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I was taught that as well, in what retrospectively was blatant capitalist propaganda. That the only thing that has given us leisure was the efficiencies of cap

I was taught that as well, in what retrospectively was blatant capitalist propaganda. That the only thing that has given us leisure was the efficiencies of capitalism, and the benevolence of capitalists. Albeit my school district was really into right wing propaganda in general, describing the civil war as "the war of northern aggression" in its text books.

dantheman 5y ago
The benevolence of technical progress and productivity increase and the successful allocation of resources.
Jensson 5y ago
> That the only thing that has given us leisure was the efficiencies of capitalism, and the benevolence of capitalists. This is the opposite of what you expect from one perspective. When a task becomes more efficient people want to put more time in it since they get more out of it. So the more efficient we make jobs the more people will want to work to get more and more stuff. There might be a cap to that, but as of yet we haven't reached it, even programmers making $500k a year still wants to work more even though they could easily spend most of their time not working.
- monocasa 5y ago
  There's a huge push for reduced work weeks. And even where it's not official a lot of those software engineers spend their work week on reddit, so I'm not sure your example checks out.
Aerroon 5y ago
The industrial revolution did give us a lot more leisure time if you're willing to live with at the same standards as people back then did. But we don't find those standards acceptable.
- monocasa 5y ago
  The lack of leisure time peaked during the industrial revolution, as the article this thread is on highlights. Victorian era work houses weren't really known for amenities, even by feudal standards.
knownjorbist 5y ago
It's not "capitalist propaganda". There's a reason humanity moved in this direction, away from feudalism and subsistence farming. It sucks. More people today enjoy a higher standard of living than even the wealthiest could have dreamt of in the time period discussed in this article. Your life does not hinge on a good growing season or getting mysteriously sick with no cure. You don't have to know how to hunt, forage, clean a carcass, construct shelter or clothing, on and on and on. It's remarkable that people today can survive without knowing _anything_ about where the means for the survival came from.
- monocasa 5y ago
  Literally this article is about how on several important metrics, we don't overall have a higher standard of living. People didn't move into the factories from the fields for the higher standard, they moved there because they never owned the fields, and the industrial revolution pushed them out with increased automation, so they moved to the only place that would employ them even though it was a step backwards in standard of living.
  - knownjorbist 5y ago
    > Literally this article is about how on several important metrics, we don't overall have a higher standard of living. Can you show where this is? All I can find is that by some estimates, some people spent less time doing certain things than they do today. That is not a "higher standard of living" unless you want a completely shallow and de-contextualized feel-good talking point. Objectively improved standards of living over the 500+ year period in question: child mortality, caloric availability, adult literacy, crime, sanitation, understanding what _germs_ are... the list really goes on and on and on. It's not a conspiracy. People voted with their feet on this one.
    - monocasa 5y ago
      Literally the whole article about work versus leisure over time. It doesn't have to be a conspiracy to have ended up in a bad place systemically. We can 'conspire' to change it for the better though.

dantheman 5y ago

The benevolence of technical progress and productivity increase and the successful allocation of resources.

Jensson 5y ago

> That the only thing that has given us leisure was the efficiencies of capitalism, and the benevolence of capitalists. This is the opposite of what you expect from one perspective. When a task becomes more efficient people want to put more time in it since they get more out of it. So the more efficient we make jobs the more people will want to work to get more and more stuff. There might be a cap to that, but as of yet we haven't reached it, even programmers making $500k a year still wants to work more even though they could easily spend most of their time not working.

monocasa 5y ago
There's a huge push for reduced work weeks. And even where it's not official a lot of those software engineers spend their work week on reddit, so I'm not sure your example checks out.

Aerroon 5y ago

The industrial revolution did give us a lot more leisure time if you're willing to live with at the same standards as people back then did. But we don't find those standards acceptable.

monocasa 5y ago
The lack of leisure time peaked during the industrial revolution, as the article this thread is on highlights. Victorian era work houses weren't really known for amenities, even by feudal standards.

knownjorbist 5y ago

It's not "capitalist propaganda". There's a reason humanity moved in this direction, away from feudalism and subsistence farming. It sucks. More people today enjoy a higher standard of living than even the wealthiest could have dreamt of in the time period discussed in this article. Your life does not hinge on a good growing season or getting mysteriously sick with no cure. You don't have to know how to hunt, forage, clean a carcass, construct shelter or clothing, on and on and on. It's remarkable that people today can survive without knowing _anything_ about where the means for the survival came from.

monocasa 5y ago
Literally this article is about how on several important metrics, we don't overall have a higher standard of living. People didn't move into the factories from the fields for the higher standard, they moved there because they never owned the fields, and the industrial revolution pushed them out with increased automation, so they moved to the only place that would employ them even though it was a step backwards in standard of living.
- knownjorbist 5y ago
  > Literally this article is about how on several important metrics, we don't overall have a higher standard of living. Can you show where this is? All I can find is that by some estimates, some people spent less time doing certain things than they do today. That is not a "higher standard of living" unless you want a completely shallow and de-contextualized feel-good talking point. Objectively improved standards of living over the 500+ year period in question: child mortality, caloric availability, adult literacy, crime, sanitation, understanding what _germs_ are... the list really goes on and on and on. It's not a conspiracy. People voted with their feet on this one.
  - monocasa 5y ago
    Literally the whole article about work versus leisure over time. It doesn't have to be a conspiracy to have ended up in a bad place systemically. We can 'conspire' to change it for the better though.