3 ms·

My understanding is that pre-agricultural hunter/gatherers worked a lot less than post-agricultural workers.

by ShaunK 3y ago

pfannkuchen 3y ago
Sure, but you could never escape the work that was needed, no matter what you did. Not saying it’s a worse setup than capitalism, just that the escape part is novel and simply wasn’t an option in other setups.
- gitonup 3y ago
  The point is that "escape" in this case means not having to work to American Capitalism levels, not escaping working entirely. Retirement in the FIRE sense does not imply in all cases spending every day by the pool doing nothing, and even in the AmCap sense, most who retire and tend to live longer and (self-reportedly) happier, have some work that they are doing, but more along the lines of what even a medieval serf would have enjoyed to the tune of like 15 hours a week. ETA: often this work is volunteerism, which does not have a capital incentive in the individual case here.
  - pfannkuchen 3y ago
    I am thinking of escape as “not having to do things you don’t want to do”. No one wants to work in the style of American capitalism, so this is one thing that people stop doing, for sure. In prior systems, no matter what you did, you always had to keep doing things you didn’t want to do (assuming one isn’t in love with perpetual farm labor). If we are talking about Garden of Eden levels of natural abundance hunter gathering, then that is surely peak human lifestyle, but I don’t know of any scalable system that remotely compares to that.
dragontamer 3y ago
I mean, pre-agricultural hunter/gatherers never had to change the oil on their cars, if that's what you're going for? But I do oil changes (and otherwise maintain my car) because I like being able to travel dozens of miles each day. So I gain a responsibility to take care of my car to be able to continue to live like this. --------- Do you like hot showers in the morning? Well, you better build, and maintain, a home with pipes, drain, and water heater. Do you like computers? Electricity? Etc. etc. Each luxury device we own today is not strictly necessary. But the bulk of work today is maintaining our luxuries.
- hgs3 3y ago
  Automation and technology should be reducing the need for most people to work. Capitalism warps the role of technology: instead of technology freeing you up, it risks destroying your livelihood. Just look at the economic anxiety surrounding AI. AI should be embraced. It should not jeopardize anyone's livelihood.
  - badpun 3y ago
    > Automation and technology should be reducing the need for most people to work. I think it does. Many people working office jobs are barely doing anything, esp. compared to manual labor in hellish factories just 100 years ago. And, for that puny amount of office work, we live so much better than people 100 years ago. Also, it's currently possible to work less by just not buying top of the line consumer option. It's perhaps harder in the US, where such options does not exist, but other parts of the world have e.g. specific brands of cheap, crappy cars you could buy and work less in consequence.
    - hgs3 3y ago
      > I think it does. Many people working office jobs are barely doing anything, esp. compared to manual labor in hellish factories just 100 years ago. And, for that puny amount of office work, we live so much better than people 100 years ago. We have those busy work office jobs because capitalism demands us to make capital. Ideally, as our basic needs are met (housing, plumbing, food, etc...) we wouldn't need busy work jobs. Even if we do need busy work jobs, then consider this: when I worked as a programmer I did so 5 days a week as a web developer. Given modern web frameworks and the abundance of open source packages, I could easily accomplish in a day what would have taken a web developer a week or more to accomplish ~20 years ago. So the question is, if I'm 5x more productive, then why am I working 5 days a week? Why not 1 day a week for the same pay? Ideally, we would not classify the work week in terms of hours worked, but rather by productivity.
      - pfannkuchen 3y ago
        > if I'm 5x more productive, then why am I working 5 days a week? Why not 1 day a week for the same pay? Because your competitors have also become 5x more productive. If they hadn't you could work 1 day a week for the same pay.

My understanding is that pre-agricultural hunter/gatherers worked a lot less than post-agricultural workers.

by ShaunK 3y ago

My understanding is that pre-agricultural hunter/gatherers worked a lot less than post-agricultural workers.

Sure, but you could never escape the work that was needed, no matter what you did. Not saying it’s a worse setup than capitalism, just that the escape part is novel and simply wasn’t an option in other setups.

gitonup 3y ago
The point is that "escape" in this case means not having to work to American Capitalism levels, not escaping working entirely. Retirement in the FIRE sense does not imply in all cases spending every day by the pool doing nothing, and even in the AmCap sense, most who retire and tend to live longer and (self-reportedly) happier, have some work that they are doing, but more along the lines of what even a medieval serf would have enjoyed to the tune of like 15 hours a week. ETA: often this work is volunteerism, which does not have a capital incentive in the individual case here.
- pfannkuchen 3y ago
  I am thinking of escape as “not having to do things you don’t want to do”. No one wants to work in the style of American capitalism, so this is one thing that people stop doing, for sure. In prior systems, no matter what you did, you always had to keep doing things you didn’t want to do (assuming one isn’t in love with perpetual farm labor). If we are talking about Garden of Eden levels of natural abundance hunter gathering, then that is surely peak human lifestyle, but I don’t know of any scalable system that remotely compares to that.

dragontamer 3y ago

I mean, pre-agricultural hunter/gatherers never had to change the oil on their cars, if that's what you're going for? But I do oil changes (and otherwise maintain my car) because I like being able to travel dozens of miles each day. So I gain a responsibility to take care of my car to be able to continue to live like this. --------- Do you like hot showers in the morning? Well, you better build, and maintain, a home with pipes, drain, and water heater. Do you like computers? Electricity? Etc. etc. Each luxury device we own today is not strictly necessary. But the bulk of work today is maintaining our luxuries.

hgs3 3y ago
Automation and technology should be reducing the need for most people to work. Capitalism warps the role of technology: instead of technology freeing you up, it risks destroying your livelihood. Just look at the economic anxiety surrounding AI. AI should be embraced. It should not jeopardize anyone's livelihood.
- badpun 3y ago
  > Automation and technology should be reducing the need for most people to work. I think it does. Many people working office jobs are barely doing anything, esp. compared to manual labor in hellish factories just 100 years ago. And, for that puny amount of office work, we live so much better than people 100 years ago. Also, it's currently possible to work less by just not buying top of the line consumer option. It's perhaps harder in the US, where such options does not exist, but other parts of the world have e.g. specific brands of cheap, crappy cars you could buy and work less in consequence.
  - hgs3 3y ago
    > I think it does. Many people working office jobs are barely doing anything, esp. compared to manual labor in hellish factories just 100 years ago. And, for that puny amount of office work, we live so much better than people 100 years ago. We have those busy work office jobs because capitalism demands us to make capital. Ideally, as our basic needs are met (housing, plumbing, food, etc...) we wouldn't need busy work jobs. Even if we do need busy work jobs, then consider this: when I worked as a programmer I did so 5 days a week as a web developer. Given modern web frameworks and the abundance of open source packages, I could easily accomplish in a day what would have taken a web developer a week or more to accomplish ~20 years ago. So the question is, if I'm 5x more productive, then why am I working 5 days a week? Why not 1 day a week for the same pay? Ideally, we would not classify the work week in terms of hours worked, but rather by productivity.
    - pfannkuchen 3y ago
      > if I'm 5x more productive, then why am I working 5 days a week? Why not 1 day a week for the same pay? Because your competitors have also become 5x more productive. If they hadn't you could work 1 day a week for the same pay.