How many hours a day do you think the average person (let's say in Western Europe but any examples anywhere in the world are welcome) worked prior to the industrial revolution?
The reason I ask this is because I've been reading a book (written by an economic philosopher, not an historian) that suggested that on average prior to the industrial revolution people spent about 3 hours a week on what we'd consider 'work' (IE ensuring their survival needs were met).
She cited a work called "Stone age economics" which claimed that Kung men hunted from two to two and a half days a week with an average workweek of fifteen hours. She also quotes Dr Frithjof Bergmann as saying "For most of human history, people only worked two or three hours a week. As we moved from agriculture to industralization, work hours increased..."
I found these statements a little surprising. I was always under the impression that before many of the conveniences of our present lifestyle, things were more time-consuming and the average person toiled away hunting or harvesting. I have a hard time imagining the average feudal serf only working for three hours a week, for example.
Does anyone have any knowledge of how true the above is in different circumstances?
Are we, on average, spending more of our time making a living than other societies before us?
pic semi related
I know that hunter-gatherers spent little time working, as to peasants working farms, they had tons of holidays to party and drink shitty beer.
Remembered this video and dug it up just for you, OP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmMpxwbYyhU
:)
>>893457
This.
It was pretty shitty being a peasant in the Middle Ages, but working super-hard wasn't one of the reasons for it. Thanks to the Church's calendar of feasts and holy days, people up and down the economic ladder constantly got time off. Granted, much of this time off was spent in prayer and fasting and at Mass, but it was still time they weren't required to work.
>>893469
Honestly, I wouldn't mind being a peasant, I don't think. Work the land, raise your simple family, fuck your qt peasant wife, maybe go off to war, party with your peasant friends. Probably not to different from being a working class today, with a lot more nature and farming involved. Am I just a hopeless Romantic?
>>893478
You wouldn't even need to fight if a serf; as per the feudal contract, your lord and his retinue were required to protect you, in exchange for you working the lord's land and providing portion of the harvest as tax. Only freemen had an obligation to serve in times of war if needed.
>>893478
You're probably underestimating a lot of the shitty parts of being a peasant, and there are a lot of luxuries and stability we have now that we'd sorely miss living that sort of lifestyle. There is an element of romance and simplicity to it, though. I get the appeal of wanting a life that feels that simple.
>>893487
That's a good point, I didn't think about that. What did the freemen do during peace times then, if they weren't farmers?
>>893493
They did city guy stuff or, mostly, they farmed like serfs did. But they weren't bound to the land like serfs were. They either worked wherever they would need them at any given time, or they would own tiny patches of land.
How ever long the sun was up
If I remember correctly, that's just an average.
You put in a shit load of hours during harvest season and planting season, but you just milk the cow and collect some eggs or something on most days.
>>893500
That's what I thought, thanks for the reply bud. I love this board.
>This shit again
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ted-kaczynski-the-truth-about-primitive-life-a-critique-of-anarchoprimitivism
>>893368
Depends on what they did.
>>893549
I was emphasizing averages for a reason.
>>893541
I used to be an anprim, while its true that they may have worked less, theres still no question that their lives were harsh, even brutal.
>>893469
Why is it that every time I learn a little bit more about the Catholic Church, it winds up looking a little bit better?
>>893560
Let me balance you out by making it look a lil' bit sillier:
One time the Church decided beavers were fish so they could barbecue a few during Lent.
>>893560
Because the Judeo-Bolshevik bias in higher education paints the Middle Ages as being evil, because it was spiritual, and had a strongly defined hierarchy. The Catholic Church is not the monster its made out to be, its actually quite great.
t. reactionary evolian pagan esoteric tradfag
>>893541
>tfw this place has goddamn anarcho-primitivists
I really like /his/. Its nice that theres a board that represents a whole load of different ideologies on 4chan, instead of the usual natsocs and libertarians/ancaps vs. smug centrists vs. occasional tankie like every other board has.
>>893569
>pagan
>>>/suicide/
>>893574
This board is great.
>>893579
Elaborate? Are you a Christian or an Atheist? I highly admire Christianity, especially the Church;s role in European history. I'm not like most pagans.
>>893541
OP here, this is an interesting article, thanks for linking it.
>>893569
You need to read all of Nietzsche.
>>895155
>the cultivation of will is the highest virtue
>you need to make yourself his disciple first
