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In foraging societies - ie, most people for the vast majority of human history - people worked ~15–20 hours/week on subsistence tasks. The rest was leisure or s

In foraging societies - ie, most people for the vast majority of human history - people worked ~15–20 hours/week on subsistence tasks. The rest was leisure or social time (ie, time for being a human later rebranded as 'idleness'). Industrialization has pushed inequality to extremes while raising hours worked - even as productivity keeps shooting up. There's no good reason for people to tolerate this; it's just exploitation.

_benton 1y ago
You can still do this now, it's just called "being homeless" and it actually sucks.
- mandmandam 1y ago
  A, being homeless and being in a gatherer society are very different things. And B, even if you wanted to live that way you can't any more; because the commons has been relentlessly exploited past its breaking point for centuries. I shouldn't really have to explain any of this, but people generally seem to have some weird ideas and blind spots surrounding our history as a species.
  - _benton 1y ago
    In many countries the only obstacle is the legality of living on government lands. In Canada there are people living a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle on crown land. The option is totally available for many people who chose not to do it.
    - mandmandam 1y ago
      > the only obstacle is the legality of living on government lands Yes, the obstacle of living illegally on land that has been systematically over-exploited for centuries (or too harsh to bother), without any community or experience. Not sure I'm seeing your point.
      - _benton 1y ago
        People do it so it's definitely possible. Most people chose not to do it because it's a hard life with a horrible quality of life. Being a hunter-gatherer and living a nomadic life is not and was never easy or fun.
bluGill 1y ago
Those hours worked are carefully defining a lot of work away. Most things people eat need hours of preparation that isn't counted in you 15-20 hours for example. When you relook at what people did most of the time you realize they had to work really hard for a lot more hours to survive.
- mandmandam 1y ago
  Look man if you want to write a refutation of Marshall Sahlins' work, go ahead. I might even read it. But I'm not going to just take the word of a random commentator - are you even in anthropology? Like, this is a broad consensus thing. There's not really much debate; ethnographic studies have backed it up. Where are you getting your info from?
  - Avshalom 1y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society#Crit...
    - mandmandam 1y ago
      There seem to be two main points of critique there: 1. That there was war and war sucked; disease; and also infant mortality was high - therefore life sucked back then. None of that really factors in to the debate of how much free time people had; and those thing are all still very much with us (especially in America). 2. That food prep and gathering firewood takes time. Well, gathering firewood is also known as 'going for a walk in nature', and it's actually good for you. You can chat with your friends while you do it. It's not like your average job. It might not be technically 'idle', but it's a lot closer to 'idle' than flipping burgers in a sweatbox. Same with food prep - picking through some dried beans, or stirring a pot every 30 mins and making sure it doesn't boil over, while you tell stories around the table just isn't comparable to working in an Amazon warehouse pissing into plastic bottles. It's critique, and you can buy it if you want; but there's nothing there I would call substantial.

_benton 1y ago

You can still do this now, it's just called "being homeless" and it actually sucks.

mandmandam 1y ago
A, being homeless and being in a gatherer society are very different things. And B, even if you wanted to live that way you can't any more; because the commons has been relentlessly exploited past its breaking point for centuries. I shouldn't really have to explain any of this, but people generally seem to have some weird ideas and blind spots surrounding our history as a species.
- _benton 1y ago
  In many countries the only obstacle is the legality of living on government lands. In Canada there are people living a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle on crown land. The option is totally available for many people who chose not to do it.
  - mandmandam 1y ago
    > the only obstacle is the legality of living on government lands Yes, the obstacle of living illegally on land that has been systematically over-exploited for centuries (or too harsh to bother), without any community or experience. Not sure I'm seeing your point.
    - _benton 1y ago
      People do it so it's definitely possible. Most people chose not to do it because it's a hard life with a horrible quality of life. Being a hunter-gatherer and living a nomadic life is not and was never easy or fun.

bluGill 1y ago

Those hours worked are carefully defining a lot of work away. Most things people eat need hours of preparation that isn't counted in you 15-20 hours for example. When you relook at what people did most of the time you realize they had to work really hard for a lot more hours to survive.

mandmandam 1y ago
Look man if you want to write a refutation of Marshall Sahlins' work, go ahead. I might even read it. But I'm not going to just take the word of a random commentator - are you even in anthropology? Like, this is a broad consensus thing. There's not really much debate; ethnographic studies have backed it up. Where are you getting your info from?
- Avshalom 1y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society#Crit...
  - mandmandam 1y ago
    There seem to be two main points of critique there: 1. That there was war and war sucked; disease; and also infant mortality was high - therefore life sucked back then. None of that really factors in to the debate of how much free time people had; and those thing are all still very much with us (especially in America). 2. That food prep and gathering firewood takes time. Well, gathering firewood is also known as 'going for a walk in nature', and it's actually good for you. You can chat with your friends while you do it. It's not like your average job. It might not be technically 'idle', but it's a lot closer to 'idle' than flipping burgers in a sweatbox. Same with food prep - picking through some dried beans, or stirring a pot every 30 mins and making sure it doesn't boil over, while you tell stories around the table just isn't comparable to working in an Amazon warehouse pissing into plastic bottles. It's critique, and you can buy it if you want; but there's nothing there I would call substantial.