Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009) • Hacker News Board

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

#381

Post by tryitnow » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:42 PM UTC

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…

It is something to be ashamed of for employees to leave their employers? Where? I've worked in a few places in the US and I never sensed any "shame" when an employee left. I have sensed that employers feel shame when laying people off though.

I think the modern wage labor relation is very different than medieval serfdom, on both sides. Marx does a good job of explaining this Kaptial Vol. I. What is the same is the basic exploitation that underlies that relationship.

I agree 100% with the rest of what you say though, there are too many people taking BS jobs too seriously.

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

#382

Post by monocasa » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:43 PM UTC

greyhair wrote: post #372

kerkeslager wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your supply and demand explanation for the following norms? - It's considered professional for employees give their employers two weeks notice before leaving. It's considered completely reasonable for employers to terminate employees and not even pay them for the rest of the day. - It's considered unprofessional to talk about what you're getting paid. - It's considered normal for potential employers to do back…

Termination without notice or payment is definitely considered bad form, short of the company closing due to bankruptcy. I have never worked anywhere that did not provide notice or some severance. Even at a startup that cut 50% prior to going down in flames, they paid those half that were released two weeks pay and two weeks insurance coverage. (even though they were asked to leave immediately) Large corporations ten…

The couple times I've been laid off, the severance was dependent on signing over new legal requirements like new non solicits for who they didn't lay off.

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

#383

Post by enraged_camel » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:44 PM UTC

greyhair wrote: post #372

kerkeslager wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your supply and demand explanation for the following norms? - It's considered professional for employees give their employers two weeks notice before leaving. It's considered completely reasonable for employers to terminate employees and not even pay them for the rest of the day. - It's considered unprofessional to talk about what you're getting paid. - It's considered normal for potential employers to do back…

Termination without notice or payment is definitely considered bad form, short of the company closing due to bankruptcy. I have never worked anywhere that did not provide notice or some severance. Even at a startup that cut 50% prior to going down in flames, they paid those half that were released two weeks pay and two weeks insurance coverage. (even though they were asked to leave immediately) Large corporations ten…

Are you US-based? Because severence packages are absolutely an exception, rather than the norm. Most of the US has "at-will" employment, which states that employers can terminate employees at will, for any reason, without warning. And companies take advantage of this all the time.

The other thing is that you seem to be speaking as a developer. Everyone knows that our industry treats employees better than average. You really need to look at the broader landscape though.

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

#384

Post by greyhair » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:44 PM UTC

dbingham wrote: post #353

sillyquiet wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

`easiest` ?

Yes. Ever done manual labor? Or something that requires both intense manual labor and intellectual problem solving, like carpentry or many of the building trades? Or think about all the various fields that require intense intellectual output, with nothing like the rewards and security of software engineering. We've got it good. Though, really, the ideal would be for all workers to be treated more like we are, and les…

Agree. Ever have to stand waist deep in cow shit? I have. One of the things that encouraged me to go back to college. After the farm job I twisted wrenches for a living. Six day fifty hour weeks were the norm, the pay was meh, and I had over $8K of my own money invested in tools at the end.

Yes, this career has been awesome. Awesome, and fun. Non-stop learning the entire time.

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

#385

Post by monocasa » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:46 PM UTC

lovich wrote: post #342

bko wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the opposite. Low wage workers leave much more often than get fired. Consider Uber where drivers earn a very low net wage. Only 4% remain after a year. Maybe some are fired but I suspect he overwhelming majority just move on. Amazon has the highest turnover of any Fortune 500 company in 2013. That’s because their workers quit. They have options even at a low wage. That’s why they recently raised wages. https://w…

If it's like when I worked menial jobs then the bosses just do something to make you quit like scheduling you for only 1 hour a week, assign you to only do the shit work that was previously spread out, etc. I think that muddies the water a bit in terms of those stats

Yeah, they do that so you can't claim unemployment like you could have if they fired you.

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

#386

Post by manfredo » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:48 PM UTC

chewz wrote: post #103

manfredo wrote: post #42

> One of capitalism's most durable myths is that it has reduced human toil. This myth is typically defended by a comparison of the modern forty-hour week with its seventy- or eighty-hour counterpart in the nineteenth century. The implicit -- but rarely articulated -- assumption is that the eighty-hour standard has prevailed for centuries. The comparison conjures up the dreary life of medieval peasants, toiling steadi…

> Capitalism may have a higher demand in terms of hours worked in explicit employment, but I doubt many today would genuinely trade life in a capitalist country for life in a pre-industrial society. You are projecting the circumstances of Northern Europe. But this is a tough place to get by. So is Northern China etc. On the other end of the spectrum on some islands in Indonesia people need no more then 7 days of work…

Poverty in Indonesia has been decreasing with less than 10% falling below the international poverty line (which is the minimum amount needed to get food and shelter)[1]. Using them as a poster child of impoverishment seems to draw more on stereotype rather than fact. And again, the baseline needs to be compared against pre-industrial circumstances: do you really think that the average Indonesian wants to turn back th clock to pre-industrial Indonesia? That would be disastrous, the islands likely could not even support its current population levels without industrialization.

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_Indonesia

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

#387

Post by monocasa » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:49 PM UTC

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` ?

Yep. I've been a grocery store manager, an interior contractor, a whole slew of other jobs, ... and a software engineer. Software engineer is by far the easiest job I've worked.

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

#388

Post by macspoofing » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:50 PM UTC

azernik wrote: post #379

macspoofing wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Early capitalist servitude did itself evolve directly from feudal servitude, but it got much worse, in economic terms, in the process. No it didn't. This Roussaunian idealization of rural subsistence living must really die. People aren't idiots, you don't move to urban factory work (as bad as it was compared to modern day) unless rural life was much worse.

Standard of living rose by some measures on moving to the cities; however, the dependence on an employer was much greater than the old dependence on your lord.

>Standard of living rose by some measures on moving to the cities

Some?

>the dependence on an employer was much greater than the old dependence on your lord.

I'm not sure that's actually true.

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

#389

Post by kerkeslager » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:51 PM UTC

vonmoltke wrote: post #377

kerkeslager wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A firm that let people go without severance would be considered extremely unprofessional in professional contexts. Not everyone works at "firms": this is extremely common in food service, for example. > Talking about how much you get paid is not only normal it’s protected by law Citation? I've worked at least one place where it was explicitly against the rules to share what you were paid with your coworkers (althou…

Discussion of pay (and other workplace issues) is a "protected concerted activity" under the National Labor Relations Act, even when it happens outside the context of a union: https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/rights/employee-right... The NLRB has taken action against companies that have attempted to use such handbook policies against workers: https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/enforcement-activity/... (clic…

Interesting, I'm glad to be wrong on that one. I guess that means my previous employer just had some unenforceable policies (not too surprising).

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

#390

Post by manfredo » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:54 PM UTC

atoav wrote: post #72

manfredo wrote: post #42

> One of capitalism's most durable myths is that it has reduced human toil. This myth is typically defended by a comparison of the modern forty-hour week with its seventy- or eighty-hour counterpart in the nineteenth century. The implicit -- but rarely articulated -- assumption is that the eighty-hour standard has prevailed for centuries. The comparison conjures up the dreary life of medieval peasants, toiling steadi…

All of what you said is why poverty is usally seen as a relative value — it is relative to the perceived average of the wealth of the society you live in. A society that continuosly sustains high degrees of poverty under that definition, usually needs a narrative for why the poor people deserve to be poor and why the rich people deserve to be rich. Centuries ago (depending on the place) this might have been still bee…

> Beeing poor means to struggle to make ends meet every day and despite optimization efforts fail to do exactly that every now and then. You can have a hundred times the absolute wealth of someone in a different society and still be poorer than them in that you struggle for survival, while they do okay for the society thwy are in.

This doesn't seem right to me. Would you rather live as a middle class person, say 50th percentile in terms of wealth, in medieval Europe (which, despite being middle class still means 50% child mortality, little or no education, no effective medicine, etc.) Or a lower class person today - say 20th percentile by wealth. The latter is making $18,000 a year which will be tough to get by. But I'd still take that over any sort of pre-industrial life without hesitation.