this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2024
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In fact, I've heard people most likely worked less back in the olden days pf pre-industrial scarcity, or at least took entire seasons off when the crops they grew weren't expected to yield anything.
Yeah, I've thought similar.
Probably, the only real intensive labour times were sowing and harvest. Apart from that, I can't fathom what would possibly justify 40 hrs/week work times the rest of the year.
Oh well, I guess you're right about that.
I'm guessing farmers didn't waste their time not working when in low season, but rather did other stuff like making furniture, clothing, building, ropemaking, these sorts of manual labor. It's just a guess though, I'm no historian
That's a dangerously naive view of history.
It's true, though. As industrialization occured, people began to work more, as more profit could be made.
I guess I should say, dangerously reductive.
It's reductive, but not dangerously so. It calls into question why humans are working so many hours, and the answer is Capitalist profit.
I guess that's a matter of opinion. I think you're downplaying the negative aspects of pre-industrial life too much.
That's certainly not my intention, however the point must be confronted, why is it that working hours have not been reduced to, say, 4 hours daily, 5 days a week? Or 3 8 hour days? The answer lies in the fact that "standard living conditions" will always be regulated around maximizing time to work, minus time to survive and raise the next generation of workers, under Capitalism.
But that's not a unique feature of capitalism. Serfdom, even communism had it. The powerful will always seek to exploit the labor of the masses, under any economic system.
Why would it happen in Communism, mechanically? I'm not asking if it happened in AES states, but why.
As I said, The powerful will always seek to exploit the labor of the masses, under any economic system. It appears to be fundamental to human nature.
Note I'm not saying it's inevitable that it will happen, but I am saying it's inevitable that those in power will try.
This is pseudoscience.
It's empirically derived.
How so? Vibes?
Name a single society where it hasn't happened.
At all, to any degree? Don't think that's possible, but it certainly happened to a far lesser extent in AES countries.
The extent to which it happens depends on the structures in place to prevent it. That's all I'm saying. If left unchecked, power corrupts.
It's still vibes-based, the post-office having a manage doesn't mean the system is tyrannical. How power is structured matters too.
The boss of the post office would absolutely be tyrannical if they could lol. In fact they often are. "Going postal" is a whole thing.
But generally, the system keeps them in check.
That seems like pseudoscience to me.
I'm sure there's been hundreds of studies on it, but it seems so obvious to anyone who knows any history that I don't feel like looking them up. Literally every society in the history of humanity, it's happened, as far as I'm aware. Power corrupts.
So, vibes, again.
You are obtuse and exhausting.
You cannot form an argument based on sound logic to save your life.