Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

groups.csail.mit.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 523 posts

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#331

Post by bluntfang »

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #265
vfc1 wrote: post #114

The 40h a day week and modern-day work contracts come as a direct evolution of medieval servitude, with little modification. This explains the system of values that revolve around it, such as for example the notion that it's somewhat something to be ashamed of for an employee to leave its employer, while it's perfectly OK for the employer to terminate the employee at any time. The servant was not expected to leave it…

> The 40h a day week and modern-day work contracts come as a direct evolution of medieval servitude, with little modification. Where can i read more about this assertion? I was not aware that serfdom would specify such details as the number of hours. I guess that serfdom would be a very different institution in each country, or even within each province; (I guess corvée service might have been a more detailed contrac…

>Where can i read more about this assertion?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_history_of_the_United_St...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_movement

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#332

Post by silveroriole »

wickedsickeune wrote: post #112
freddie_mercury wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really only true is you take the parochial view that what women do at home isn't "work", when it clearly is work. In the 1940s a woman would typically spend 62 hours a week in housework. Nowadays women typically spend 15 hours in housework and 45 hours in paid work. So the same ballpark, really, and not a dramatic expansion.

It may be "work" but it's not the same work. Your boss is your family and its well-being when you do housework. It's not the same as someone who doesn't care about you.

I hate housework WAY more than “work work”. At least work has the possibility of being something new/interesting rather than the grinding tedium of washing the same plates, floors, furniture and clothes day after day after day.

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#333

Post by pitaj »

CalRobert wrote: post #278
perfunctory wrote: post #186

In a world where no one is compelled to work more than four hours a day, every person possessed of scientific curiosity will be able to indulge it, and every painter will be able to paint without starving, however excellent his pictures may be. Young writers will not be obliged to draw attention to themselves by sensational pot-boilers, with a view to acquiring the economic independence needed for monumental works, f…

And this is why scarcities of necessities (housing in particular) must be manufactured - to keep people competing with each other to see who can best make investors wealthy that they might be rewarded with the ability to barely able afford a decent home (after signing away their liberty for 30 years of course)

Imagine believing scarcity is manufactured.

Scarcity is NOT equal to shortage

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#334

Post by sillyquiet »

flmontpetit wrote: post #328
noobermin wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I have bones to pick out of OP, your post assumes your experience is the norm and not far away from the median.

For real. Being a software developer is probably the easiest and safest career you can have without being born into wealth. edit: I should also mention having options is not really a blessing when they're all bad.

`easiest` ?

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#335

Post by tk75x »

ken wrote: post #47
hairytrog wrote: post #36

Sure, many spend 8 hours at the office. But do they do 8 hours of work? Probably not. There are diminishing returns on time spent working, and it probably starts around the third hour. https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/978019087... Many industries would probably suffer negligible losses (and maybe gains) by transitioning to 20 hour work weeks.

This article isn't about office workers. It's about workers. Laborers are doing 8+ hour days, too, and they would not be equally productive in half the time. There's a reason it tends to pay by the hour. Let's compare apples to apples. Office jobs didn't exist in the medieval period, but labor jobs still exist today.

Cut the shifts in half and people work less individually while more people overall have job opportunities. As a benefit, working shorter shifts would result in more rested workers who would theoretically be more productive or at least have less chance of mistakes.

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#336

Post by wil421 »

feviskus wrote: post #91
jaynetics wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty bosses like this in Germany, which doesn't have as much of a history of slavery. I'd wager that when looking at countries with roughly the same level of industrialization, whether humans view fellow humans as something more than mere resources is linked to a certain set of attitudes. I'd guess that reduced working hours are positively correlated to pluralism and pacifism, and perhaps negatively corre…

Just an anecdote from quitting yesterday at a German IG-Metall company: Yesterday I quitted my working student job in order to precipitately take the opportunity for an internship at another company. My boss congratulated me for the offer, said it's a pity that I leave AND spoke with HR so that I do have a shorter period of notice (otherwise I would have had problems). All on the same day. While accompanying me on my…

I quit my job last September and had the same experience with my boss in the US. Almost word for word they said the same thing.

Both bosses were good bosses and sounds like your boss was a good manager too.

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#337

Post by JackFr »

noobermin wrote: post #310
JackFr wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in the day, Merrill Lynch had a rep for hiring really green people on the cheap, doing a very good job training them up, and then not paying them according to their new value in the market. When you would leave, managers would often lay the guilt trip about "What you owe us..." (to which the proper response is the line from Goodfellas -"F * you. Pay me.") There was a sitewide IT town hall in NY when I was there…

Why is the response to stop training them rather than train them and then pay them their worth?

That's not the correct response. I'm pretty sure the person was being facetious.

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#338

Post by flmontpetit »

sillyquiet wrote: post #334
flmontpetit wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For real. Being a software developer is probably the easiest and safest career you can have without being born into wealth. edit: I should also mention having options is not really a blessing when they're all bad.

`easiest` ?

Yes. Being a software developer is easy. It's not necessarily the case, but I can think of no other trade that pays so well and offers so many opportunities for so little ability, effort, accountability, responsibility and stress.

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#339

Post by newsgremlin »

Digit-Al wrote: post #217
ken wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article isn't about office workers. It's about workers. Laborers are doing 8+ hour days, too, and they would not be equally productive in half the time. There's a reason it tends to pay by the hour. Let's compare apples to apples. Office jobs didn't exist in the medieval period, but labor jobs still exist today.

I humbly disagree. Even in medieval times there were clerics, scribes, book-keepers, and so on.

But those were the people that could actually read and write. Most people were illiterate. Only those privileged with status and wealth could have access to reading materials (and they would be the only people that would even desire them), and they were only men.

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#340

Post by newsgremlin »

tk75x wrote: post #335
ken wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article isn't about office workers. It's about workers. Laborers are doing 8+ hour days, too, and they would not be equally productive in half the time. There's a reason it tends to pay by the hour. Let's compare apples to apples. Office jobs didn't exist in the medieval period, but labor jobs still exist today.

Cut the shifts in half and people work less individually while more people overall have job opportunities. As a benefit, working shorter shifts would result in more rested workers who would theoretically be more productive or at least have less chance of mistakes.

Those workers may also be more likely to stay in work to finish a piece of work off, rather than leave as soon as the bell rings.
Post reply on HN