emodendroket » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 1:54 PM UTC

mantas wrote: post #83

emodendroket wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, but I think of that as a different phenomenon.

Why? Both are getting away from home purely for spiritual joy.

It takes a really muddy definition of "spiritual joy" to argue that a pilgrimage to worship holy relics is the same as going to gawk at the Eiffel Tower and eat fancy food.

Re: Medieval peasants got more vacation time than modern workers (2013)

#93

Post by lucozade » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 1:54 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #70

lucozade wrote: post #40

Right. So that'll be the vast amounts of unpaid vacation that they were all enjoying. And I'm sure they were enjoying the extended vacations because of the strong contractual obligations that the landowners had to their serfs. The US do have an issue with the amount of vacation time that they have but it's close to infantile to compare it so naively to the Middle Ages. If you're going to compare it to Europe (which t…

> If you're going to compare it to Europe (which this is doing), how about comparing it to Europe in, say, the 21C? Sure, between 20 and 30 days paid vacation depending on the country, illness isn't considered vacation and usually gets paid up to 6 months. Oh then there is the paternal and maternity leave, up to two years, depending on the country.

Precisely. There are countries, working under very similar constraints to modern day US, that are trying, and succeeding, with other arrangements.

This should be the focus of the compare and contrast because it's a valuable comparison.

I've seen a few of these, Monty Python-esque, comparisons recently. There was one in the Guardian that asserted (wildly incorrectly) that female life expectancy had decreased since the 19C.

If I was prone to paranoia, I'd be concerned that they are planted by folk that want the status quo and are making these cartoonish comparisons to make it easy to lampoon.

Re: Medieval peasants got more vacation time than modern workers (2013)

#94

Post by maxxxxx » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 1:54 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #45

stupidcar wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By "all modern people", you apparently mean the relatively small group of middle-class professionals who can earn a decent salary on a shorter working week, and are in a position to negotiate it. There is a far larger group of people working in low-skilled jobs whose entire salary is not enough to cover their outgoings, and must also rely on consumer debt and government assistance to support themselves and their fami…

Most people working at Walmart would like to negotiate longer working hours.

They probably would prefer higher wages.

Re: Medieval peasants got more vacation time than modern workers (2013)

#95

Post by ctdonath » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 1:55 PM UTC

NicoJuicy wrote: post #34

If this is true, i wonder how much is attributed to the shortage of light when it's dark.

Good (and apparently unaddressed) point. We get several more hours per day for leisure precisely because "daylight" can be continued indoors indefinitely.

Re: Medieval peasants got more vacation time than modern workers (2013)

#96

Post by lmm » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 1:56 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #44

Hendrikto wrote: post #6

The USA are abolishing themselves... > In Germany, an economic powerhouse, workers rank second to last in number of hours worked. Despite more time off, German workers are the eighth most productive in Europe, while the long-toiling Greeks rank 24 out of 25 in productivity. Work smart, not hard.

I happen to agree with you broadly. However, two data points to bring to the discussion. Germany's median net wealth per adult is below that of the US ($47,000 vs $56,000 for 2017). Given the US isn't renowned for how well its middle does these days, that implies something has gone wrong in Germany. Per the OECD figures, the US is the third most productive in terms of GDP per hour worked, at around $73 for 2017. Excl…

> Germany's median net wealth per adult is below that of the US ($47,000 vs $56,000 for 2017). Given the US isn't renowned for how well its middle does these days, that implies something has gone wrong in Germany.

The US middle class's problem isn't that they don't have enough cash in the bank, it's that they're one firing/health issue/missed mortgage payment/... away from losing it all. Someone with $47,000 in the bank in a country with single-payer healthcare, job security, tenant security... is much better off than someone with $56,000 to their name but no social safety net.

> Excluding Norway, the best off country in terms of a combination of GDP per hour worked, least hours worked per week, and highest median net wealth is... Belgium.

I find that completely plausible, what do you think it proves? Belgium is similar to western Germany in many ways, and doesn't have the former DDR to drag its average down.

Re: Medieval peasants got more vacation time than modern workers (2013)

#97

Post by ctdonath » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 1:58 PM UTC

barrkel wrote: post #87

ghaff wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To say nothing of the fact that let's see the first time he gets an infection or disease or needs surgery given no vaccinations, antibiotics, or anesthetics.

When was the last time you got an infection or disease that would have struck you down without modern medicine? I never have. In fact if hospitals didn't exist and I never saw a doctor my entire life, I don't think anything would have changed. I don't expect to live much longer than 60 as it is. Most 14th century monarchs, in the brief glance I did on Wikipedia before my answer, lived to 55 or 60 or so before they di…

I'd be dead four times over (and those are the obvious near-lethal maladies), and I just turned 50.

Re: Medieval peasants got more vacation time than modern workers (2013)

#98

Post by emodendroket » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 1:58 PM UTC

macspoofing wrote: post #88

emodendroket wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the same lack of "incentive" applies to many people with menial jobs in a capitalist economy.

Not quite. There is still a direct correlation between work and benefit, as in if you work more, you make more, but you keep more. In Communist economies, that isn't true. If you work more, you make more, but you don't get to keep more.

And working your field doesn't provide for your life? The relationship between a peasant's effectiveness at his work and the rewards he reaps is actually more, rather than less, direct than that relationship for someone stocking shelves, because if he produced more food he'd be able to keep more of it -- what was being rewarded was the result rather than the number of hours he spent in the fields.

Re: Medieval peasants got more vacation time than modern workers (2013)

#99

Post by emodendroket » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 1:59 PM UTC

qwr23qwer wrote: post #31

emodendroket wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, sure, but how many construction workers work only 150 days a year and have mid-day naps?

Work on oil rigs, fishing (Deadliest Catch guys?), underwater welding etc. are usually done for a couple months a year and taking the rest off, (at least from anecdotal data from folks I know). Construction work can be similar in places where harsh winters make it impossible to build anything during winter (frozen ground and all that). Farming can be similar.

Well, there is some seasonal work, but it's not the norm and it's probably difficult for most people to live working only half the year.

Re: Medieval peasants got more vacation time than modern workers (2013)

#100

Post by maxerickson » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 1:59 PM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #94

maxerickson wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people working at Walmart would like to negotiate longer working hours.

They probably would prefer higher wages.

Both. Wages first of course. But plenty of people don't want to be limited to part time hours.