That link is an unsourced opinion piece on a site belonging to something called the Adam Smith Institute. I’m gonna need something a bit more credible before I believe it tbh.
The Adam smith institute is a right wing free market think tank with likely very questionable donors. wiki It likely doesn’t really do research but takes sources that support their preexisting believes and retells them.
Certainly it was at least very hard to make the capitalist exploitation of the worker so all encompassing before the invention of the mechanical watch (Although there was likely a ton of housework and the general situation was garbage what with feudal lords and all that) . It then likely exploded with the industrial revolution and at least in places where the working class managed to emancipate themselves got somewhat cut back. Now especially for countries outside of the west and increasingly also the US and parts of EU it’s likely getting worse, especially with multi employment and precarious employment(gig work, semi self employment, 0h contracts, mechanical turk …).
Generally i feel work where you or your peers get to keep the total output of your work isn’t really a problem, it’s a problem when your work gets appropriated into this terrible machine and as a result you are alienated from the work.
The time was very different. Most people lived and worked in the country, not in cities, so de facto they couldn’t control them however they liked. Christian Church was also imposing morality over everything, which means they couldn’t enslave people as easily as today.
We are living in neo-feudalism. Your boss is a lord, and your only freedom is to choose a lord, provided this lord accept you.
Christendom was basically like the church was the structure of society, when you were baptized as an infant and written in the books that was like social security today. The anabaptists weren’t just so radical because they opposed theology, but because they protested the fundamental structure of how society was organized.
Also religion back then was like entertainment as well, people actually loved going to see preachers and they’d talk about them in the same way we talk about shows or movies now. It had that function in the society as sort of a language for discussing fundamental truths and life experience that people loved engaging in. They didn’t have a notion of a political or national identity, but they had a soul and all the stuff to do with that.
If that’s ok too, I have read a book by an anthropologist who claims the opposite (that in fact people in the past had more leisure than today). I can look up a good quote tomorrow. For the claim in the post, I’m afraid, there ain’t no good sources, as for most alternative facts.
I mean it seems like the sort of thing people are just ready to believe because “we have technology now so we must have better lives” despite loads of that technology being turned towards controlling us.
As for the book, it wouldn’t be Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber, would it?
You got it the wrong way around: If it’s consensus, no one questions it anymore so you don’t need a source. If you start to question commonly hold beliefs, you will have to unlearn the whole field of economics. Do you want that?
Economics is less accurate than astrology because at least if you are an astrologist who gets things wrong you stop getting paid. Sure it is cold reading and Barnum statements but it is still more accurate.
In order to reach a consensus like that, you have to have supporting evidence that it’s true. Otherwise that consensus should absolutely be challenged.
It happens in all kind of scientific fields that things that feel logical and common sense, are taken for granted. I think SciShow made a video about it but I can’t find it right now.
We’re talking about anthropology/history here. People spend their entire careers researching things like this and publishing papers on it.
To make a claim like this requires evidence. Historical records would exist that some person at some point gathered together and published a peer reviewed article on.
If no sources or peer reviewed articles exist on the topic other than a few blog posts, then it’s extremely likely it’s a pile of horse shit.
But talking about anthropologists: here is a quote from David Graeber’s book Bullshit Jobs:
Feudal lords, insofar as they worked at all, were fighters—their lives tended to alternate between dramatic feats of arms and near-total idleness and torpor. Peasants and servants obviously were expected to work more steadily. But even so, their work schedule was nothing remotely as regular or disciplined as the current nine-to-five—the typical medieval serf, male or female, probably worked from dawn to dusk for twenty to thirty days out of any year, but just a few hours a day otherwise, and on feast days, not at all. And feast days were not infrequent.
He is an anthropologist who devoted his whole career debunking such claims and published a book together with a historian who does the same. It’s called “the dawn of everything” by David Graeber and David Wengrow (2021). You should check it out. I could look up more anthropologists to back my claim but I don’t want to spend too much time for people who talk down on me (none of these are block posts, surprised?) and you are yet to come up with all the anthropologists and historians (not economics, they don’t count) who support your claim.
I didn’t make any claim one way or another, I was just saying that any consensus in academia is going to be backed up by some sort of research and evidence.
And anything you inferred as talking down to you was a misinterpretation on your part.
Do you also ask for sources when people contend that Julius Caesar was a real person, or that the world is round? Go to JSTOR and start building your case if you’re so keen to display your ignorance about common knowledge, or do you need a SOURCE to tell you that JSTOR actually exists and isn’t a modern fiction?
Don’t be belligerent and you won’t get the door slammed on you, being upset about tone of a message to the point of it overriding your ability to accept its content is overly emotional and extremely childish.
That link is an unsourced opinion piece on a site belonging to something called the Adam Smith Institute. I’m gonna need something a bit more credible before I believe it tbh.
The Adam smith institute is a right wing free market think tank with likely very questionable donors. wiki It likely doesn’t really do research but takes sources that support their preexisting believes and retells them.
Certainly it was at least very hard to make the capitalist exploitation of the worker so all encompassing before the invention of the mechanical watch (Although there was likely a ton of housework and the general situation was garbage what with feudal lords and all that) . It then likely exploded with the industrial revolution and at least in places where the working class managed to emancipate themselves got somewhat cut back. Now especially for countries outside of the west and increasingly also the US and parts of EU it’s likely getting worse, especially with multi employment and precarious employment(gig work, semi self employment, 0h contracts, mechanical turk …).
Generally i feel work where you or your peers get to keep the total output of your work isn’t really a problem, it’s a problem when your work gets appropriated into this terrible machine and as a result you are alienated from the work.
The time was very different. Most people lived and worked in the country, not in cities, so de facto they couldn’t control them however they liked. Christian Church was also imposing morality over everything, which means they couldn’t enslave people as easily as today.
We are living in neo-feudalism. Your boss is a lord, and your only freedom is to choose a lord, provided this lord accept you.
Christendom was basically like the church was the structure of society, when you were baptized as an infant and written in the books that was like social security today. The anabaptists weren’t just so radical because they opposed theology, but because they protested the fundamental structure of how society was organized.
Also religion back then was like entertainment as well, people actually loved going to see preachers and they’d talk about them in the same way we talk about shows or movies now. It had that function in the society as sort of a language for discussing fundamental truths and life experience that people loved engaging in. They didn’t have a notion of a political or national identity, but they had a soul and all the stuff to do with that.
If that’s ok too, I have read a book by an anthropologist who claims the opposite (that in fact people in the past had more leisure than today). I can look up a good quote tomorrow. For the claim in the post, I’m afraid, there ain’t no good sources, as for most alternative facts.
I mean it seems like the sort of thing people are just ready to believe because “we have technology now so we must have better lives” despite loads of that technology being turned towards controlling us.
As for the book, it wouldn’t be Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber, would it?
It was the first book I read by Graeber but not the last one. He mentioned it in other books too but yes, I was about to quote from Bullshit Jobs
Anyone wanting to read it can do so for free: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-bullshit-jobs
The official version I think is better formatted, but this one is functional if you can’t access the official one for some reason.
It’s historical consensus. Your quality of life is still better because you have civil rights and access to medical care that actually works.
If it’s consensus then there must be sources somewhere.
You got it the wrong way around: If it’s consensus, no one questions it anymore so you don’t need a source. If you start to question commonly hold beliefs, you will have to unlearn the whole field of economics. Do you want that?
Economics is less accurate than astrology because at least if you are an astrologist who gets things wrong you stop getting paid. Sure it is cold reading and Barnum statements but it is still more accurate.
This entire quote is actually a perfect encapsulation of orthodox economics, said with absolutely no self awareness.
In order to reach a consensus like that, you have to have supporting evidence that it’s true. Otherwise that consensus should absolutely be challenged.
It happens in all kind of scientific fields that things that feel logical and common sense, are taken for granted. I think SciShow made a video about it but I can’t find it right now.
We’re talking about anthropology/history here. People spend their entire careers researching things like this and publishing papers on it.
To make a claim like this requires evidence. Historical records would exist that some person at some point gathered together and published a peer reviewed article on.
If no sources or peer reviewed articles exist on the topic other than a few blog posts, then it’s extremely likely it’s a pile of horse shit.
I don’t think you got my point at all. My point is that even natural science, which is “hard science” and much easier falsifiable, this also happens. I found the video if you’re interested (It’s by Be Smart, I was wrong about the channel).
There is also a video about the history of work that is more on topic. If you don’t want to watch the video, you can just read the sources in the description.
But talking about anthropologists: here is a quote from David Graeber’s book Bullshit Jobs:
He is an anthropologist who devoted his whole career debunking such claims and published a book together with a historian who does the same. It’s called “the dawn of everything” by David Graeber and David Wengrow (2021). You should check it out. I could look up more anthropologists to back my claim but I don’t want to spend too much time for people who talk down on me (none of these are block posts, surprised?) and you are yet to come up with all the anthropologists and historians (not economics, they don’t count) who support your claim.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
I found the video if you’re interested (It’s by Be Smart, I was wrong about the channel)
There is also a video about the history of work that is more on topic
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Thank you for finding a source.
I didn’t make any claim one way or another, I was just saying that any consensus in academia is going to be backed up by some sort of research and evidence.
And anything you inferred as talking down to you was a misinterpretation on your part.
Do you also ask for sources when people contend that Julius Caesar was a real person, or that the world is round? Go to JSTOR and start building your case if you’re so keen to display your ignorance about common knowledge, or do you need a SOURCE to tell you that JSTOR actually exists and isn’t a modern fiction?
You could turn down your douchebag levels quite a lot and still make a point.
It’ll make you look much less like an asshole when you’re wrong, which you are.
Don’t be belligerent and you won’t get the door slammed on you, being upset about tone of a message to the point of it overriding your ability to accept its content is overly emotional and extremely childish.
UHHH SOURCE!!! SOURCE???
I’m not the person asking for a source, but good job proving that you’re an asshole.
We have coins with his face on it.
It’s not historical consensus. It’s a claim made by some historians that went viral online.
It seems very emotionally important to you that you believe that. Best of luck.
Is it? Okay.
no it isn’t.
Oh ok