>> One of capitalism's most durable myths is that it has reduced human toil. This myth is typically defended by a comparison of the modern forty-hour week with its seventy- or eighty-hour counterpart in the nineteenth century. The implicit -- but rarely articulated -- assumption is that the eighty-hour standard has prevailed for centuries. The comparison conjures up the dreary life of medieval peasants, toiling steadily from dawn to dusk. We are asked to imagine the journeyman artisan in a cold, damp garret, rising even before the sun, laboring by candlelight late into the night.
>> These images are backward projections of modern work patterns. And they are false. Before capitalism, most people did not work very long hours at all. The tempo of life was slow, even leisurely; the pace of work relaxed. Our ancestors may not have been rich, but they had an abundance of leisure. When capitalism raised their incomes, it also took away their time. Indeed, there is good reason to believe that working hours in the mid-nineteenth century constitute the most prodigious work effort in the entire history of humankind.
I don't see any discussion vis-a-vis the whole decades that we know spend not working, ie., childhood and retirement. My grandmothers haven't worked a single day (barring small chores) for the last 20+ years. I only started really working 23 years after I was born. I doubt any of this was true during the middle ages.
Congrats, you caught a transposed character in an HN comment. Sometimes, I don't care enough about these comments to exhaustivley spell check them. I guess I don't have the time. Maybe you should chekc your privilege.
I wouldn't worry too much about chekcing anything. You've possibly started a meme with "expressino". I shall be using it.
Oh, and it's also remarkably close to this [1], which I didn't know about until now, and now want to try. Thanks for your accidental character transposition. It has led to good things.
