News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009). Parent comment

Re:Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009) by azernik on Thursday August 22, 2019 @11:42AM (#20769319)
Standard of living rose by some measures on moving to the cities; however, the dependence on an employer was much greater than the old dependence on your lord.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009) by macspoofing on Thursday August 22, 2019 @11:50AM (#20769427)
>Standard of living rose by some measures on moving to the cities

Some?

>the dependence on an employer was much greater than the old dependence on your lord.

I'm not sure that's actually true.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009) by dragonwriter on Thursday August 22, 2019 @12:31PM (#20769795)
> however, the dependence on an employer was much greater than the old dependence on your lord

I'm not sure the dependence was much greater, but it was less likely to be honored restart than mercilessly abused by the employer, because capitalism arose in the context of a huge labor surplus created by agricultural productivity revolutions, whereas feudal tenancy arose in tighter labor conditions and had grown traditions (and in some cases legal structures) based on that. Which is not too say that feudalism was without massive abuses of dependent relationships, itself.

[ Parent | on HN ]