via
https://ift.tt/2JGFb7SBefore Capitalism, Medieval Peasants Got More Vacation Time Than You. Here's Why.:
tranarchist:
runofthemillsocialist:
tranarchist:
Life for the medieval peasant was certainly no picnic. His life was shadowed by fear of famine, disease and bursts of warfare. His diet and personal hygiene left much to be desired. But despite his reputation as a miserable wretch, you might envy him one thing: his vacations.
Plowing and harvesting were backbreaking toil, but the peasant enjoyed anywhere from eight weeks to half the year off. The Church, mindful of how to keep a population from rebelling, enforced frequent mandatory holidays. Weddings, wakes and births might mean a week off quaffing ale to celebrate, and when wandering jugglers or sporting events came to town, the peasant expected time off for entertainment. There were labor-free Sundays, and when the plowing and harvesting seasons were over, the peasant got time to rest, too. In fact, economist Juliet Shor found that during periods of particularly high wages, such as 14th-century England, peasants might put in no more than 150 days a year.
As for the modern American worker? After a year on the job, she gets an average of eight vacation days annually.
What happened? Some cite the victory of the modern eight-hour a day, 40-hour workweek over the punishing 70 or 80 hours a 19th century worker spent toiling as proof that we’re moving in the right direction. But Americans have long since kissed the 40-hour workweek goodbye, and Shor’s examination of work patterns reveals that the 19th century was an aberration in the history of human labor. When workers fought for the eight-hour workday, they weren’t trying to get something radical and new, but rather to restore what their ancestors had enjoyed before industrial capitalists and the electric lightbulb came on the scene. Go back 200, 300 or 400 years and you find that most people did not work very long hours at all. In addition to relaxing during long holidays, the medieval peasant took his sweet time eating meals, and the day often included time for an afternoon snooze. “The tempo of life was slow, even leisurely; the pace of work relaxed,” notes Shor. “Our ancestors may not have been rich, but they had an abundance of leisure.”
Didn’t origininally comment on this but there seems to be some sort of discourse going on in the notes so:
Firstly: Yes, this isn’t the most rigorously sourced article. But it’s a sentiment I’ve seen expressed before, including by Serious Historians, so I’m inclined to believe that there’s a kernel of truth in it.
Secondly: A lot of people seem to be under the impression that the only reason you’d share something like this is because you think it’d be great to return to medieval society. This is ridiculous and even the excerpt above makes clear that no one’s claiming medieval life was wonderful. But things like this are important because it goes against the myth that all of history has basically been like the 19th century but with each aspect progressively getting worse the further back you go. In fact, the 19th century was in many ways a bit of an outlier. It’s very difficult to propose any meaningful change in society when you’re entire worldview is that throughout history things have been kind of like they are now but worse. Understanding the huge variety in how life has “worked” throughout time makes it seem a lot less outlandish that it could be significantly different in the future.
Exactly, I’ve no idea why anyone would assume “medieval peasants worked fewer hours than capitalist workers” means there was no oppression under feudalism or that it’s a system we should emulate now, people are reading this in bad faith just to defend capitalist propaganda
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