this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2024
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Keep in mind that once upon a time it was 6 days and 14 hours per day.
Keep in mind that before that, people worked much less in winter and still less than today in summer
Admittedly, they were completely at the mercy of disease, herd migration, had no plumbing, buried astounding numbers of their children, were not the apex predator, didn't have mattresses and when injuries happened they often healed poorly and painfully.
And if I worked less hours in my office job, all that would return?
Your office job is incompatible with the pre-agrarian lifestyle you described earlier.
You don't get modern luxuries AND the minimal hours required as a hunter gatherer, just as I can't get the speed of my car AND the cardiovascular benefits of my bike simultaneously.
He's not talking about "pre-agrarian;" even medieval peasants got more time off than we do today.
That's mostly a silly meme that's been seized upon.
When they worked, it was from dawn to dusk doing hard labour. And if the harvest wasn't good, they died because the Lord took his tithe regardless.
And that's not to mention the household labour, all of which we take for granted (consider chopping wood every time you wanted heat, mending clothes or the ridiculous process of cleaning them.) Or looking after farm animals etc. The only stuff that's counted in that 150 days silliness is working the land which was only a portion of their real labour.
Can you provide a citation for that, please?
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/regulation-industry/medieval-peasants-really-did-not-work-only-150-days-a-year#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17104671983190&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.adamsmith.org%2Fblog%2Fregulation-industry%2Fmedieval-peasants-really-did-not-work-only-150-days-a-year
You just cited an English capitalist propaganda think tank. Please provide an objective citation.
Which of their claims or points do you feel is inaccurate?
I'm saying they are a conservative capitalist propaganda think tank. They are an organization who's primary purpose is to create propaganda for capitalism. They are not a credible source on pre-capitalist labor. Please provide an objective source.
Again, what is the specific point with which you disagree? Please provide a claim of theirs with which you disagree.
Edit: Also, fyi, you also mean whose. Who's = who is.
It's not even any kind of sourced document, just an entirely baseless opinion article. No evidence, no references.
I'll repeat again. You have provided a link to the website for a think tank that generates conservative pro-capitalist propaganda. Please provide a legitimate objective source on your claims about pre-capitalist labor.
Is this just your way of saying "I refuse to read the article" ?
They simply point out that the 150 days nonsense comes from a study that ignores large swathes of labour. You are welcome to look at the original study, which they link.
It's pretty basic stuff. Yet again, with what specific part do you disagree? I'm not wild about searching through academia for a probable source troll
When you refuse to engage with the material in a meaningful sense, not just "I dislike the source and that's enough for me!" It doesn't really inspire any hope this will be a productive conversation.
It's a conservative think tank. Feel free to admit that your only source is propaganda. I'm asking you to provide any kind of backing for your claim. As a trans person, as a woman, as a decent human being, a conservative think tank is not a valid source that I'm going to respect. Not even mentioning that again it is an opinion piece. They have provided literally no backing for their statements whatsoever.
Provide me an actual source and I'll respond to it. All the typing you've done, and assuming that you're basing your statements on factual evidence, I'm sure you could've found at least 1 legitimate objective non-propaganda source based on any kind of scholarly or academic analysis of historical records.
Here were my claims:
With which of these claims do you disagree?
I'm not arguing with your claims. I'm asking for a source.
Read Witold Rybczynksi's Home when he talks about medieval life, pages 24 - 36 in my copy.
That's how feudalism worked.
These are pretty self evident. Unless you think they had chainsaws and washing machines in the dark ages?
This is linked in the source I already provided, you can look at the original study: https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html
Yeah I don't think so ...
We can both acknowledge progress and an extreme lack of what that progress should/could have been.
All you have to do is look to countries like China and even Japan where people literally work themselves to death.
Should we be working 40 hours a week? No but let's not pretend that the situation has only gotten worse...
With an ebike you can! 25mph (more if you jail break it) And all the pedaling your heart desires!
You can have both! Our insane productivity rises in the past century SHOULD have allowed us all modern luxuries and like half the current working hours. Corporate greed has robbed you of that while wages have stagnated
Pedalling while the engine is doing the work isn't really the same cardiovascular workout.
You're a crab in a bucket and so wrong.
If you need to work to afford to live, you're being lied to about what's possible for a healthy and functioning modern society to thrive.
Don't forget that in order for capitalism to stay alive, it requires poverty, manufactured scarcity and obsolescence.
You should question why billionaires even exist in what you consider to be a just and modern society. You should also look up a visual representation of just how much larger 1 billion is from whatever your gross annual income is if you still think it's reasonable that they do exist.
You okay? I wrote about pre agrarian societies and you went with a semi hinged rant about capitalism and billionaires?
If you meant to respond to my point though, I'm super curious how you think a society where almost everyone spends their work time getting food ALSO develops the luxuries of modern life, like a washing machine. Everyone work 2 jobs? That seems pretty against the whole free time thing. So, uhhh, help from Aliens or Jesus?
Your post was a view point that we couldn't work less while maintaining modern conveniences and luxuries, at least that's how it's coming across.
If your point was simply that in pre-modern times they didn't have what we have today and that it was due to working too much for sustaining life to develop, then ok I guess. Maybe I misread the thread. The main post was about the fact we're working too many hours in our current society though so.. yeah.
I really appreciate that response and I think it's a good example of what I love about Lemmy.
In my head, the thread was about OP's addition to the image, which was "whoever invented the 8 hour 5 day work week is Satan." Where, ehhh, 8 hour work day feels like an improvement on most of history.
Original image, I more agree with you. I think we do have technological surplus that could be better allocated towards labour/leisure/all our modern conveniences. But, I am keenly aware it is capitalism/civilization/whatever that got us here.
Fair enough! From that view point I definitely understand where you were coming from now, my bad!
The person you're responding to gave no reason to think this mountain of accusations
1 billion in pesos or rupees? Asking for a friend
That's much debated, actually.