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

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

#171

Post by ctdonath » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 3:58 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #81

ctdonath wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's equating unemployment with vacation. And that's overlooking how hard mundane existence was: heat required collecting firewood, cooling was opening a window, cooking was over open indoor fires, food was hard to preserve, beds were scratchy/lumpy/hard, clothing was hand-made mostly from raw wool (clean, spin thread, weave, hand sew) so wardrobes were sparse, water was often dirty & diseased (beer was more necess…

I don't think the concept of "unemployment" is meaningful when we're talking about pre-modern people living off the land.

When the land isn't producing (winter), and you're just living mostly off reserves, and you're not enjoying being pretty much trapped in a hut covered with snow, that counts as "unemployment". Sure isn't a "vacation".

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

#172

Post by Romanulus » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 4:01 PM UTC

athenot wrote: post #138

ctdonath wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Whilst touring Neuschwanstein Castle and Biltmore Estate, what struck me: for all the luxurious art & fineries & service kings & tycoons enjoyed, what we consider basic necessities were hard to come by, if available at all, for even the super-rich. Sitting here in my study, I: teleconference with my team continent-wide, practically have more [e-]books than Vanderbilt's 25,000 volume library, enjoy a constant…

Very true to all of that. But the live-in servants have been replaced by external servants. People who are expected to be working when at 11pm I decide I want to eat a bite of food, yet are paid below what it takes to raise their own family and are working 2 jobs at once to make ends meet. The boundary between nobility and servitude is more blurry, and yes there are a lot more ways to rise out of servitude than 7 cen…

There have been external servants for as long as we've had nations... that's something you must get over if you're enjoying the spoils of a better off country. There's also a lot more trade going on because of better technology (seafaring, navigation, freight, etc), along with farming which is generally occupied by about 2 or so percent of the US population which was historically much higher.

Let us not forget that your home would be staffed with a small militia of servants if you had to trade back your dishwasher, washing machine, dryer, fridge, and vacuum, etc.

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

#173

Post by ctdonath » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 4:04 PM UTC

ionised wrote: post #142

ctdonath wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? No HVAC, electricity, running potable hot water, limited literature, long delivery times.

Ruling a country and an army could be pretty attractive to some.

Well, the context here is largely about relative vacation time.

Now if you'd rather have a job which was notable in the 14th century, that's a different - and also interesting - discussion.

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

#174

Post by Retric » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 4:04 PM UTC

ctdonath wrote: post #171

emodendroket wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the concept of "unemployment" is meaningful when we're talking about pre-modern people living off the land.

When the land isn't producing (winter), and you're just living mostly off reserves, and you're not enjoying being pretty much trapped in a hut covered with snow, that counts as "unemployment". Sure isn't a "vacation".

You where not limited to your own hut. Further you where often staying with a large extended family so playing with children and telling stories etc. It was very different than staying home at a modern single apartment.

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

#175

Post by notahacker » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 4:04 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #145

commandlinefan wrote: post #82

They paid less tax, too.

Until the 1200's, there was pretty much just the Geld in Europe (a land tax). Because the geld was assessed on landowners, it only applied to free men who owned land, and thus serfs and slaves were exempt. Later on the income tax got invented, and was generally 1/10 to the king. I wish I only paid 1/10 to the feds.

Serfs and slaves weren't so much exempt from paying taxes as exempt from earning income, whilst still being obliged to provide labour for other people alongside trying to meet their own subsistence needs.

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

#176

Post by notahacker » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 4:21 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #107

notahacker wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's certainly more relevant than "vacation", since it's time spent doing little because nobody would pay them for work (and even if they would, there was nothing they could feasibly buy to improve their meagre living standards), not a paid leisure break to spend ones salary on personal enjoyment.

Nobody "paid them for work" in the first place. They weren't wage laborers.

Yes, I said as much in the previous post. They weren't wage labourers because local landlords and churches could call upon their labour for free, besides which when they were actually permitted to to sell their labour (and early Middle Ages European peasants often weren't) they had few skills to sell and little to buy with the proceeds. Thus those periods of downtime between agricultural seasons are a lot closer to the modern concept of periods of "unemployment" than they are to "vacation"

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

#177

Post by emodendroket » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 4:28 PM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #176

emodendroket wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody "paid them for work" in the first place. They weren't wage laborers.

Yes, I said as much in the previous post. They weren't wage labourers because local landlords and churches could call upon their labour for free, besides which when they were actually permitted to to sell their labour (and early Middle Ages European peasants often weren't) they had few skills to sell and little to buy with the proceeds. Thus those periods of downtime between agricultural seasons are a lot closer to t…

The salient fact about unemployment is that anyone who stays in that state faces destitution and is likely seeking some other work (we rarely talk about wealthy heirs being "unemployed"). For someone in a premodern agricultural lifestyle there wasn't really anything calamitous about this regular period of not-working.

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

#178

Post by notfromhere » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 4:28 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #151

Jaruzel wrote: post #65

> As for the modern American worker? After a year on the job, she gets an average of eight vacation days annually. Is this true? In the UK, 'standard' holiday entitlement for most jobs starts at 20 days annually, and that doesn't include official days off such as Xmas, New Year, Easter etc.

It's not true. It's tough to find a job that doesn't offer 2 weeks and most white collar jobs offer 3 weeks (15 days). That doesn't include the typical 13 stat holidays. I have a job in the US that offers 25 paid days of vacation, plus the standard 13.

counting PTO as vacation is disingenuous. That's all your time off for the year rather than exclusively vacation

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

#179

Post by emodendroket » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 4:32 PM UTC

ctdonath wrote: post #156

emodendroket wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody "paid them for work" in the first place. They weren't wage laborers.

The exact mode of payment is irrelevant. The point is they had to work for sustenance - whether it was trading skills for money, or producing goods and bartering them, or just producing direct necessities. The core topic is "vacation", the concept of pleasurably not working while using reserves for sustenance. This in contrast primarily with "work" (the process of labor to create sustenance & reserves thereof), and r…

The division between work-time and pleasure-time was not as rigid as "I'm in the office/vacation," but I don't see that that invalidates the argument. Hanging around drinking and dancing around a maypole is clearly not working.

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

#180

Post by nickbauman » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 4:39 PM UTC

astine wrote: post #120

rhcom2 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The word 'capitalism' was invented by communists I don't think that is true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism#Etymology

From your own link: "The initial usage of the term "capitalism" in its modern sense has been attributed to Louis Blanc in 1850 ("What I call 'capitalism' that is to say the appropriation of capital by some to the exclusion of others") and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in 1861 ("Economic and social regime in which capital, the source of income, does not generally belong to those who make it work through their labour").[22]:2…

Yes, and Marx's use of the term was as a criticism of 19th century British industrialism. One of the many reasons why using these terms in polemic ends up leads to increasingly meaningless debates.