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

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

#421

Post by simplecomplex »

earth2eca wrote: post #414

it is a shell game. I spent the best years of my life, my 20s and early 30s, building a career that was formidable and lauded by peers and colleagues, in a contracting industry. a nervous breakdown from work/life dysfunction led me to graduate studies in contemplative Tibetan Buddhist psychology. I have not worked a day in five years. there are mediating circumstances of privilege, position and inherited /accumulated…

Someone else is working for you instead (unless you saved this money).

Whoever pays your bills is your boss. If the pay is contingent on attending graduate school then it’s actually a job.

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

#422

Post by watwut »

ido wrote: post #201
watwut wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do you assume the kindergarten teachers earn less than they would have otherwise had in a different job or less than the average parent of the kids in their group? Cause when they leave, they get jobs that earn more money.

Who leaves what job? There are plenty of kindergarten teachers who stay at that job their entire careers. If you refer to the parents, in Berlin it costs no money for the parent to send their kids to kindergarten (same as public schools).

And plenty who leaves at least around here. Those I knew personally got more money after. I can also check unemployment rates (low) and compare kindergarten salary to other jobs that hire same qualification (most of administrative work, junior tester etc).

I assume they earn less money they would otherwise, because those who left found better paid jobs without much problems.

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

#423

Post by JBSay »

swayvil wrote: post #416
JBSay wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow I don't think you know much about medieval serfdom. While the serf was not allowed to leave neither was the lord allowed kick the serf out of his land. The only way the lord could "fire" a serf was to sell the associated land in which case he would simply become the serf of another lord. By contrast employees are not attached to their place of work and are free to leave. The two systems have nothing in common…

He was offering that "proving worth to the lord" was fundamental to that psychology. Which fits in with your scenario just fine.

That's the point. A serf didn't have to prove his worth. An employee does.

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

#424

Post by simplecomplex »

Here are numbers in question:

13th century - Adult male peasant, U.K.: 1620 hours

14th century - Casual laborer, U.K.: 1440 hours

Middle ages - English worker: 2309 hour

1400-1600 - Farmer-miner, adult male, U.K.: 1980 hours

1840 - Average worker, U.K.: 3105-3588 hours

1850 - Average worker, U.S.: 3150-3650 hours

1987 - Average worker, U.S.: 1949 hours

1988 - Manufacturing workers, U.K.: 1856 hours

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

#425

Post by damq »

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 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.

Did you just make this up? The stigma is the exact opposite. Western society makes it quite difficult to fire employees. Hell, it's even illegal to fire striking employees. You'd be hard-pressed to find any employer willing to fire an employee without thoroughly documented evidence of the employee's malfeasance.

The only time anybody gets fired is when they really really deserved it. In contrast, many employees leave their jobs capriciously with little to no consequence.

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

#426

Post by goto11 »

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.

Edgy. But also deeply ignorant of history. Servitude means you can't quit your job. That is a pretty significant modification!

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

#427

Post by chrisco255 »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #361
ernst_klim wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Universal healthcare solved that in Europe. As a person which lives in Russia and Germany, I'm really interested in what you mean by solved? Universal healthcare in Russia is a total mess. Universal healthcare (edit: in Germany) have a lot of problems too, of which the most significant is underpayment, low salaries, and such a lack of personnel, that CDU people did really suggest to use conscription to draw the fre…

My favorite subject. First, I'm not sure if you're aware, but the price of a procedure in the US is not necessarily related to its cost. There's been several news articles showing the same procedure can cost 100x more in one hospital vs the other in the same city. Hospitals literally pull prices out their ass and justify it by saying "no one pays that price". Then they bludgeon people with these completely fictitious…

I had a friend who had an appendix removed, the bill was $80K, similar to what you quoted. He didn't have insurance, however, so he haggled on the bill. Eventually they settled and accepted $8K, or 10% of the sticker price, for the procedure. I don't know how insurance companies settle these things behind the scenes, but I imagine many are overpaying and we're all paying the cost through higher insurance prices.

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

#428

Post by BurningFrog »

swayvil wrote: post #411
BurningFrog wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's not really true. Once you exclude people who died in childhood the average life expectancy shoots up. An entertaining use of the word "true". Yes, if you exclude a lot of the data, the average changes :) Sarcasm aside, that is an important point in average life span statistics, but doesn't change the point that preindustrial life was "Nasty, brutish and short", as the old saying goes. Also, 1850s England was…

No, "not nasty brutish and short". And not "everybody suffered a short lifespan" either. As we have just seen. What is true is that many children died young. Beyond that they lived almost as long as we do. If they had modern medicine then the numbers would have equaled out. Heck, with their superior diet they may have lived even longer. So the question is, do we need to work long hours to have modern medicine?

Your own numbers say that the richest population in the world in 1850 - way into industrialization - died at 55 on average, after ignoring child mortality. Which BTW means they watched maybe 1/4 of their children die.

If any population lived like that today, their lives would certainly be called nasty, brutish and short.

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

#429

Post by jokoon »

silveroriole wrote: post #223
jokoon wrote: post #150

I'm not waiting for society to change to live a better, more normal life, I've already abandoned the classic work sphere and its crazy carousel, and it has a long time since I have accepted it. All those findings done in that research confirms a lot of how I'm feeling already. It's true that I don't "see" as many people as people who work, so I socialize less and I don't meet many people, but: * I learned that having…

May I ask what you do? As in, to sustain your life/living situation/etc.

I don't live in the US. That's a big parameter.

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

#430

Post by monocasa »

kerkeslager wrote: post #389
vonmoltke wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

It's worse than an unenforceable policy, it's an explicit violation of the law for which they can (and should) be sued over.
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