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

Post by monocasa » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 7:09 PM UTC

Aerroon wrote: post #137

monocasa wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The industrial revolution did give us a lot more leisure time if you're willing to live with at the same standards as people back then did. But we don't find those standards acceptable.

Post by ScarletEmerald » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 7:10 PM UTC

throwaway984393 wrote: post #136

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…

> people developed almost no leisure activities! This is clearly not true. They didn't have modern leisure activities, but they had a vast array of activities to keep them from getting bored when they weren't working or doing the arduous, nearly continuous preparation of meals. > Common people had almost no sports, no games (beyond precursors to Bocce or backgammon), no literature! No literature, sure, because they w…

Post by monocasa » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 7:11 PM UTC

Jensson wrote: post #126

monocasa wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Post by agumonkey » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 7:11 PM UTC

legitster wrote: post #85

pessimizer wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Fair enough! But I think it would also be fair to say that if we shouldn't assume peasants had idyllic lives just because we compare their medieval timecards to our own.

Post by kingkawn » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 7:12 PM UTC

Dumblydorr wrote: post #51

I can speak to Irish history. Long considered one of the most poor and wretched places for common folk, the rural poor had numerous issues in Ireland. While they had dance and a lovely folk music, they also had starvation, disease, lack of political representation, and a lack of basic economic ladders. They did have plentiful turf to warm themselves, in contrast to many other poor folk in other areas of Europe. They…