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Re:Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other off... by fpoling on Thursday March 03, 2022 @02:16AM (#30538085)
Slavery is a strong word. But consider serfdom in Middle Ages.

When some historian looked at it they found that on average a serf of a French baron say 700 years ago worked less than 40 hours per week on average. Perhaps even less than 30. And there was no commute. David Graeber in his «Dawn of everything» discussed that.

Re:Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other off... by rufus_foreman on Thursday March 03, 2022 @08:17PM (#30549374)
>> David Graeber in his «Dawn of everything» discussed that

David Graeber is the one who wrote this:

"Apple Computers is a famous example: it was founded by (mostly Republican) computer engineers who broke from IBM in Silicon Valley in the 1980s, forming little democratic circles of twenty to forty people with their laptops in each other’s garages"

And I'm guessing his knowledge of what happened 700 years ago is going to be much less accurate than his knowledge of times he lived through.

Re:Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other off... by UncleMeat on Thursday March 03, 2022 @07:45AM (#30540181)
“Some historian” is a bad citation.

I’m very good friends with a medievalist professor. Something they said to me recently was interesting. Today, most medievalists don’t really like the term “feudalism” and instead see serfdom as an extension of Roman slave systems. Not chattel slavery, but definitely not a mutually agreed upon and beneficial economic relationship. I’m not so sure that “serfs didn’t actually work all that much” is aligned with current consensus.

Re:Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other off... by ddalex on Thursday March 03, 2022 @08:19AM (#30540585)
But under serfdom peasants were not allowed to move. Workers are free to move to better opportunities as they see fit - that's a big difference.