Live data from Hacker News

Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you

blogs.reuters.com

11–20 of 130 posts

Re: Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you

#11
This comparison is probably nonsensical. Still, I think the part of the zeitgeist it's coming from is interesting.

No matter how rich we get as a society, very little of that wealth seems to be expressed as more leisure time. This is true comparing different decades (We got richer, still work lots) and its true comparing professions/socio economic classes (highly paid engineers & lawyers work just as much as call centre employees).

It is IMO, a failure. Its also very hard for an individual near the median to break out of it without being somewhat of an extremist.

Re: Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you

#12
One thing to remember in all these discussions about working hours is that its one thing to work for yourself and another to work for someone else. I've done both. When you work for yourself you don't take much time off until things are going well, and its not a problem. I think the problem arises when people who own the business genuinely can't understand why everybody else doesn't want to put in the same hours that they do. It's about ownership. Doesn't mean that employees can't be very productive for 8 hours and then go home and do their own thing. e.g. take their kids to sport or music, contribute to voluntary organisations, work on a side project. Each to his own.

Re: Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you

#13
This article statement, "His life was shadowed by fear of famine, disease and bursts of warfare. His diet and personal hygiene left much to be desired" explains why I don't want to go back to the life of my peasant ancestors.

The author's background, "Lynn Parramore is a senior editor at AlterNet, co-founder of Recessionwire, and founding editor of New Deal 2.0 and IgoUgo.com. She is the author of "Reading the Sphinx: Ancient Egypt in Nineteenth-Century Literary Culture" and has taught cultural theory at NYU" suggests to me why I won't take this opinion piece kindly submitted here as a guide to current economic policy. Actually, today's economy in the United States offers unparalleled opportunities for each worker to make the worker's preferred trade-off among cash income and leisure time, especially if the worker is part of a family household of persons who agree to make different trade-offs from one another.

Re: Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you

#14
Diversity is strength...for Capital. But diversity is weakness for Labor.

The more diverse a nation, state, city, neighborhood, workplace etc, the less united is Labor. Diversity engenders factions. Factions weaken unity. A less unified Labor is easily preyed upon by Capital.

What sort of diversity creates factions?

1. Size: the larger the nation, state, city, workplace etc, the more factions. 2. Distance. 3. Race. 4. Culture. 5. Nationality 6. Language.

The fact that factions and diversity weaken the position of the majority has been well known to Capital for centuries. In fact the so-called 'founding fathers' (aka Capital) deliberately discarded the Articles of Confederation and replaced them with the Constitution because the structure of the government created by the constitution would cause factions in the electorate, weakening the position of Labor and strengthening the position of Capital. See, e.g., the federalist papers that were written by the Father of the Constitution, Madison (worth 100 mill after he got his inheritance) and see also his notes on the constitutional convention.

I have given you the theory. Let us examine the evidence: for western nations, let us compare two extremes: one, very large and diverse, the other, small and relatively homogeneous.

The USA versus...denmark, sweden, iceland, austria et al.

Where is it that the people enjoy more time off? Where is it that the people have more control of their governments?

Now, recently denmark, sweden, austria, et al are "enjoying" more diversity via mass immigration.

How is that increased diversity impacting the quality of the lifestyle enjoyed by the citizens therein?

You know the answer.

Now you have the theory and the data.

But you will not understand what I am saying because this is not what you have been taught since youth. Hmm...another of the puzzles of mankind upon which to ruminate....

Re: Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you

#17
post #7
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that our elected representatives have voted themselves so many perks, as well as raises, highlights the double standard which has become prevalent in the USA. Exempt from the Obama care fiasco, retirement eligibility after a ridiculously short period of employment, an enviably short work "year." It makes me wonder why I didn't go into politics...

Lawmakers already had health insurance so the Affordable Care Act didn't really affect them in any substantial way. In general the ACA won't have a huge immediate impact for those who already have health insurance.

And those without health care insurance can presently walk into any community health center to receive subsidized health care free of charge. Even illegal aliens can get free health care right now, so how will the ACA affect those without health care insurance?

Re: Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you

#18
post #4

Statistics about how much time medieval peasants spent working can be misleading, because a lot of what they spent their time on when they weren't doing fieldwork was still work, e.g. tending their own gardens, making implements and furniture, working on their houses. They had to make most of the things they used themselves. So when "work" was over they didn't go home and watch TV. It's hard to be sure exactly what l…

maybe that was their TV, self projects

Re: Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you

#19
post #4

Statistics about how much time medieval peasants spent working can be misleading, because a lot of what they spent their time on when they weren't doing fieldwork was still work, e.g. tending their own gardens, making implements and furniture, working on their houses. They had to make most of the things they used themselves. So when "work" was over they didn't go home and watch TV. It's hard to be sure exactly what l…

Perhaps given more time to tend our own gardens, make our own tools and furniture and work on our houses, we'd be a happier and more prosperous civilization.

Re: Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you

#20
post #4

Statistics about how much time medieval peasants spent working can be misleading, because a lot of what they spent their time on when they weren't doing fieldwork was still work, e.g. tending their own gardens, making implements and furniture, working on their houses. They had to make most of the things they used themselves. So when "work" was over they didn't go home and watch TV. It's hard to be sure exactly what l…

>the most convincing evidence that it was very hard was that early mines and factories were easily able to recruit all the workers they needed, despite working conditions we know to have been harsh. I don't find that evidence convincing for two reasons: 1. Many peasant farmers relied on a commons for food production which was being legislatively destroyed at that time ( See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure ).…

Factory workers were paid handsomely and competition for such jobs was fierce.
Post reply on HN