- cross-posted to:
- lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world
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This doesn’t account for the work they had to do at home. They had their own food to harvest, animals to tend to, clothes to make and the materials to make those clothes didn’t fall out of the sky. They had to chop firewood, mend the home, cook the food from scratch. Their mandatory holidays weren’t spent pursuing a hobby, traveling, playing games or consuming entertainment. Those days off just meant they could do all the work they needed to do at home instead of doing all the church’s work on top of their own.
Another way to phrase it:
As our personal workloads were reduced, that free time was commandeered by our employers
Our personal workloads reduced because the industrialisation of agriculture meant we didn’t have to grow our own food any more.
Not trying to defend capitalism, but it’s disingenuous of you to imply that you don’t get anything in return for working.
Either I wasn’t clear or you misinterpreted but that’s not what I’m implying. Productivity went way up and instead of reduced working hours, we worked MORE and saw proportionally less of the profit.
that’s all well and good until the price of necessities is just raised to the point where you need to work as much as a medieval peasant anyways, and don’t even get the fresh air they did.
and uh, in many places that happened quite a while ago, the USA is at a point where elderly people need two jobs to afford to live.
The holidays were also just to placate them so they didn’t rise up against their overlords.
Netflix works just as well.
Also social media.
No one actually uses it, though.
Where are you getting your information?
I’m more interested in why you think no one uses social media. I mean, you’re using it right now.
Peasants’ work was dominantly agricultural, with some required contribution to maintenance of lands and structures around their manor.
Each peasant worked either a family lot, or an open field directly managed by the manor.
They may have worked at home for mending clothes and other simple tasks, but very little was a private responsibility.
Days not committed to work could be spent for games and festivals. There were no private hobbies, but public life was quite rich.
Everyone is talking about this like it didn’t vary from century to century, or country to country.
The stat refers specifically to England in the 14th century and only covers work done for the landlord (mostly field work, which was hard labour, sometimes extremely long hours).
What work would you understand as not being for the landlord, and what is your source describing the balance of work versus rest throughout the day?
Did the fourteen century mark a great change from the thirteenth, or were conditions largely the same throughout the general era?
Did the fourteen century mark a great change from the thirteenth, or were conditions largely the same throughout the general era?
Massively different. The 14th century saw the death of over half the population by Plague, and then another 20%. That meant a HUGE labour shortage, higher wages by a large amount and “unhappy” landowners and the immediate end of the 100 year war with France. It also hugely increased mobility for peasants, since the receiving nobility would happily accept them (despite technically being allowed to).
It resulted in the Peasants revolt in the 1380s which saw the tower of London sacked before it was suppressed. So landowners had a lot of reasons to keep the peasants at least moderately happy.
So the late 14th century Britain was basically a worker paradise compared to the rest of the middle ages. But only because a good 75% of the population died from disease and famine in the decades before.
The context, though, is bonded field labor, not waged urban labor.
@unfreeradical sorry, I can’t cite any sources. I read around this subject the first time I saw this meme, because I was curious as the people who are usually cited as doing less total work than us are hunter-gatherers.
Here are a couple of pages about types of peasant, work, etc.
If you’re saying this because you disagree and have sources of your own to recommend, please do as I’m always open to learning more.
Jokes on you, I’m underemployed.
Fewer. Fewer holidays. Mad about it all the same.
This made me think of Historia Civilis’ video about work.
What did they do the rest of the time?
Play games. Sing and dance. What would you do?
I think you overestimate the power of the church on everyday life.
We are also taxed way more.
Do you have a source on that? Those peasants were basically owned by their land lord.
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Yes, school is my source. Of course this is an oversimplification and incomparable situation, but in essence they paid much less.
Capitalism feels like mass-produced, highly-automated, technologically-advanced feudalism.
And we live twice as long. That’s both good and bad, I guess.
In terms of tax burden, it is unequivocally bad.
