> You need to remember that the idea of 40 hour-week middle class job fulfilling one's livelihood was only ever an social abstraction that emerged in the last hundred years or so.

The idea and implementation started in the 1500s. It wasn't wide spread (Spain and America and not for every industry). Working in a mine was only 7 hours not 8. It was sometimes even applied to the Native Americans.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day