4 ms·

Umm... hours worked isn't the only metric for quality of life. I'm pretty sure that 40 hours spent in agricultural stoop labor is not the same thing as 40 hours

Umm... hours worked isn't the only metric for quality of life. I'm pretty sure that 40 hours spent in agricultural stoop labor is not the same thing as 40 hours sitting in a comfy chair in front of a computer. Also, you're just shining off the fact that they were serfs. I wouldn't want to be a serf even if I had to work only 10 hours per week. Would you? Not free to leave the land on which you were born, living in a hovel with no running water, toilet facilities, or central heating, maybe one change of clothes, fully subject to your master in all aspects of your life, including who (and even if) you were allowed to marry... > And he needed to feed both own family and his master. His master had to have 9 or 10 serfs doing that to produce enough surplus to support him. That was rather the point.

AtlasBarfed 5y ago
Come on, a "modern serf" would have access to (Civil liberties discussion aside): - power tools - solar/wind/battery for power independence - internet for entertainment - running water in the house - cheap goods (clothes, etc are WAY MORE cheap and efficient to make now) So I'd say the day-to-day job is theoretically even easier.
- Turing_Machine 5y ago
  I don't think a modern serf would have any of those things, because a society in which 90% of the available human capital is devoted to manual agriculture does not have the available labor to produce any of those things. At least, not for anyone other than the 10% of "lords".
_0w8t 5y ago
I am not arguing about quality of life. The point is that less than 40 hours per week (it can be in fact close to 30 as less than 40 is a conservative estimate) was enough for a single person to feed a family and have some extra using manual labor.
- Turing_Machine 5y ago
  The number of hours per week wasn't even a factor in the original statement. You're trying to drag the conversation off on a tangent.
- giantrobot 5y ago
  > was enough for a single person to feed a family and have some extra using manual labor. No, that was ten serfs each working 30 hours a week to in aggregate grow enough food to subsist on and generate the master's demanded surplus. That was also only true in good years. In bad years a portion of serfs just died. A serf's life sucked in every dimension. Even if they only "worked" 30 hours they spent the rest of their time in squalor. If you think working in a field is so attractive there's lots of farms looking for day labor. Try it out.

AtlasBarfed 5y ago

Come on, a "modern serf" would have access to (Civil liberties discussion aside): - power tools - solar/wind/battery for power independence - internet for entertainment - running water in the house - cheap goods (clothes, etc are WAY MORE cheap and efficient to make now) So I'd say the day-to-day job is theoretically even easier.

Turing_Machine 5y ago
I don't think a modern serf would have any of those things, because a society in which 90% of the available human capital is devoted to manual agriculture does not have the available labor to produce any of those things. At least, not for anyone other than the 10% of "lords".

_0w8t 5y ago

I am not arguing about quality of life. The point is that less than 40 hours per week (it can be in fact close to 30 as less than 40 is a conservative estimate) was enough for a single person to feed a family and have some extra using manual labor.

Turing_Machine 5y ago
The number of hours per week wasn't even a factor in the original statement. You're trying to drag the conversation off on a tangent.
giantrobot 5y ago
> was enough for a single person to feed a family and have some extra using manual labor. No, that was ten serfs each working 30 hours a week to in aggregate grow enough food to subsist on and generate the master's demanded surplus. That was also only true in good years. In bad years a portion of serfs just died. A serf's life sucked in every dimension. Even if they only "worked" 30 hours they spent the rest of their time in squalor. If you think working in a field is so attractive there's lots of farms looking for day labor. Try it out.