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One important fact to take into account is that the cost of labor in the middle ages cannot really be compared to today's minimum wage. The calculation based on

by ciconia 12y ago

One important fact to take into account is that the cost of labor in the middle ages cannot really be compared to today's minimum wage. The calculation based on $7.25 an hour, coming to $3500, is a bit of a hyperbole [1]. In fact, even today in many places in the world (India and Africa come to mind), artisans still produce fabrics, clothes and other low-tech products by hand for way less than American minimum wage [2]. I'm not a historian by any means, but it is my understanding that before the industrial revolution the major cost of production was the cost of materials, and the cost of labor was marginal. Contrast this with modern production, which is continually occupied with reducing the cost of labor, either by automation or by offshoring to third-world countries. [1] Of course, any kind of cost comparison across 8 centuries is suspect. A quick search produced this: http://faculty.goucher.edu/eng240/medieval_prices.html http://faculty.goucher.edu/eng240/medieval_prices.html A peasant's linen chemise is listed as costing 8d in 1313, which is equivalent in purchasing power to anywhere between GBP 22.30 to 5970, depending on the index, according to this: http://www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare/result.php?year_source=1313&amount=0.03333333333333333&year_result=2015 http://www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare/result.php?year_sour... [2] http://www.bls.gov/fls/ http://www.bls.gov/fls/ shows cost of labor for different countries in recent years. According to the site the average hourly compensation in India in 2010 was $1.46.

jholman 12y ago
It doesn't matter whether $7.25 is hyperbole. What matters is whether or not 479 hours is hyperbole. Let's see. IRL, I own around ten t-shirts, and they seem to wear out in 2-4 years, so let's say around 100 wearings. I'll stretch that out to 730 wearings, because I'm "wearing it until it disintegrates". I'll hope to buy a shirt on odd-numbered years, and new pants on even-numbered years. I won't buy any other cloth goods. If I work 40 hour weeks, I have 2080 hours of labour in a year. Suppose I am equally economically valuable to a spinner, such that I can trade one hour of my productivity for one hour of theirs. If I need a new 479-hour garment every year, then I need to allocate nearly a quarter of my life to buying clothes, even though I wear clothes until they disintegrate, and only own one shirt and one pair of pants. That is fantastically expensive.
- nfm 12y ago
  Depending on the era and location, slave labour totally skews the calculation too.
  - mseebach 12y ago
    It doesn't change the calculations. All other things being equal, that slave would then sacrifice 100% of his life to provide clothing for four people. It (drastically) changes the ethics of the situation, however.
- swalsh 12y ago
  The numbers seem to be based off current days knowledge of old world methods. I'd imagine after spending so much time doing a task, they must have found a way to be at least a bit more efficient at using their own tools to do the job.
  - jholman 12y ago
    Yeah, that's the crucial question in the estimating. Here are some other issues. She claims 2 yards of tie-off for every 4 yards of fabric, in both the warp and the weft. You only weave 4 yards before re-warping?!? Bullshit. And you don't use tie-off at all on the weft, as I understand it. So instead of 33% of thread being wasted to tie-off, I think 0% is a close approximation. On the other hand, if I read the post correctly, it claims that there are 72 inches in 6 yards. So increase the thread requirement by 3x!!! If I'm correct about both of these errors, a better figure would be 879 hours. Yikes.
- ars 12y ago
  Your shirts wear out much faster then theirs. The fabric is much thinner for one, and you wash (and worse tumble dry) it often. Your calculation of 40 hour weeks is quite wrong. 100 hour weeks were completely normal back then. So it took a month to make a shirt, and it should expect to last 10 years or so. The Talmud says that a poor person had a budget of 50 zuz per year per person for adult clothing (not including shoes). Someone calculated based on the price of bread that 50zuz is equivalent to $166. Other calculations find 50zuz to be $1000. One zuz was the average daily wage for an unskilled worker. So it would take you about a month and a half to get clothing.

by ciconia 12y ago

jholman 12y ago

It doesn't matter whether $7.25 is hyperbole. What matters is whether or not 479 hours is hyperbole. Let's see. IRL, I own around ten t-shirts, and they seem to wear out in 2-4 years, so let's say around 100 wearings. I'll stretch that out to 730 wearings, because I'm "wearing it until it disintegrates". I'll hope to buy a shirt on odd-numbered years, and new pants on even-numbered years. I won't buy any other cloth goods. If I work 40 hour weeks, I have 2080 hours of labour in a year. Suppose I am equally economically valuable to a spinner, such that I can trade one hour of my productivity for one hour of theirs. If I need a new 479-hour garment every year, then I need to allocate nearly a quarter of my life to buying clothes, even though I wear clothes until they disintegrate, and only own one shirt and one pair of pants. That is fantastically expensive.

nfm 12y ago
Depending on the era and location, slave labour totally skews the calculation too.
- mseebach 12y ago
  It doesn't change the calculations. All other things being equal, that slave would then sacrifice 100% of his life to provide clothing for four people. It (drastically) changes the ethics of the situation, however.
swalsh 12y ago
The numbers seem to be based off current days knowledge of old world methods. I'd imagine after spending so much time doing a task, they must have found a way to be at least a bit more efficient at using their own tools to do the job.
- jholman 12y ago
  Yeah, that's the crucial question in the estimating. Here are some other issues. She claims 2 yards of tie-off for every 4 yards of fabric, in both the warp and the weft. You only weave 4 yards before re-warping?!? Bullshit. And you don't use tie-off at all on the weft, as I understand it. So instead of 33% of thread being wasted to tie-off, I think 0% is a close approximation. On the other hand, if I read the post correctly, it claims that there are 72 inches in 6 yards. So increase the thread requirement by 3x!!! If I'm correct about both of these errors, a better figure would be 879 hours. Yikes.
ars 12y ago
Your shirts wear out much faster then theirs. The fabric is much thinner for one, and you wash (and worse tumble dry) it often. Your calculation of 40 hour weeks is quite wrong. 100 hour weeks were completely normal back then. So it took a month to make a shirt, and it should expect to last 10 years or so. The Talmud says that a poor person had a budget of 50 zuz per year per person for adult clothing (not including shoes). Someone calculated based on the price of bread that 50zuz is equivalent to $166. Other calculations find 50zuz to be $1000. One zuz was the average daily wage for an unskilled worker. So it would take you about a month and a half to get clothing.