Pre-industrial workers had a shorter workweek than today's (1991) • Hacker News Board

Re: Pre-industrial workers had a shorter workweek than today's (1991)

#11

Post by agumonkey » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #3

Sure they had a “shorter workweek” but it also took women a full workday to wash the family’s clothes, hours of walking to get water for the day, and if you wanted something from the town over that was a 3 day trip. So many everyday things we take for granted were incredibly difficult and involved a lot of manual labor and/or waiting around for hours and days. I wonder how much of that leisure time came from being bl…

I'm curious about this argument. It was mentioned in some TED talk about the benefits of simple machines.

I might just be a change of pace, also a change of dependencies. Walking long is fine (people need daydream and wandering time, some dose of boredom). Washing your family clothes may be work but it's still better than doing what your boss doesn't want to do. Emotionally your a lot less invested in the latter yet you have to do it.

Re: Pre-industrial workers had a shorter workweek than today's (1991)

#12

Post by narrator » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

ren_engineer wrote: post #4

Swizec wrote: post #3

Sure they had a “shorter workweek” but it also took women a full workday to wash the family’s clothes, hours of walking to get water for the day, and if you wanted something from the town over that was a 3 day trip. So many everyday things we take for granted were incredibly difficult and involved a lot of manual labor and/or waiting around for hours and days. I wonder how much of that leisure time came from being bl…

article basically ignores quality of life in exchange for "leisure". I could build a crude shelter and be homeless and basically achieve the same thing, turns out most people don't want that. Fact is most people voluntarily opt in to capitalism because life is better, if you want something close to what the article talks about you can pretty easily move to an Amish community or try creating your own commune and try t…

Adam Smith points out too that most people only had one or two hand woven garments during their entire lives before the industrial revolution. Thus clothes were a far bigger deal back then than they are today. For example, in the Bible, if a person was incredibly upset, they would tear their clothes, and this was considered a huge deal.

Re: Pre-industrial workers had a shorter workweek than today's (1991)

#13

Post by jokethrowaway » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 5:24 PM UTC

I disagree it's because of capitalism.

Capitalism was also people working in the fields and trading their produce, after paying their tax to their lord, not unlike to our income tax.

There are definitely many trends that led us to work more and more. There are increasingly more and more people in the few places people with ambitions want to live in. That's more competition which gradually drives the cost down. If the wage is already low enough that it's unreasonable for someone to live on it, the working hours will go up.

The real modern culprit in my opinion is the mandatory education system which indoctrinate kids to become employees for life instead of helping them find a place in society and in the market by providing value as a small business.

With less employees around wages would go up, with more small businesses the capital would be spread more and not concentrated in the hands of a few.

It's not hard to understand who is benefitting from this system: whoever owns capital and need workers.

I'm sure there is plenty of overlap with people controlling the media and telling people what to think and want - and people in the government approving laws.

Re: Pre-industrial workers had a shorter workweek than today's (1991)

#14

Post by Emma_Goldman » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 5:25 PM UTC

ren_engineer wrote: post #4

Swizec wrote: post #3

Sure they had a “shorter workweek” but it also took women a full workday to wash the family’s clothes, hours of walking to get water for the day, and if you wanted something from the town over that was a 3 day trip. So many everyday things we take for granted were incredibly difficult and involved a lot of manual labor and/or waiting around for hours and days. I wonder how much of that leisure time came from being bl…

article basically ignores quality of life in exchange for "leisure". I could build a crude shelter and be homeless and basically achieve the same thing, turns out most people don't want that. Fact is most people voluntarily opt in to capitalism because life is better, if you want something close to what the article talks about you can pretty easily move to an Amish community or try creating your own commune and try t…

You can't because if you don't organise production to maximise profits you'll be beaten by the competition that does. If you set up a commune and put aside time for democratic meetings and communal recreation, and make work easier and more pleasurable to do, then you'll produce less per hour worked. Companies that don't do those things will get the contracts. Also, you'll be selling into a market whose demand is dominated by the rich and the imperatives of capitalism.

Re: Pre-industrial workers had a shorter workweek than today's (1991)

#15

Post by karpierz » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 5:25 PM UTC

SavantIdiot wrote: post #6

> And they worked only as many days as were necessary to earn their customary income -- which in this case amounted to about 120 days a year, for a probable total of only 1,440 hours annually (this estimate assumes a 12-hour day because the days worked were probably during spring, summer and fall). This goes against everything I've been taught, that the plebian class basically toiled endlessly, from Feudal Times to I…

It's generally suspect when someone preaches that "this is what life is like in Feudal times", considering that spans 500 years and a whole continent. Likewise for the Industrial Revolution.

Re: Pre-industrial workers had a shorter workweek than today's (1991)

#16

Post by k__ » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 5:25 PM UTC

This is especially interesting when I think about all the discussions I had about bosses and recruiters.

People would say I'm lazy, because I'm come to work at 11am or wanted to work from home.

Many even got angry and said I'm insolent for wanting to work like this, while the rest of the world simply does as they're asked.

Re: Pre-industrial workers had a shorter workweek than today's (1991)

#17

Post by chiefalchemist » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

I didn't see it mentioned...why? What happened in the mid 19th century that labor lost the upper hand to "management"? If the tradition (of less work hours) dates so far back, what triggered its disappearance so quickly? And going forward, as if it never existed?

Re: Pre-industrial workers had a shorter workweek than today's (1991)

#18

Post by wolverine876 » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 5:28 PM UTC

For context: The article is an excerpt from the book, The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure by Juliet B. Schor, published in 1991 (though maybe there are later editions). Here's a review:

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/business/9...

I wonder what later research adds.

Re: Pre-industrial workers had a shorter workweek than today's (1991)

#19

Post by Swizec » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 5:28 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #8

Swizec wrote: post #3

Sure they had a “shorter workweek” but it also took women a full workday to wash the family’s clothes, hours of walking to get water for the day, and if you wanted something from the town over that was a 3 day trip. So many everyday things we take for granted were incredibly difficult and involved a lot of manual labor and/or waiting around for hours and days. I wonder how much of that leisure time came from being bl…

> So many everyday things we take for granted were incredibly difficult and involved a lot of manual labor and/or waiting around for hours and days. Indeed, prepping food was no cake walk. Grinding grains by hand is pretty hellish, and making edible flour from high-tanin acorns takes weeks. Sane with spinning yarn.

Yeah I’d be curious to see how much of that short workday was because just staying alive was so much harder than today that you simply didn’t have time for more work.

Like when dinner takes 3 hours to prepare instead of 20 minutes, that’s quite a difference.

Re: Pre-industrial workers had a shorter workweek than today's (1991)

#20

Post by Zigurd » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 5:28 PM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #3

Sure they had a “shorter workweek” but it also took women a full workday to wash the family’s clothes, hours of walking to get water for the day, and if you wanted something from the town over that was a 3 day trip. So many everyday things we take for granted were incredibly difficult and involved a lot of manual labor and/or waiting around for hours and days. I wonder how much of that leisure time came from being bl…

There are confounding factors in figuring supposed historic misery: Fewer clothes, washed less frequently, for example. Average life expectancy being pulled down by high infant and maternal mortality. That's obviously not good, but it also means that survivors lived longer than averages suggest.