Yet again glad to be in Europe...
Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you
21–30 of 130 posts
Re: Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you
#22Statistics 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…
> but 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,
They may have needed the money but they sure didn't like it, at least here in the US. There was a large change of working for a wage, on a clock, compared to working on a farm or for a wage, and was a sizable violation of the Jeffersonian ideals of freedom. As to why people left, i dunno. There's probably a history research effort in it.
Re: Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you
#23This 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 cen…
It is a personal decision though, right?
Some choose more leisure and others don't.
Go talk to some ski "bums" or surf "bums" to see what I mean
Re: Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you
#24We get weekends off -- so that's around ~100 days at least.
Well then, let's petition for a 3 day weekend. That'll give us the 150 of our medieval brethren.
I propose we couch it in terms of equality legislation: Fridays for the Muslims, Saturdays for the Jews and Sundays for the Christians. This serves all Western monotheistic (Abrahamic) religions equally. In order to balance things out though we will need to raise hourly wages across the board by 20% because we'll be only working 4 out of every 5 hours that we do now if I've got my math right.
Thursday will be the new Friday. TGIF will become TGIT.
Re: Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you
#25We get weekends off -- so that's around ~100 days at least.
Well then, let's petition for a 3 day weekend. That'll give us the 150 of our medieval brethren. I propose we couch it in terms of equality legislation: Fridays for the Muslims, Saturdays for the Jews and Sundays for the Christians. This serves all Western monotheistic (Abrahamic) religions equally. In order to balance things out though we will need to raise hourly wages across the board by 20% because we'll be only…
To be inclusive should add a day for atheists and misc religions too. Monday works for me
Re: Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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.
[citation needed]
Re: Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you
#27Statistics 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…
>but 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
That's extremely innacurate. Workers had to be MADE to work into factories by force, often by laws and regulations destroying their agricultural and traditional occupations to make them fodder for the industry. In a lot of cases, the industrilization was made at gun point (USSR is an example, but it also holds for a lot of the limited industriliazation in the third world).
That is known (and has been documented) to have happened almost everywhere there was industrialization.
Re: Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you
#28This 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 cen…
It is a personal decision though, right? Some choose more leisure and others don't. Go talk to some ski "bums" or surf "bums" to see what I mean
"Ski bum" is not an option for people that want to have economic security and maybe buy a mortgage and raise a family.
Re: Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you
#29This is simply a result of the balance of power shifting ever further towards employers over the past few decades. What incentives does a short-term value maximizing employer have to give his employees paid vacation? In addition, a perfect storm of automation, globalization and erosion of worker rights has severely reduced the bargaining position of employees worldwide. Furthermore, by keeping the majority of the pop…
Well put, the relationship trends more and more asymmetric. Add in rhetoric designed to convince workers to buy into a system that exploits them: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6240495
In general, employers have far more leverage over employee's lives than the individual employee has over the corporation's well being even though we sometimes pretend that it is symmetric and that the market is fair.
Employers optimize for maximum profit for "the shareholders." Somewhere along the line, morality is tossed out, and shortly afterward even legitimate long-term sustainability is also out (cultivating a strong workforce, valued for their talent rather than purely for their labor).
Add in the feedback loop of political apparatuses being appropriated for profit (lobbying) and the political arena is just another exploitable lever for amassing more resources by those with the resources to do so.
Re: Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you
#30Should be tagged [opinion]. This is not a news piece.
There's not opinion in the piece. Just numbers. Perhaps you meant to tag your comment "don't agree".