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That article equates "work" with farming alone, which is a common but fallacious trope. A subsistence farming household has to manufacture virtually everything

That article equates "work" with farming alone, which is a common but fallacious trope. A subsistence farming household has to manufacture virtually everything they need, and in your "small farm in Europe" setting, spinning and weaving alone consume essentially all the working hours of one person in a family: Put into working terms, the basic clothing of our six person farming family requires 7.35 labor hours per day, every day of the year. Our ‘comfort’ level requires 22.05 hours (obviously not done by one person). https://acoup.blog/2021/03/19/collections-clothing-how-did-they-make-it-part-iii-spin-me-right-round/ https://acoup.blog/2021/03/19/collections-clothing-how-did-t... The main difference between the subsistence farmer and the wage worker -- and ACOUP goes into this in detail -- is that the subsistence farmer has to optimize for security over productivity, meaning that the marginal returns for working harder/longer hours are much less. Working twice as hard to till twice the fields won't help when a summer frost nukes the whole crop.

rightbyte 5y ago
I think you have a point. I mean making butter with a stick - how long does that take? Household work was probably alot ontop of payed work.
artem247 5y ago
I'm not sure why exactly subsistence farming households would have to manufacture everything -- farmer can sell produce on the market and buy stuff. You quote quite a long article - yet you do not give the full data. 7.35 labor hours per day whole year is to produce 21 sq meters of cloth, using estimates about ancient world, not pre-modern Europe. 20 sq meters of cloth using a bit more modern (Middle ages) estimate would give you 3 hours per day whole year by one person. Also keep in mind that those farmer households would not change their clothes every year (and that's an understatement)
- TheCoelacanth 5y ago
  > I'm not sure why exactly subsistence farming households would have to manufacture everything -- farmer can sell produce on the market and buy stuff That doesn't lower the total amount of labor required. Someone still has to make the garments. Garments were also very expensive, and most farmers wouldn't have had enough surplus crops to purchase them. > more modern (Middle ages) estimate would give you 3 hours per day whole year by one person That's after the invention of the spinning wheel, which didn't exist for ~90% of the Middle Ages. The second estimate from just before the invention of the spinning wheel (1300s) is close to the ancient estimate. > Also keep in mind that those farmer households would not change their clothes every year (and that's an understatement) One garment per year. That doesn't mean they throw away the old garment. They might keep it as a spare or repurpose it for other uses. He also justifies this estimate based on historical data for people who were issued garments by their employers (slaves and soldiers). Cato the Elder recommended issuing slaves one garment every two years, and was infamous for being cruel and parsimonious towards his slaves, so that is probably about the bare minimum for subsistence. Soldiers in the Roman Republic were issued two garments per year. Assuming that subsistence farmers aimed for a standard of living above that of the most poorly treated slaves seems like a reasonable assumption.
- watwut 5y ago
  > farmer can sell produce on the market and buy stuff They used to produce most of stuff by themselves, because functional market requires good roads and a lot of people. And if course, if you are buing it, you need to produce a lot more food, so that you can sell it or exchange it.
  - artem247 5y ago
    >> They used to produce most of stuff by themselves, because functional market requires good roads and a lot of people Do you have any data that supports it? I think it is fair to say that at least in Europe both Western and Eastern from onset of Middle Ages people living in villages were actually able to travel to the adjacent towns and to yearly market fairs. That wasn't a daily trip of course but I do not see an issue of farmer exchanging some bags of flour for some clothes once in two years. >> And if course, if you are buing it, you need to produce a lot more food, so that you can sell it or exchange it. Well, yeah, that's generally an intention when you are a farmer :) Also farmers were serfs often and had to give up some part of what they gathered.

rightbyte 5y ago

I think you have a point. I mean making butter with a stick - how long does that take? Household work was probably alot ontop of payed work.

artem247 5y ago

I'm not sure why exactly subsistence farming households would have to manufacture everything -- farmer can sell produce on the market and buy stuff. You quote quite a long article - yet you do not give the full data. 7.35 labor hours per day whole year is to produce 21 sq meters of cloth, using estimates about ancient world, not pre-modern Europe. 20 sq meters of cloth using a bit more modern (Middle ages) estimate would give you 3 hours per day whole year by one person. Also keep in mind that those farmer households would not change their clothes every year (and that's an understatement)

TheCoelacanth 5y ago
> I'm not sure why exactly subsistence farming households would have to manufacture everything -- farmer can sell produce on the market and buy stuff That doesn't lower the total amount of labor required. Someone still has to make the garments. Garments were also very expensive, and most farmers wouldn't have had enough surplus crops to purchase them. > more modern (Middle ages) estimate would give you 3 hours per day whole year by one person That's after the invention of the spinning wheel, which didn't exist for ~90% of the Middle Ages. The second estimate from just before the invention of the spinning wheel (1300s) is close to the ancient estimate. > Also keep in mind that those farmer households would not change their clothes every year (and that's an understatement) One garment per year. That doesn't mean they throw away the old garment. They might keep it as a spare or repurpose it for other uses. He also justifies this estimate based on historical data for people who were issued garments by their employers (slaves and soldiers). Cato the Elder recommended issuing slaves one garment every two years, and was infamous for being cruel and parsimonious towards his slaves, so that is probably about the bare minimum for subsistence. Soldiers in the Roman Republic were issued two garments per year. Assuming that subsistence farmers aimed for a standard of living above that of the most poorly treated slaves seems like a reasonable assumption.
watwut 5y ago
> farmer can sell produce on the market and buy stuff They used to produce most of stuff by themselves, because functional market requires good roads and a lot of people. And if course, if you are buing it, you need to produce a lot more food, so that you can sell it or exchange it.
- artem247 5y ago
  >> They used to produce most of stuff by themselves, because functional market requires good roads and a lot of people Do you have any data that supports it? I think it is fair to say that at least in Europe both Western and Eastern from onset of Middle Ages people living in villages were actually able to travel to the adjacent towns and to yearly market fairs. That wasn't a daily trip of course but I do not see an issue of farmer exchanging some bags of flour for some clothes once in two years. >> And if course, if you are buing it, you need to produce a lot more food, so that you can sell it or exchange it. Well, yeah, that's generally an intention when you are a farmer :) Also farmers were serfs often and had to give up some part of what they gathered.