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

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

#41

Post by varjag »

grawprog wrote: post #34
legitster wrote: post #26

This analysis is solely focused on the "job" aspects of pre-industrial life and includes almost none of the domestic considerations. I'm not sure if it would be fair to call all non-wage time "leisure". Once work was still over there were still things to clean, fix, prepare, butcher, etc. Although, I think it goes without saying that before affordable lighting and heating, we all underestimate how lazy winters were f…

https://about-history.com/what-did-peasants-do-for-entertain... >Music and dance Music and dance is as old as humanity itself. The peasantry could not afford to pay professional musicians but plenty of people knew how to dance and sing and enough people knew how to play instruments to have a jolly good time. Occasionally, actors might come to town and put on plays and dramas. >Decorative Arts Decorative arts were app…

> Embroidery, pottery, basket weaving, carpentry, leatherwork and woodcarving were common skills, often with division of labor by sex.

Sounds more like work tbh. Basket weaving may be a hobby now, but unlikely it was in 16th century.

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

#42

Post by mc32 »

legitster wrote: post #26

This analysis is solely focused on the "job" aspects of pre-industrial life and includes almost none of the domestic considerations. I'm not sure if it would be fair to call all non-wage time "leisure". Once work was still over there were still things to clean, fix, prepare, butcher, etc. Although, I think it goes without saying that before affordable lighting and heating, we all underestimate how lazy winters were f…

In temperate zones winters were times of diminished activity probably because things were centered around agriculture and some hunting. In winter though you got to chores you didn’t have time for in the plant and husbandry productive months: fence mending, spinning, textiles, fixing thatch, cleaning house, making preserves, storing grain and other produce, etc.

In the tropics it was midday when activities ceased because it was too hot.

That said, I disagree that people had little in terms of leisure. They had many more days long festivities where people got together and enjoyed some down time typically they coincided with planting, harvesting (more pagan related) and then religious dates.

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

#43

Post by pessimizer »

legitster wrote: post #26

This analysis is solely focused on the "job" aspects of pre-industrial life and includes almost none of the domestic considerations. I'm not sure if it would be fair to call all non-wage time "leisure". Once work was still over there were still things to clean, fix, prepare, butcher, etc. Although, I think it goes without saying that before affordable lighting and heating, we all underestimate how lazy winters were f…

> Common people had almost no sports, no games (beyond precursors to Bocce or backgammon), no literature!

The activities of the historical poor and working class are rarely recorded except in fiction written by the wealthy that contains poor or working class characters. Also, your best evidence is a lack of evidence.

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

#44

Post by wolverine876 »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #17

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?

> What happened in the mid 19th century that labor lost the upper hand to "management"?

Previously, didn't they work for aristocratic land owners? Did they ever have the upper hand?

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

#45

Post by Remnant44 »

waynesonfire wrote: post #36

people also worked for themselves, which is intrinsically more rewarding. i use to order meat and baked goods from the butcher and baker, respectively. now it's the minimum wage employee that they hired to run the cashiers and the minimum wage employee they trained to work the machines.

I mean, you know, except for the peasants..

Being part of the merchant class in feudal times was a very high class outcome

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

#47

Post by britch »

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 think you are right about this. Life may have had less of what we think of as "work" now.

The part that I think is interesting is, as we progressed technologically, where did that time non-conventional working time go? It used to take hours to clean your home, prepare food, etc. We have modern technology which made it easier. How are people spending that new "free" time?

I think the answer seems to be that technology has essentially freed more time for people to work for someone else. The "advancement" means you spend less time washing clothes, but more time flipping burgers or delivering food.

I think this points to something interesting about how much the lowest earners in a society get paid. While it is true that they get paid what the market will bear, the minimum value is always just enough to survive on. "Time saving" technology has effectively devalued their wages. The cost of staying alive is less than it was before. They must work more for the same outcome.

I'm someone who likes to think automation and technology can make people's lives better in the abstract, but... maybe technology alone cannot accomplish this

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

#48

Post by pessimizer »

hintymad wrote: post #40

What if work is leisure? Jack Welch used to mention that he couldn't wait to get back to office in weekends. I personally feel that large part of my work is really leisure: researching new algorithms, building POCs, writing whitepapers and narratives, having brainstorming meetings, and etc. I don't think I can get such meaningful activities outside of work, either. That's because the work gives real use cases that de…

If work were leisure, you'd have to pay to do it, you wouldn't get paid to do it.

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

#49

Post by monkeydust »

Reminds me of Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren (1930) by Keynes Definitely worth a read. I also finished Trekonomics by Manu Saadia which was a good attempt at trying to explain the economics behind star trek, essentially a society where the economic problem (scarcity of resources) had been solved and people live to pursue personal goals rather than income.

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

#50

Post by dang »

GaryTang wrote: post #46

Homeless people are dramatically better off than our ancestors

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? You've been doing it a lot and we ban that sort of account.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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