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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)

#121

Post by legitster »

asdff wrote: post #110
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…

Today after work is over I still have things to clean, fix, prepare, butcher, etc. today too. Instead of repairing a thatch roof I'm working on shingles, but the amount of labor needed around the home and in domestic life even today is seemingly endless and somehow fills to expand all available free time like a gas in a container.

The Hedonistic Treadmill. We're incredibly richer, but we are wired to always want something nicer.

We can wash our clothes so much easier but we insist on washing them after every wear. The net result is the same amount of time spent washing clothes (but they are always nicer).

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

#122

Post by supperburg »

I am reading Jean Froissart’s Chronicles. It is a fascinating first hand account of English royalty and wars in the 14th century. I think people should also consider the higher classes in those times because they seem to have worked continuously at killing each other. It’s work none the less.

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

#123

Post by WhisperingShiba »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #111

The problem is that the more we automate, the supply exceeds demand in the labor market. That in turn allows employers to easily suck up the excess potential workers at low wages, and also makes further automation or even repairing the machines we got uneconomical. Stagnant weak demands screws over big things like nuclear power plants and subways. We need things like a UBI and further shrinking of the workweek (perha…

I think we just have to rethink what being a good person is. Workers have way wayyy more power than people think, they just need unity and the ability to say 'Fuck you' to the systems and people that harm more than help.

And keep in mind; of course those systems and their people tell you that they help more than harm. UBI is totally not necessary. The market works with minimal intervention if people are able to live fearlessly.

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

#124

Post by wolverine876 »

agumonkey wrote: post #92
wolverine876 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education, literacy, political empowerment are not leisure.

These are all cute words, but on my daily routine I see nothing of that sort. People are not especially empowered, power which I believe comes as much from emotional and human experience rather than words.

I can't imagine your daily routine. Education, literacy, and political empowerment constantly play a role in my life, the life of people around me, my society, my economy, etc.

One might say that education and literacy play a role in what we're doing right this moment ...

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

#125

Post by wolverine876 »

californical wrote: post #84
wolverine876 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most people voluntarily opt in to capitalism because life is better I think this takes a good point too far. The society around you is not opt-in, it's a very difficult opt-out. People generally follow the religion of their parents, the career path of their neighborhood, etc. Opting out of the current economy would be a major, radical sacrifice (of status, friends, family, resources, opportunity) that would require…

Isn’t that their point? You can opt-out and give up the healthcare, education, ease of raising kids, grocery stores, etc, living life similarly to people of the past before all of those modern inventions. It would just be a horrible life, so nobody does it.

My understanding: They say people are making a rational, economic, opt-in choice. I'm saying people are making an almost inescapable choice not to opt-out, having nothing to do with the economics.

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

#126

Post by Jensson »

monocasa wrote: post #81
hogFeast wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where were you taught that? Fairly basic logic should indicate to you that it wouldn't have been possible for people to work as much. There was no manufacturing. The vast majority of people who worked, worked in agriculture. You cannot work in the middle of winter, you cannot work at night. I don't know how it would have been possible...and that is why people then lived in crushing poverty (it isn't comparable to any…

I was taught that as well, in what retrospectively was blatant capitalist propaganda. That the only thing that has given us leisure was the efficiencies of capitalism, and the benevolence of capitalists. Albeit my school district was really into right wing propaganda in general, describing the civil war as "the war of northern aggression" in its text books.

> That the only thing that has given us leisure was the efficiencies of capitalism, and the benevolence of capitalists.

This is the opposite of what you expect from one perspective. When a task becomes more efficient people want to put more time in it since they get more out of it. So the more efficient we make jobs the more people will want to work to get more and more stuff. There might be a cap to that, but as of yet we haven't reached it, even programmers making $500k a year still wants to work more even though they could easily spend most of their time not working.

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

#127

Post by vkou »

asdff wrote: post #110
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…

Today after work is over I still have things to clean, fix, prepare, butcher, etc. today too. Instead of repairing a thatch roof I'm working on shingles, but the amount of labor needed around the home and in domestic life even today is seemingly endless and somehow fills to expand all available free time like a gas in a container.

> Today after work is over I still have things to clean, fix, prepare, butcher, etc. today too

But do you or your partner have to spend ~1200-2000 working hours/year spinning clothes for you and your household?

This was absolutely the norm in pre-industrial times. You couldn't just go down to the thrift store and buy a pair of jeans for $8.

When you clean, fix, wash and butcher, you have a dishwasher. You have a washing machine. You have a dryer. You have running water. You don't need to go down to the well, or to the river, to bring water up in buckets. You have electric heating - and you don't have to spend hundreds of hours a year chopping, seasoning, and splitting firewood, and then hauling it to your home. (And even if you do, you have far better tools to do it than were available back in the day.)

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

#129

Post by agumonkey »

wolverine876 wrote: post #124
agumonkey wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are all cute words, but on my daily routine I see nothing of that sort. People are not especially empowered, power which I believe comes as much from emotional and human experience rather than words.

I can't imagine your daily routine. Education, literacy, and political empowerment constantly play a role in my life, the life of people around me, my society, my economy, etc. One might say that education and literacy play a role in what we're doing right this moment ...

most people I ran at work into were not specially educated, nor empowered, they coast along trying to fit in their work waiting for a bit more money to spend on not super important stuff.

A tiny example about power, woman in charge of my office bowed down in excuses after a lawyer insulted her for his own mistake. This is the sort of power people still don't have and that no book will teach you.

now, to be fair, my experience is only that, if so I wish I could live in yours :)

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

#130

Post by kebman »

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…

So they just sat around and were poor all day? All the rich culture being brought through the generations, it meant nothing?

I grew up on a farm. It was run pretty much by manual labour up until even the 30's and beyond. Even while tractors and various forms of farm automation became pretty commonplace by the 50's and 60's, they still used age old techniques for preserving hay by drying it on metal threads well into the 80's and sometimes even until the 90's.

My grandfather still used the scythe on his fields as long as he was healthy enough to work in 80's. He much preferred the ways of old, and never even bothered installing hot water, much less a water toilet or a shower, in his house. Yet they had time for a lot more holidays back then than we do today.

Sure, there was lighter kinds of work you could do while socializing, such as knitting or even baking bread. But then a large amount of people actually thoroughly enjoy doing those things, including woodworking or even hunting or fishing. Is it leisure or work? Well, it's hard to say when you're also dependent on it for survival.

These days the fantastic progress of "social media" is making sure I have to answer messages from my boss even on weekends. I don't really think of that as "progress"...

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