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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)

#151

Post by betwixthewires »

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.

Ask yourself, if it was so rewarding, why did we see urbanization associated with industrialization? People chose to leave those rewarding lives and move to cities and work in factories. People today choose to leave less stressful rural lives and move to cities to work professional jobs. It's so commonplace that its a cultural trope that rural people leave if they can.

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

#152

Post by wolverine876 »

agumonkey wrote: post #129
wolverine876 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

> most people I ran at work into were not specially educated

We're talking about an historic timescale. If they are literate and have high school degrees, they are very well educated compared to pre-industrial people.

> 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.

Those situations are stomach-turning to me. Books do teach people about that kind of power, how to get it and use it (unfortunately), and how to respond to it. Also, literacy and education led to that attorney's power (unfortunately).

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

#153

Post by burnafter184 »

varjag wrote: post #41
grawprog wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Today's labor is different in that the individual is commoditized. You're indentured to your client, who then accrues a debt to be discharged in an agreed upon time with various contingencies appended, like showing up on time and regardless of completion of your given task (10 baskets/8h) you're nonetheless expected to put in your contracted time.

Basket weaving done in your home, with performance left to your own scruples, and a personalized schedule is leagues different than slaving away for someone else.

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

#154

Post by emodendroket »

kingkawn wrote: post #144
emodendroket wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt anyone would really be happy returning to feudalism, but I imagine the goal of highlighting this stuff is to expand the sense of what is possible. It's easy to start thinking of the current state of affairs as some kind of immutable law of the universe and not a carefully negotiated political arrangement that can be altered as we see fit.

Returning to farming without the terrible pompous inhumane feudal lords sounds good

It sounds profoundly unappealing to me but the leisure time has its charms.

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

#155

Post by notahacker »

grawprog wrote: post #89
varjag wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Why would something people find fun enough to do as a hobby now not have been fun 500 years ago? Compare it to say a modern profession like software engineering. Despite it being work, there's plenty of programmers who also enjoy programming and do it for fun on their own time as well as work. Why would it have been any different back then?

There are plenty of people who don't enjoy programming. Now imagine they all have to do it too.

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

#156

Post by didibus »

Tangentially, the physical labor jobs I had when younger never really tired me out the way that the mental/bureaucratic/political job I have now does.

Physical work actually energized me, I mean this is all confirmed today as well, we know all the benefits exercise brings on well being.

There's something about desk jobs that is frankly soul sucking and literally mentally draining in a way where when the day ends, it's as if you suffer from temporary depression. Even getting motivated to do things you want to do is hard, resorting to the laziest activity is often what happens, phone, social media, television. Sometimes I can't even get myself to play a video game and I love video games.

And when the night comes, you'd think sleep is what you need, but that same day of desk job actually gives you insomnia, falling asleep is hard, and while you sleep it's as if all of that mental activity is still happening in your head from the work day.

If physical labor work paid me as well and provided the same benefits, I'd probably switch back to it honestly.

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

#157

Post by [deleted] »

karaterobot wrote: post #63

I would take a 10 hour day in almost any job in the 21st century over an 8-16 hour workday for a 14th century farm laborer mowing hay with a scythe or plowing behind a team of oxen. I get meal and rest breaks too, and even though they may get more days off than I do, what are they doing on those days off? Chopping wood? Thatching their roof? Hauling water from a well? The amount of labor done in a day by peasants in…

[deleted]

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

#158

Post by Forge36 »

ScarletEmerald wrote: post #143
throwaway984393 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>> Common people had almost no sports, no games (beyond precursors to Bocce or backgammon), no literature! >No literature, sure, because they were illiterate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_literature (I know you mentioned storytelling in passing, but that rather downplays it. Oral literature was a big deal.)

It has never occurred to me before your comment that literature could include oral stories. Thanks for adding that!

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

#159

Post by agumonkey »

wolverine876 wrote: post #152
agumonkey wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

> most people I ran at work into were not specially educated We're talking about an historic timescale. If they are literate and have high school degrees, they are very well educated compared to pre-industrial people. > 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. Those situations…

I tend to think that higher education is not as interesting as it's said to be. And people who used to work hands on (woodwork, metal smith) had a lot of deep knowledge too, it just wasn't seen as evolved.

Frankly I don't think one book will ever prepare you to live the situations above. This is the kind of thick skin only real life can imprint in you. That girl probably knew everything she could have said, but biology took over, she made a large grin and let it slip. Social status for you. The same old song that has been played for ages. And mind you, that chief wasn't an angel, she unleashed on me a few times during my work. That's why I say people are not better today. All I see is tribal reflexes and fitting in the social tissue.

Now to be fair, I'm not the happiest dude on earth right now, so maybe I amplify the negativity of those situation. Still I'm not sold on the benefits of doing less thanks to modern technology.

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

#160

Post by dang »

new_guy wrote: post #101
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…

> And I think the best evidence we have that we are overrating the quality of pre-industrial leisure time is that people developed almost no leisure activities Dude, what? This is quite possibly the dumbest most ignorant ill-informed take I've seen today. https://victorianweb.org/history/leisure1.html

Please make your substantive points thoughtfully, without name-calling or personal attack.

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

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