Pre-industrial workers had a shorter workweek than today's (1991) • Hacker News Board

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

#31

Post by agumonkey » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #27

agumonkey wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious about this argument. It was mentioned in some TED talk about the benefits of simple machines. I might just be a change of pace, also a change of dependencies. Walking long is fine (people need daydream and wandering time, some dose of boredom). Washing your family clothes may be work but it's still better than doing what your boss doesn't want to do. Emotionally your a lot less invested in the latter yet…

Here’s a great talk about clothes washing. https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_magic_washing_mac... Hans Rosling argues that washing machines are magic because clothes go in and books come out. Women education, literacy rates, workplace participation etc directly correlates with automation in the home. The less time it takes to keep a family running, the more empowered women get in a society.

That's the TED talk I had in mind, I just forgot Hans' name.

I understand his argument but I think it's a biased view, we assume modern leisure is better but I'm not sold on this.

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

#32

Post by monocasa » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

jokethrowaway wrote: post #13

I disagree it's because of capitalism. Capitalism was also people working in the fields and trading their produce, after paying their tax to their lord, not unlike to our income tax. There are definitely many trends that led us to work more and more. There are increasingly more and more people in the few places people with ambitions want to live in. That's more competition which gradually drives the cost down. If the…

Capitalism isn't synonymous with trade.

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

#33

Post by hogFeast » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 5:35 PM UTC

SavantIdiot wrote: post #6

> And they worked only as many days as were necessary to earn their customary income -- which in this case amounted to about 120 days a year, for a probable total of only 1,440 hours annually (this estimate assumes a 12-hour day because the days worked were probably during spring, summer and fall). This goes against everything I've been taught, that the plebian class basically toiled endlessly, from Feudal Times to I…

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 anything that exists today, even third-world nations today aren't close to the poverty that existed then).

I think the surprising thing is that anyone would conclude that anything about feudalism was better. The reason why people didn't work long hours was because the economy was stuck in a Malthusian trap, and there wasn't enough productivity or work to actually feed people (apart from after mortality crises where close to a majority of the population died).

The only reason the argument is being made is so that it can support the OP's conclusion about work in the present. It has no real significance by itself, this isn't history (incidentally, this is why history is important...it is taught so badly in the US, so badly...but everyone makes these bizarre ahistorical comparisons, everyone looks at the past when trying to understand the present...it is unfortunate that we have the knowledge to inform the limits of this process, but people just ignore it).

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

#34

Post by grawprog » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

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…

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 applied to clothing, housing, religiously symbolic objects, etc.

Embroidery, pottery, basket weaving, carpentry, leatherwork and woodcarving were common skills, often with division of labor by sex.

>Sports Sports, including martial arts were also practiced commonly.

There were many medieval tournaments allowing people to compete and demonstrate their physical skill in sports like running, log-tossing, or stick-fighting.

There were also team events such as kicking a stuffed leather ball.

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

#35

Post by wolverine876 » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 5:37 PM UTC

ren_engineer wrote: post #4

Swizec wrote: post #3

Sure they had a “shorter workweek” but it also took women a full workday to wash the family’s clothes, hours of walking to get water for the day, and if you wanted something from the town over that was a 3 day trip. So many everyday things we take for granted were incredibly difficult and involved a lot of manual labor and/or waiting around for hours and days. I wonder how much of that leisure time came from being bl…

article basically ignores quality of life in exchange for "leisure". I could build a crude shelter and be homeless and basically achieve the same thing, turns out most people don't want that. Fact is most people voluntarily opt in to capitalism because life is better, if you want something close to what the article talks about you can pretty easily move to an Amish community or try creating your own commune and try t…

> 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 enormous vision and courage. And then what do you do for health care, for example? How do you raise kids?

Peasants in the industrial revolution faced starvation, IIRC, if they didn't move to the cities. Much of their opportunity for their former lives had been taken away.

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

#36

Post by waynesonfire » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 5:38 PM UTC

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.

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

#37

Post by zaidf » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 5:38 PM UTC

>Before capitalism, most people did not work very long hours at all

This statement is only true if you don't count slaves as people

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

#38

Post by 1121redblackgo » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 5:38 PM UTC

chiefalchemist wrote: post #17

I didn't see it mentioned...why? What happened in the mid 19th century that labor lost the upper hand to "management"? If the tradition (of less work hours) dates so far back, what triggered its disappearance so quickly? And going forward, as if it never existed?

The Industrial revolution and who owns the means of production. My machines, my tools, my rules. etc etc.

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

#39

Post by wolverine876 » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 5:39 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #31

Swizec wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here’s a great talk about clothes washing. https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_magic_washing_mac... Hans Rosling argues that washing machines are magic because clothes go in and books come out. Women education, literacy rates, workplace participation etc directly correlates with automation in the home. The less time it takes to keep a family running, the more empowered women get in a society.

That's the TED talk I had in mind, I just forgot Hans' name. I understand his argument but I think it's a biased view, we assume modern leisure is better but I'm not sold on this.

Education, literacy, political empowerment are not leisure.

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

#40

Post by hintymad » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 5:40 PM UTC

What if work is leisure? Jack Welch used to mention that he couldn't wait to get back to office in weekends. I personally feel that large part of my work is really leisure: researching new algorithms, building POCs, writing whitepapers and narratives, having brainstorming meetings, and etc. I don't think I can get such meaningful activities outside of work, either. That's because the work gives real use cases that demand scale and efficiency, which drives my projects. To me, an activity is leisure if I want to do it and I have freedom to decide how to spend time.