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I don't have the historical knowledge to do it myself, but it would be fascinating to read an in-depth comparison between these services and the economy of serv

I don't have the historical knowledge to do it myself, but it would be fascinating to read an in-depth comparison between these services and the economy of servants in the 19th or early-20th century. The image in my head (from movies and books and reading [about] Piketty) is that the wealthy in earlier eras were more idle, living off rents rather than incomes. I imagine servants would have been more of a status symbol for them, whereas today's upper-middle-class strivers see them as more of a necessity "to dedicate more time to working." I wonder, is that as close as we get to progress, under capitalism? I.e., if we're going to have servants, the people employing them today have a somewhat less dubious reason for doing so than their ancestors?

ninguem2 12y ago
I don't think servants were just status symbols. Cooking, cleaning and laundry without appliances was a very time consuming job which probably occupied the days of the wife and daughters of a family with no servants. Add to that inconvenient shopping, clothes mending, child care.
- IkmoIkmo 12y ago
  Yep, your comment reminds me of the $3500 shirt: http://www.sleuthsayers.org/2013/06/the-3500-shirt-history-lesson-in.html http://www.sleuthsayers.org/2013/06/the-3500-shirt-history-l...
- sowhatquestion 12y ago
  You're absolutely right. I'm not sure why this didn't come to mind immediately. I guess I was just trying to get at the distinction between people employing servants in order to enjoy more leisure vs. employing them in order to have more time to work.
brc 12y ago
Why do you think serving is an undeserving job? Each person being paid to do some type of task has a job. That is better than being unemployed. It's wrong to make value judgements on the way people make money in an honest job. A person in the 19th century who had a job as a servant at least had a job, and what was considered respectable as well. The alternatives were far, far worse, like getting caught for petty theft and shipped to a colony.
Animats 12y ago
"it would be fascinating to read an in-depth comparison between these services and the economy of servants in the 19th or early-20th century." See "The Edwardian Country House", the BBC/PBS series. It's a reality show for which the producers staffed a large mansion with the staff it had a century ago and sent a family to live there. All the servants had to live by the rules of that era. The lower-level servants were trained to be invisible - the maids would turn away and not make eye contact with the family.
- sowhatquestion 12y ago
  I'll check this out, thanks.
smacktoward 12y ago
> The image in my head (from movies and books and reading [about] Piketty) is that the wealthy in earlier eras were more idle, living off rents rather than incomes. Indeed, this is exactly what it meant to be a gentleman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentleman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentleman) in 15th-19th century English/American society -- you owned enough land to be able to live off rents, rather than having to dirty your hands working for a living. Gentlemen were part of the broader upper class called the gentry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentry), which also included titled aristocrats (barons, dukes, earls, etc.). Since making money and buying land were generally easier than convincing the King to give you a title, becoming a gentleman was a popular way for ambitious commoners to move up the social ladder. (The flip side of that ease, of course, being that it was easy to stop being a gentleman, too -- just lose your money and boom, your family is common again -- whereas a titled peer would always be a titled peer, even if he was penniless.) > I imagine servants would have been more of a status symbol for them, whereas today's upper-middle-class strivers see them as more of a necessity "to dedicate more time to working." Partly it was a status symbol for them, but status symbols were a bigger deal to them than they are to us because their societies were more rigidly hierarchical than ours are. So having ways to display your status was part of how you held on to that status -- gentlemen had servants, because if you couldn't afford servants that told everyone you really weren't a gentleman. It was self-reinforcing.
wutbrodo 12y ago
> whereas today's upper-middle-class strivers see them as more of a necessity "to dedicate more time to working." I don't understand HN's tendency to swallow this claim whole. If you convert any increase in free time immediately into more work time, that's a problem with your work/life balance, not with whatever is increasing your free time.

ninguem2 12y ago

I don't think servants were just status symbols. Cooking, cleaning and laundry without appliances was a very time consuming job which probably occupied the days of the wife and daughters of a family with no servants. Add to that inconvenient shopping, clothes mending, child care.

IkmoIkmo 12y ago
Yep, your comment reminds me of the $3500 shirt: http://www.sleuthsayers.org/2013/06/the-3500-shirt-history-lesson-in.html http://www.sleuthsayers.org/2013/06/the-3500-shirt-history-l...
sowhatquestion 12y ago
You're absolutely right. I'm not sure why this didn't come to mind immediately. I guess I was just trying to get at the distinction between people employing servants in order to enjoy more leisure vs. employing them in order to have more time to work.

brc 12y ago

Why do you think serving is an undeserving job? Each person being paid to do some type of task has a job. That is better than being unemployed. It's wrong to make value judgements on the way people make money in an honest job. A person in the 19th century who had a job as a servant at least had a job, and what was considered respectable as well. The alternatives were far, far worse, like getting caught for petty theft and shipped to a colony.

Animats 12y ago

"it would be fascinating to read an in-depth comparison between these services and the economy of servants in the 19th or early-20th century." See "The Edwardian Country House", the BBC/PBS series. It's a reality show for which the producers staffed a large mansion with the staff it had a century ago and sent a family to live there. All the servants had to live by the rules of that era. The lower-level servants were trained to be invisible - the maids would turn away and not make eye contact with the family.

sowhatquestion 12y ago
I'll check this out, thanks.

smacktoward 12y ago

> The image in my head (from movies and books and reading [about] Piketty) is that the wealthy in earlier eras were more idle, living off rents rather than incomes. Indeed, this is exactly what it meant to be a gentleman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentleman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentleman) in 15th-19th century English/American society -- you owned enough land to be able to live off rents, rather than having to dirty your hands working for a living. Gentlemen were part of the broader upper class called the gentry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentry), which also included titled aristocrats (barons, dukes, earls, etc.). Since making money and buying land were generally easier than convincing the King to give you a title, becoming a gentleman was a popular way for ambitious commoners to move up the social ladder. (The flip side of that ease, of course, being that it was easy to stop being a gentleman, too -- just lose your money and boom, your family is common again -- whereas a titled peer would always be a titled peer, even if he was penniless.) > I imagine servants would have been more of a status symbol for them, whereas today's upper-middle-class strivers see them as more of a necessity "to dedicate more time to working." Partly it was a status symbol for them, but status symbols were a bigger deal to them than they are to us because their societies were more rigidly hierarchical than ours are. So having ways to display your status was part of how you held on to that status -- gentlemen had servants, because if you couldn't afford servants that told everyone you really weren't a gentleman. It was self-reinforcing.

wutbrodo 12y ago

> whereas today's upper-middle-class strivers see them as more of a necessity "to dedicate more time to working." I don't understand HN's tendency to swallow this claim whole. If you convert any increase in free time immediately into more work time, that's a problem with your work/life balance, not with whatever is increasing your free time.