7 ms·

> And they worked only as many days as were necessary to earn their customary income -- which in this case amounted to about 120 days a year, for a probable tot

> And they worked only as many days as were necessary to earn their customary income -- which in this case amounted to about 120 days a year, for a probable total of only 1,440 hours annually (this estimate assumes a 12-hour day because the days worked were probably during spring, summer and fall). This goes against everything I've been taught, that the plebian class basically toiled endlessly, from Feudal Times to Industrial Revolution before labor laws to today's "multiple low-wage-jobs to survive". EDIT: Also odd that the author doesn't point out that ~2040 hours is the yearly hours in a modern 40-hour workweek in the US, give or take a few holidays.

dragonelite 5y ago
Yeah even these days the friends I have that are active in the agricultural sector. Pretty much still work those hours where it peaks in the summer time and there is pretty much no activity latter half of fall and winter. Maybe except preparation for the next season and some maintenance on machines.
karpierz 5y ago
It's generally suspect when someone preaches that "this is what life is like in Feudal times", considering that spans 500 years and a whole continent. Likewise for the Industrial Revolution.
- SavantIdiot 5y ago
  Very true. Also: the last time I studied feudal times was in the US 10th grade... in the early 1980's.
spaetzleesser 5y ago
Before there were artificial lights and other things there really wasn’t much you could do when it was cold and dark. Factory workers at the end of the 19th century definitely had a horrible life. They had to fight for 6day weeks and often had to work away hours a day under very dangerous and unhealthy conditions.
- PeterisP 5y ago
  "Artificial lights" were a thing as far as pre-recorded history (and for rural illiterate peasant activities, much of middle ages is essentially pre-recorded history relying on oral tradition, artifacts and e.g. 18th century documentation of old-at-the-time practices instead of contemporary writing) - especially in northern areas where during winter months you get sunlight for a quite limited time, if you look at the medieval and earlier research of "evening work" i.e. various activities that can be done under candle light or the meager light from "wood-stick" (I don't know the proper English term, essentially very narrow pieces chopped off of firewood, placed in special holders to provide evening light for the many people for whom candles were too expensive). We have descriptions of "pre-light" rural work, of preparation activities for e.g. breadmaking that were done in the morning before the day enabled to do the proper work, and which had to be done earlier in order to not waste the scarce daylight hours on it. . Artificial light is an important piece of social technology, and improvements to it had a big impact, but people have needed and used artificial light to sustain their non-daylight activities since pretty much forever; stone age communities did their social activities next to a fireplace in the dark. Like, today is going to be 9 hours of daylight for me, and for December-January there's going to be just 7 hours or so of daylight; people are not going to lie down for 17 hours, they do try to do the same things just with less light.
  - spaetzleesser 5y ago
    As far as I know there were lights but they were very limited. So you could do some things but it wasn't like today when work almost doesn't get interrupted at all when it's dark. At least that's what my grandmother told me. During her youth she lived on a farm without electric power and oil lamps were also too expensive to be used much. You also had to be very careful not to burn down your house.
hogFeast 5y ago
Where were you taught that? Fairly basic logic should indicate to you that it wouldn't have been possible for people to work as much. There was no manufacturing. The vast majority of people who worked, worked in agriculture. You cannot work in the middle of winter, you cannot work at night. I don't know how it would have been possible...and that is why people then lived in crushing poverty (it isn't comparable to anything that exists today, even third-world nations today aren't close to the poverty that existed then). I think the surprising thing is that anyone would conclude that anything about feudalism was better. The reason why people didn't work long hours was because the economy was stuck in a Malthusian trap, and there wasn't enough productivity or work to actually feed people (apart from after mortality crises where close to a majority of the population died). The only reason the argument is being made is so that it can support the OP's conclusion about work in the present. It has no real significance by itself, this isn't history (incidentally, this is why history is important...it is taught so badly in the US, so badly...but everyone makes these bizarre ahistorical comparisons, everyone looks at the past when trying to understand the present...it is unfortunate that we have the knowledge to inform the limits of this process, but people just ignore it).
- emodendroket 5y ago
  I doubt anyone would really be happy returning to feudalism, but I imagine the goal of highlighting this stuff is to expand the sense of what is possible. It's easy to start thinking of the current state of affairs as some kind of immutable law of the universe and not a carefully negotiated political arrangement that can be altered as we see fit.
  - hogFeast 5y ago
    Again, this is exactly my point. This isn't history. This is specifically not what history is for. History does not inform that process because the past is not like the present. They are orthogonal. Attempting to inform your view of the present using the past is like trying to play baseball like football...it just doesn't make any sense.
    - 5y ago
fma 5y ago
Most of the time spent is preparing and harvesting. In between you watch things grow and maintain. When nothing is growing...at least, my in-laws in China...drink, gamble (mahjong, card games) and hang out with other villagers. They all pooled their money together for some heavy machinery too...so even that has cut down a lot of time spent on prep & harvesting. You could get jobs in the city when there's no farming to do, too. But you'd need a place to stay that doesn't eat up your wages. It's easy to do if you have family in the city already and just crash in their living room. Another question to ask is what do you do when you're near retirement and too old to work? Well, you live with your kids and they take care of you with their income and chores. It's not like now where you're sent off to a nursing home and retirees need to be able to afford that.
- loosetypes 5y ago
  > Most of the time spent is preparing and harvesting. In between you watch things grow and maintain. When nothing is growing...at least, my in-laws in China...drink, gamble (mahjong, card games) and hang out with other villagers. So replace computers with agriculture and this xkcd really is timeless. https://xkcd.com/303/ https://xkcd.com/303/
- watwut 5y ago
  Yeah, cloth and bedsheets make themselves. Fabric just exist and don't need to be created. Animals don't need continuous care. Tools and houses don't need fixing. Candles appear from thin air. Wood cuts itself.
  - Bouncingsoul1 5y ago
    Exactly spinning was a fulltime job. 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...
  - dang 5y ago
    "Don't be snarky." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
mrow84 5y ago
I’m no expert but my understanding is that the drive to industry in Britain, aided by the enclosures, significantly increased working hours, and worsened working conditions.

dragonelite 5y ago

Yeah even these days the friends I have that are active in the agricultural sector. Pretty much still work those hours where it peaks in the summer time and there is pretty much no activity latter half of fall and winter. Maybe except preparation for the next season and some maintenance on machines.

karpierz 5y ago

It's generally suspect when someone preaches that "this is what life is like in Feudal times", considering that spans 500 years and a whole continent. Likewise for the Industrial Revolution.

SavantIdiot 5y ago
Very true. Also: the last time I studied feudal times was in the US 10th grade... in the early 1980's.

spaetzleesser 5y ago

Before there were artificial lights and other things there really wasn’t much you could do when it was cold and dark. Factory workers at the end of the 19th century definitely had a horrible life. They had to fight for 6day weeks and often had to work away hours a day under very dangerous and unhealthy conditions.

PeterisP 5y ago
"Artificial lights" were a thing as far as pre-recorded history (and for rural illiterate peasant activities, much of middle ages is essentially pre-recorded history relying on oral tradition, artifacts and e.g. 18th century documentation of old-at-the-time practices instead of contemporary writing) - especially in northern areas where during winter months you get sunlight for a quite limited time, if you look at the medieval and earlier research of "evening work" i.e. various activities that can be done under candle light or the meager light from "wood-stick" (I don't know the proper English term, essentially very narrow pieces chopped off of firewood, placed in special holders to provide evening light for the many people for whom candles were too expensive). We have descriptions of "pre-light" rural work, of preparation activities for e.g. breadmaking that were done in the morning before the day enabled to do the proper work, and which had to be done earlier in order to not waste the scarce daylight hours on it. . Artificial light is an important piece of social technology, and improvements to it had a big impact, but people have needed and used artificial light to sustain their non-daylight activities since pretty much forever; stone age communities did their social activities next to a fireplace in the dark. Like, today is going to be 9 hours of daylight for me, and for December-January there's going to be just 7 hours or so of daylight; people are not going to lie down for 17 hours, they do try to do the same things just with less light.
- spaetzleesser 5y ago
  As far as I know there were lights but they were very limited. So you could do some things but it wasn't like today when work almost doesn't get interrupted at all when it's dark. At least that's what my grandmother told me. During her youth she lived on a farm without electric power and oil lamps were also too expensive to be used much. You also had to be very careful not to burn down your house.

hogFeast 5y ago

Where were you taught that? Fairly basic logic should indicate to you that it wouldn't have been possible for people to work as much. There was no manufacturing. The vast majority of people who worked, worked in agriculture. You cannot work in the middle of winter, you cannot work at night. I don't know how it would have been possible...and that is why people then lived in crushing poverty (it isn't comparable to anything that exists today, even third-world nations today aren't close to the poverty that existed then). I think the surprising thing is that anyone would conclude that anything about feudalism was better. The reason why people didn't work long hours was because the economy was stuck in a Malthusian trap, and there wasn't enough productivity or work to actually feed people (apart from after mortality crises where close to a majority of the population died). The only reason the argument is being made is so that it can support the OP's conclusion about work in the present. It has no real significance by itself, this isn't history (incidentally, this is why history is important...it is taught so badly in the US, so badly...but everyone makes these bizarre ahistorical comparisons, everyone looks at the past when trying to understand the present...it is unfortunate that we have the knowledge to inform the limits of this process, but people just ignore it).

emodendroket 5y ago
I doubt anyone would really be happy returning to feudalism, but I imagine the goal of highlighting this stuff is to expand the sense of what is possible. It's easy to start thinking of the current state of affairs as some kind of immutable law of the universe and not a carefully negotiated political arrangement that can be altered as we see fit.
- hogFeast 5y ago
  Again, this is exactly my point. This isn't history. This is specifically not what history is for. History does not inform that process because the past is not like the present. They are orthogonal. Attempting to inform your view of the present using the past is like trying to play baseball like football...it just doesn't make any sense.
  - 5y ago

fma 5y ago

Most of the time spent is preparing and harvesting. In between you watch things grow and maintain. When nothing is growing...at least, my in-laws in China...drink, gamble (mahjong, card games) and hang out with other villagers. They all pooled their money together for some heavy machinery too...so even that has cut down a lot of time spent on prep & harvesting. You could get jobs in the city when there's no farming to do, too. But you'd need a place to stay that doesn't eat up your wages. It's easy to do if you have family in the city already and just crash in their living room. Another question to ask is what do you do when you're near retirement and too old to work? Well, you live with your kids and they take care of you with their income and chores. It's not like now where you're sent off to a nursing home and retirees need to be able to afford that.

loosetypes 5y ago
> Most of the time spent is preparing and harvesting. In between you watch things grow and maintain. When nothing is growing...at least, my in-laws in China...drink, gamble (mahjong, card games) and hang out with other villagers. So replace computers with agriculture and this xkcd really is timeless. https://xkcd.com/303/ https://xkcd.com/303/
watwut 5y ago
Yeah, cloth and bedsheets make themselves. Fabric just exist and don't need to be created. Animals don't need continuous care. Tools and houses don't need fixing. Candles appear from thin air. Wood cuts itself.
- Bouncingsoul1 5y ago
  Exactly spinning was a fulltime job. 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...
- dang 5y ago
  "Don't be snarky." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

mrow84 5y ago

I’m no expert but my understanding is that the drive to industry in Britain, aided by the enclosures, significantly increased working hours, and worsened working conditions.