Here is an article from evonomics, a cesspool of terrible economics(“The New Evolution of Economics”) that tries to disguise itself as a legitimate place where actual economic discussion happens.

“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."

The author attempts to compare quality of life of a peasant to a worker oppressed by capitalism, the economic system created by oligarchs to stay in power blah blah blah. The global real GDP growth(which is generally a good indicator of the standard of living In a country) has skyrocketed since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. This makes sense, since, for example, the average American worker doesn’t have to worry about stubbing their toe and then dying from a fever a couple of weeks later. They don’t worry have to worry about being caught up in a war(Trump may have something to say about this, but generally the world is much more stable than it was during the Middle Ages up to the 1800s). She cites an article written by the economist Juliet Schor, who states that peasants lived more laidback lives with naps, and she says they didn’t work all day. But what I feel Schor misses is the fact that the work an average peasant did was much more physically taxing than working in an office and typing on a keyboard. They may have not worked day as most capitalist drones, but they still did work that punished their bodies, and I am pretty sure not much attention was paid to worker safety. Now I am not going to debate whether work hours need to be less, but here is an article from the Harvard Business Review, which cites many decent-looking studies that draw the conclusion that push against working longer hours.

Here is a nice summary of the article: “In sum, the story of overwork is literally a story of diminishing returns: keep overworking, and you’ll progressively work more stupidly on tasks that are increasingly meaningless.”

“It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way: John Maynard Keynes, one of the founders of modern economics, made a famous prediction that by 2030, advanced societies would be wealthy enough that leisure time, rather than work, would characterize national lifestyles. So far, that forecast is not looking good.”

Yeah and according to Back to the Future we are supposed to be flying on actual hoverboards by now. Just because we don’t meet a very idealistic goal set by someone significantly in the past, doesn’t mean we aren’t on a path to achieve something close(even if not as ideal). The rest keeps blathering on about how Europe works less and also does more, pretty common to come up in any work-hours discussion. She also cites Alan Grayson’s Paid Vacation Act of 2009 and an article by Robert Reich about how we should have a mandatory three week vacation for workers. I am sure there is bad economics in both of her resources, but I don’t want to take the time to R1 any more.

Also, I don’t understand why every time she used pronouns with reference to a worker, they were female, is that a political statement or something? Well whatever, I hope this was a good read and I definitely hope I get my shitposting privileges back.