Work.
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Sources:
Juliet B. Schor, "The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure" | tinyurl.com/3cr3s7xh
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David Rooney, "About Time: A History of Civilization in Twelve Clocks" | tinyurl.com/mvcw8ek3
E. P. Thompson, "Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism" | www.jstor.org/stable/649749
James E. Thorold Rogers, "Six Centuries of Work and Wages: The History of English Labour" | socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/ec...
George Woodcock, "The Tyranny of the Clock," Published in "War Commentary - For Anarchism" in March, 1944 | tinyurl.com/y3tzkfw2
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GDP per capita in England, 1740 to 1840, via Our World in Data | ourworldindata.org/grapher/GD...
Nominal wages, consumer prices, and real wages in the UK, United Kingdom, 1750 to 1840, via Our World in Data | ourworldindata.org/grapher/no...
Music:
"Past," by Nctrnm
"Heliograph," by Chris Zabriskie
"Hallon," by Christian Bjoerklund
Getting off of work and watching this hits different
💪
One of the most impressive feats in the US is mega corps convincing people to worship capitalism as if it's somehow intrinsic to our country, that unions are bad for them and that they should fanboy for it while the giant companies dont pay tax , use PACS to influence law and policy, its almost dystopian levels of BS Obviously the USSR was way more cruel and brutal, they weren't Communist just totalitarianism but there's definitely better methods that don't absolutely gut and demolish lower and middle classes while CEOs make billions for doing nothing
(^3 weeks ago^) I'm watching the premier now, my life is a lie...
i used to be a baker where i would clock in around 9pm, and by sunrise i could spend my morning watching stuff like this. i love working a lot of hours, and i spend my off time working at home.
Don't watch this before work. debating should I call in. I'm convinced going to work would be un-natural today.
Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime, That's why I watch Historia Civilis On company time
Literally doing this right now.
Doing this right now lmao
Boss makes a dollar I make a dime those were the words of a different time Boss makes a million I make a cent that's why I bring his life to an end
@@Orrphoiz Boss makes a dollar I don't make shit That's why we march In a crowd of raised fists
@@Orrphoiz that escalated quickly lol
You see, we’re not ALWAYS thinking about Rome…
Some of us are though….
Because we have to think about work! And it sucks!!!
Sometimes we think about the plight of the proletariat!
@@Nae_Ayy✊🏽 😉
im thinking that Rome sucked
When my father lead a contruction departmen in Germany he always provided free food and beer to all the employees and workers. Nevertheless his department was always the most productive and always in the green. He still received complaints from leading manager because of ''high hospitality costs"...
In the cooperative that i work, a fucking cooperative, they want that you work 10 to 12 hours everyday and just want to pay 9 hours of work.
@col0no315 that's quite common in the trades even here in Germany, they demand you to work extra without paying extra hours
@@C0lon0 That's outrageous! But given it's a cooperative (businesses owned and managed by the people who work there) employees like you should be able to vote against that whether immediately or eventually. Or is it a 'Cooperative-in-name-only' thing?
No, they are consriderably small companies and when workers complain about extra hours they won't be paid for, they just replace them with illegal immigrants and refugees who work for nothing@@TheVoiceOfReason93
In the Yeungling factory in Pottsville is a bar in the factory that was for employees. It was open until the government shut that idea down, but that was in the 70s iirc. They still have the bar tho, you see it on the tour.
I work in agriculture in southern France. Unless we are avoiding the heat at the height of summer, we arrive at 7:30, have a café and patisserie with everyone, complimented from the boss, start at 8, short coffee break at 10, then for 12 midday, we go home and have lunch with our families and have a sieste (nap), before restarting at 2pm and finishing up the day's jobs for 5pm. If you finish early, you leave early. It sounds too good to be true because it sadly is. While a rich harvest means lots of work, a ruined harvest from bad weather can mean that your peachy 3 month contract can be swindled down to only 10 hours a week, making the poverty line look pretty. So any time you earn a decent amount of money, it all goes to saving, quite literally, for a rainy day!
Beautiful perspective, thanks for sharing that
@armygodward4427 Je viens du Québec et étant donné mon jeune âge, j'ai toujours fait des besognes manuelle ou du service à la clientèle pour gagner ma vie. L'an dernier j'ai fait du wwoofing en France (travailler pour gîte et couvert dans des fermes) Je ne pensais pas que la vie pouvait être si belle et simple. Durant deux mois, au rythme de la nature, et ponctué du son de la cloche du village, nois travaillions 6h maximum dans une chaleur a crever, mais avec de si belles conditions de travail tel que vous l'avez décrite. Je pense a chaque jour a ce soleil jaune et ce ciel si bleu Français. Magnifique pays et bon peuple de mes aïeux. Force à vous! Salutations du Québec. ❤
And you’re still striking daily! 😉
This is why the French complaining about their retirement age going up by 2 years is laughable. I work 12 to 14 hours per day for 14 days straight. I then do FA because I can but many of them cannot. They have to work elsewhere doing back bending jobs. Althewhilst, having this to age 69 (and by the time many get there it will be well into the 70s).
@@METALFREAK03 instead of shitting on people for wanting to better their own lives at the very marginal expense of the ruling class, you should realize you’re also being taken advantage of
I implored my boss to reduce my daily labour time to 6 hours. He was apprehensive at first, but conceded after taking my pocket watch. I was overjoyed!
Watch out!
😂😂😂
no capitalist can resist a good clock
Lol pocket watches are soooo last century, smart watches are in
It’s fine guys, he has a phone.
Before: "Wow, new HC video, wonder what interesting thing about Rome I learn today" After: "I must destroy every clock I stumble upon"
Sundials and digital clocks have entered the chatroom.
especially when you go home to modern medicine after using modern tools all day to do what amounts to the job of a baby to ancient man
The best job I ever had was making sandwiches as fast as possible from 8 am to 12 noon. I’d go shopping, do some errands, go home for lunch and the rest of the day was mine. I made the huge mistake of working my way up to management.
Never go full salary exempt.
You also contributed to society around 1/10th a typical laborer.
@@jonnyd9351 Exactly
and thats a good thing @@jonnyd9351 did you watch the video?
@@jonnyd9351 yes, it's great
The most tragic part is that most of that work is unnecessary. Planned obsolescence and consumerism mean that vast majority of stuff produced is thrown away. We are killing ourselves for nothing but some billionaire's obsession with ticking up his high score.
This is the stupidest fucking comment I’ve ever read
Fr. We know and understand that addressing the climate crisis and the degrowth which that entails is what is necessary right now yet what do those at the reigns do? We must fight for ourselves, friends, families, neighbors, communities, and environment
@@GruntKFsince you are not a scientist, image of the climate change is not real. If you even consider the idea, it becomes the elite removing freedoms from the general population. Regardless of all climate change measures, they are still taking private jets, buying multiple cars and houses, the only rules climate change matter for is you! Only your life will be restricted, while the elite have even more, they already got 99% of the money and now they want 99% of the stuff. Or if it's real absolutely nothing meaningful is being done for it, pedestrians can still shut down entire intersections with a button lol, please realize you are being lied too
@@ihatesnickersTSD oh boy where to even begin. Have you studied hurricane Otis? I don't need to be a scientist to identify that warmer oceans mean more severe storms that are unlike any we've had before. I don't need to be a scientist to understand the rich have turned our communities into sacrifice zones just so they can continue to amass wealth. Besides the "elite" would be seeking to remove our freedoms regardless because that's how they operate. Please study some more. Dialectical and historical materialism are neat frameworks to help understand the relationship between classes
@@GruntKF you literally have to be a scientist, you don't have any graphs, charts, or data. You googling stuff to find information to suit your bias IS NOT SCIENTIFIC. You are NOT a scientist, so you have NO IDEA what is happening, the only thing you have is rhetoric fed to you from media organizations.
When I was an intern working in the maintenance department of a chemical factory, I was always told by the old foremen that you can only expect to reasonably get 4-6 hours out of someone during a day’s work. Seems like those old hands knew what they were talking about
This has been my experience in any kind of environment where you're expecting manual labor out of people. Once you hit 6 hours you see a drastic slowdown in how fast everyone works.
Dangerous work, better not to risk tired workers since they'd be prone to mistakes
@@commisaryarreck3974 Risk is outweighed by the amount of work put in and capital accumulated. 100% efficient work or not it's still labour
Same is for developers / coders in IT industry ..
@@danicic87throw different timezones teams in there and you have a nightmare.
I was working contract out of town making really good money. I remember when I told them I was going to take a month off for my wedding. They shamed me, they acted shocked and judged me. I took my new wife to Italy and we had the best time ever. That’s what I remember! F those people! You got one life. Live it!
Good on you!
Where’s that?
I work 90hrs a week and I ❤ it!
Amazing! Well done! One love
Italy is amazing!
Labour went from "this is how much work I need doing, please get it done" to "this is how much time I'm getting out of you, do as much work as possible." Which just intrinsically incentivizes employers to squeeze as much work as possible out of employees at an unsustainable rate.
Producing more and more unneeded stuff, and drowning the world in consumerism. While hundreds of millions don't have what they need for living.
In the middle ages, there wasn't much competition (re: not much to buy). But in industrial times, it's really easy to enter into all kinds of businesses, because people want all kinds of things. So there's also competition against how much productivity a business can do - so may as well squeeze the employee for work.
Seems like a flawed concept, but productivity has expanded massively. However, the share of that output has not expanded correspondingly.
Also it's missed in this video how much time and "work" it took for people in the "working class" to just survive. Everything took more time and was harder to do than in the modern age. Just heating your home or preparing food took so much effort compared to now, nearly everyone had a small amount of livestock, no refrigerators no supermarkets. I'm not saying our "free time" hasn't been exploited, but it's not as simple as " they worked less in the past. It just more like they worked less for other people. Also this doesn't factor in the obligatory work for the church or a lord.
To be fair the second one is how labour under capitalism always worked - Karl Marx wrote about it extensively in volume 1 of Capital.
The Factory I work in used to have 6 people per large line, and 4 per small line. That was 15 years ago, now there is 2 people per small line, and 3 people per large line. Yet we are expected to do double the work. Working used to be painless, relaxed and enjoyable. Now it is incredibly painful; if you do the job right you’ll experience pains in your chest, hands, and feet. If you don’t do it the right way it’s your spine instead of your chest.
Unionize and make them dial back their goals so they aren't physically destroying you
@@sakelaine2953More than half of the workforce are Immigrants working for a recruitment agency.
In the factory I used to work at they had one of the machines set aside for punishment. Most machines barely managed pace with 4 people, but this one was only staffed with two. A day on that machine felt like hell.
Write down what causes the pain, what movements you would change, and ideas on how to make the process better. Talk to your supervisor or whenever you see one of the dudes walking around with collared shirts about your suggestions. Any factory manager worth its salt will listen to people working on the line that have ideas for improvement. If they don’t, go somewhere that does. You don’t deserve to be in a place that doesn’t listen.
@@williamschwan207 having actually worked in a factory the first thing you learn is that the managers and supervisors are NOT your friends. If you complain about something you are asking to be punished. What you are suggesting is a great way to get shafted. And they are like this universally. There is no “somewhere that isn’t like that”
I've worked a corporate job that was soul-sucking, working 12hr days, 6 days a week on salary. After that I went to a company that didn't track hours at all, working 30hrs/week most of the time with unlimited vacation (I generally took ~6-7 weeks a year) and it is shocking how much of a difference it made to my mental health and overall quality of life. The interesting part is that I was far more productive in the latter role despite working probably half the hours. You hear these kinds of stories commonly in my industry yet somehow most companies are still closer to the slave-driving model than one where they treat their employees well so they can perform their best. It's way more stick than carrot out there.
It's simple. A good leader and manager can figure out how to get the most out of people in the long term. Fools and idiots look at their workers as a candle to burn out as quickly as possible to extract everything out of them. These people are the worst because they think by listening to 'common knowledge' this would be the best route. I worked with a variety of companies in many different roles, along with several business to business roles. Without a doubt the leaders who were happiest, most capable and did the best weren't interested in working anyone to the bone. The idea that working harder gets you more out of it is a lie, and it always has been. You have to work to the level that needed, not in excess.
@@alecshockowitz8385 one problem is that working someone harder pays off in the short term while treating employees well and working to motivate them pays off in the long term
Especially when it comes to mental labor, forcing someone to work extra hours when they are exhausted and their brain isn't working at full capacity is just a waste of everyone's time. Workers should be encouraged to work more efficiently, as opposed to more often. This doesn't necessarily mean working less overall per-se, but instead allowing for things like nap time for a worker to regain their stamina or mental clarity.
I feel like part of it is managers needing to justify their existence
@@mrECisME i'm a plumber, everyone gets weeks paid vacation here in Sweden. I can also accumulate vacation days and take even longer or more vacations throughout a year.
I feel like a history on peasant revolts might make an interesting follow up.
100% yes.
agreed
need my fix of narodnism
This
+
Me in college: 4-6 hours class days, 4.5 months of total vacation, mostly free weekends, big lunch break. That was paired by 3 hours of train rides every weekday that gave me time to read or listen to music. That was the life.
Me in highschool: 6 Hours Class study, 4 hours Home study. Hell.
Must have been nice I’ve been working since I was 14 every weekend and holiday and I’m still broke somehow
@@nothanks9503 It was good indeed. I hope you situation resolves itself. Good Luck.
@@127Kronos oh yeah I’ll die eventually no worries
I had 8 hour school day 2 hour homework and 2.5 hour buss ride each way in which i could listen to other people scream or bump into me. During weekend i enjoyed work to support my studies.
Straight out of high school I got a minimum wage job at a factory. I was lucky I got the day shift. Can't imagine night shift. Day/night both operated 12 hr shifts and work weeks were structured work 3 days, then 2 days off. Work 2 days, then 3 days off. Weekends basically didn't exist, which to my surprise I didn't hate too much. Until a thing called "mandatory overtime" came along. When my boss first told me about it I laughed and thought he was joking. That made him hate me for sure! Mandatory Overtime means: work 3 days, work 2 days, then work 3 days again. No 2 day break. I was so naive back then but thankfully somehow I managed to get myself fired. Best decision ever made. I have very graphic and violent words to say to the people that support or made that system up. MANDATORY. OVERTIME. Yeah boss whatever it is mandatory for you to go eff yourself.
May i ask in What country that happened?
USA, baby @@Serioussux
Insane, where did this happen?
Small town in MO. To clarify this was 8 years ago and I was a naive fool straight out of HS and just wanted a job. There's a chance they warned me about Man. O.T. prior and I was probably too dumb to care/listen.. but I swear the first time I heard about the O.T. was midway through a day shift a few days into my new job. I think there was a rule where you didn't "HAVE" to do it, but if you skipped enough Man. O.T. slots then they would deduct your pay or something like that. Still B.S. IMO @@sheeps4485
@@Serioussuxits common in the US when you have health benefits. companies would rather spend less so they dont have to pay for as many workers to have those benefits. theyd rather pay mandatory overtime, time and a half because its cheaper. it also drives overturn and some companies deny the benefit packages to the new employees until theyve put in like a year or have been through some sort of probation period or something like that with the company.
Here in Romania, if you hire day laborers, you are still required to provide food and alcohol on top of the pay. Not feeding your workers is seen as uncivilized and will have people avoid working for you.
I worked with a Romanian puppet troupe at a world puppet festival and it was the first time I'd met Romanians and I loved their spirit and outlook on things. When they went home they gave me some of that wonderful Romanian chocolate infused with brandy.
Time to move to Romania
I don't know about the booze, but the rest of it sounds good to me.
Forgot to say that isn't everywhere and depends big on the company, when I worked at media galaxy my meal time was 15 minutes and at Neversea i had food provided and a hours time of eating
Food is one thing but alcohol on the job? Which drunk commissar made that a law?
To throw a personal story out there: I once worked in a factory that used a 24 hour operation 4 shift system where a crew would work 12 hours then hand off to the next crew who would work the next 12. You would work 4 days in a row, then get the next 4 off. By some modern labor miracle the factory owners for the most part allowed the workers to self organize, and the result of that was pretty strikingly similar to what you describe here, we would generally work for about 2 hours, then break for 1 with the exception of the few hours right before and after handoff just to get everything in order. On average we only spent about 8 of those 12 hours working. Despite it being a pretty physically demanding job in a less than pleasant environment (production floor was ~100 degrees all day) it rarely ever felt like much stress built up since a reasonably significant break was generally not far away. and as a side note, this didn't at all make people lazy, when things got tough we ourselves canceled breaks and would go pedal to the metal for the full 12 hours without any interaction with management. I've also done work for small construction contractors where the owner of the business was actually working along side us, and there we also tended towards this same general pace. Turns out when work is organized by the people actually doing it effort is scaled to necessity
I've heard similar stories about this from various industries and from all age groups. The only places that don't seem to understand that a healthy production line with happy workers tends to be from groups self regulating their work flow. And very often some new hot shot enters a workplace with an established and functional work system like you mentioned. See's the "laziness" and decides to fix it. Within a month the first increase in sick leaves comes in. Within the first 6 months the first quitters hand over the papers. Within a year the workplace is in shambles. And the hot shot of course blames the lazy worker and not seeing how their actions messed it all up.
Bosses are not as necessary as they say they are.
Management then moves the goal post. Until workers value healthy work environments in exchange of lower pay and a lot of DIY at home, psychopaths and sociopaths will keep manipulating workers. It's a capitalist system. The workers should value their labor properly and look for alternatives to keep their employers competing for their labor. Cronyism is not capitalism. Instead of giving government a hand in the economy, it should be kept out of it.
Most people in America don't work factories. It's less than 10 percent of the population. Most people in America work an office job, many of them are working from home while sitting in a comfy chair.
@@ReverendNillerz Depends on the "office" job. Not many people even after COVID WFH, most are back to their office. Also while some job are physically draining, office jobs are mentally draining.
Wtf, i’ve always felt 4-6 hours felt wayy better and my mind much more active and clear, but the dread of that 7th to 8 hour and the long drive home, you’re right, 4-6 is perfect work day.
I hate commutes. even 30min to get to work means 10hours a week of driving. I left a higher paying job to work close to home and it was worth it
@@tinyturtle189830m commute would be 5 hours of driving, right?
@@tinyturtle1898imagine driving 3 hours a day and working 8 to 10 hour shifts for months on end (it’s not fun)
6 hours should be the absolute maximum for a work day. Workers are usually only productive for that amount of time anyways. Anything more is just diminishing returns.
@@proggz39get into audio books. it will change that time into something interesting and you will learn so much new stuff and angles on stuff
This is why kids are made to sit and do busy work in school to break them mentally and prepare them for factory work
Not just factory work anymore. We are conditioned from a young age to accept these things in all work
yeah poor kids, forced to stimulate their brains with practical knowledge? What do kids do in their free time? When I was younger, I simply played video games whenever I could and then wondered why the f I was bored all the time. At school, I was forced to stimulate my brain, at least. You can choose whatever you want to do with your life after high school.
you couldn’t choose better than poor stimulation for yourself? I mean we all did some stupid stuff as kids. If you want to be forced stimulation, do you really want to be free after high school? Sure you can do whatever you want after school, just don’t starve in the meantime. Let’s see where bare minimum “practical knowledge” can take a citizen, at least in America, you’re kinda fucked. I don’t know where you are. Most practical thing is trade school if you don’t wanna be a college slave
Farmers in agrarian societies literally have children specifically to have farmhands. It is a better system now lol
@@erf2324 School is valuable and provides a lot of information and the mental training we need to learn. However, much of the curriculum for children in less sophisticated (non-advanced) classes is nothing but busy work that fails to actually teach anything at all, and is usually conducted by apathetic or misanthropic educators who don't really wish to do anything at all.
As someone who grew up spending a lot of weekends working in the woods with family, just to provide firewood to an old house, I find myself recognizing the medieval work pattern on those days - bursts of work when you have the energy, with a lot of breaks, snacking, meals and smoking (if you were my dad and uncles) in between.
Yeah, I´m a volunteer in Guerrero (southern, rural mexico) and was recognizing the same thing
Im sure once tobacco was on the scene any serfs who had access to tobacco also incorporated smoking into their breaks!
@@santiagogarza8121that’s probably the natural result of rural labor
It was far more back breaking labor than snacks and breaks.
@@mrbillsix That is true, however (and I realize you aren't explicitly disagreeing with this) modern work is so much more efficient than medieval work that society could easily afford to work less than we do now.
I learned from my grandmother that many of my ancestors were farm workers in a village in Bedfordshire, and were forced to leave due to enclosure of farmland. Two of my great-great grandparents and their children moved to Hendon in London. The details of their lives are murky, but my grandmother still has the death certificate of my great-great grandfather, which says he died aged thirty-six, from "exhaustion" and "malnutrition".
Jesus Christ
good ol' industrial revolution
"People left the farmlands for the factories bc it was objectively better" The real reason people left the farmlands:
@@hsjshdhsjshsh958Yeah that’s why Unions get such a bad wrap in the press. They benefit the workers and not the elite that have the money and influence over mainstream media which influences the narrative of “unions = communism” and “communism = evil dictatorships”
The wonderful normalcy where worker expends more calories working than he or she gets paid.
Man I like my boss. One of those guys who says here's what I need done today. Start whenever, break whenever, end whenever. As long as I get it done and the customer's happy. On an awesome day can start at 7 and be done by 11
what is your job bro
Yeah ,it sounds too good to be real @@aroundten
@@aroundten Swimming pool service and repair. Once you get the hang of it you can do a pool in under 20 minutes.
If your boss wasn’t good to you, you could just start your own business. You have a lot more bargaining power with your boss than most people due to your industry. My job has similarities to yours
@@Someone_s_nick2 It isn't. Most white collar jobs are exactly like this. The moment you break from blue collar delusion, you realize that almost all labor is total bullshit.
I live on a farm with my parents in eastern poland, everytime we need construction workers for like building new garage or fixing barn roof or digging new well we also buy them crate of beer and my mother invites them for dinner. Well fed and happy workers work way faster and don't leave any "mistakes" because they don't feel like they are slaves in gulag
Some insight from more modern history: In the late 1990s, the government of France reduced the working week from 40 to 35 hours. The government of the time did this not for everyone's wellbeing or out of the goodness of their hearts, but because France at the time had really high unemployment. It was thought that by reducing the workweek by ~12%, employers would be forced to hire about 12% more workers, solving the unemployment crisis. Simple, right? Instead what happened surprised everyone. Labour productivity immediately skyrocketed across the economy, meaning workers were doing the same amount of work in 5 less hours a week. Employment rates and labour market participation barely budged, in general extra jobs weren't created. People didn't generally seek out extra jobs with their extra time either. Instead, workers collectively simply took the extra 5 hours off a week and worked harder during the rest of the week to compensate.
It is worth mentioning that the 35h week doesn't mean French people only work for that amount of time, the average full-time worker does about 38h a week. Extra hours above 35 are just paid extra (+25%, then +50% if you're doing more than 43h), the so-called "heures supplémentaires". The shift to the 35h work week mostly made most people a bit wealthier, the goal being that people would spend that money and curb the slowing economic growth.
Hey, I'm sorry to be that guy (but I'm genuinely interested in knowing more about this) ; source ?
@@MisterBenjiAny links that would be posted in the comments get shadow b@nned by KZhead for spam
@@MisterBenji Hey! If you're not that guy, why then do you ask it with so much white-space? Anyway, Wikipedia mostly confirms OP their story and lists multiple sources that you may be interested in.
@@MisterBenji You can find a fairly short summary on CAIRN : "Les 35 heures : le bilan" by Denis Clerc. The INSEE has the very exhaustive : "La réduction du temps de travail 1997-2003 : dynamique de construction des lois « Aubry » et premières évaluations" in Économie et Statistique n° 376-377 - 2004. Both are available for free. IFDR (in French, didn't read); It's complicated, while the reform somewhat reached its short term goals, it also had unforeseen consequences, mainly in the public sector. The assumption was that employers would (1) hire more people, (2) keep things the same but those in post would earn more. But in some cases, workers were expected to do 40 hours worth of work in just 35, leading to increased stress for the same pay. In the end, it's always hard to tell whether economic tendencies can be pinned to a single law being passed, and while the 35h workweek comes up again and again in political discourse, it's more as a symbol than as an effective piece of legislation.
Here in Brazil there are some jobs where people are paid daily. It’s common that one of your colleagues just stops coming for a week or two and upon their return, they are taunted with _“ahhh your money has run out, no money! Back to work”._ This claim is rarely denied but rather met with sheepish looks of concealed embarrassment.
This is exactly the same here in Sicily.
Dude, just very low-end jobs have these characteristics (they're literally called "under work"). The thing is, inside the Brazilian society, the number of jobs that now give nothing to the workers (talking about stability, at least) are increasing abruptly due to one of the worst incompetence/corruption-induced crisis that happened at the last government, one of the worst in many categories, but the very worst speaking about job security, employment and work ethics. Tl;dr: Yes, there are such jobs, but it's not a cultural thing, but a crisis induced pattern.
@@Rand0mGypsy - ok dude lol
I live in Brazil and I have never heard of this (daily payments)
@@guilhermehx7159 - you learn something new every day. Happy to help you in your education 😉
Fun fact: until like 50 years ago, rural and construction workers were also treated just like the middle ages in rural Portugal. My grandparents aldo did nap time after lunch. Our national dish was a stew made for workers to provide them with strength.
8 hours a day today was already bad but its insane now. young people are expected to work at the very least 9.5 hours here, with one day weekends, for minimum wage that is shit. rents are skyrocketing and work hours are beyond abusive. Its unsustainable right now.
Still better than serfdom and starvation, did I mention the child mortality rates?
@@Wewetasure but those are quite unrelated issues
@@anrw886 no they are not. Working 8 hours a day is better than the bubonic plague, facing the death of a son or daughter, suffering domestic violence, starvation, being unable to move and etc
@@Weweta yeah obviously but I don't see how one effects the other
@@anrw886 the video kinda implies this, it’s just doomposting and bs. As much as I agree with his final point the entire argument here is completely desonest
Yesterday I just looked at your channel and thought, "I miss Historia Civilis, I hope he returns soon"
LITERALLY SAME
Same here too. Was incredibly bored and checked KZhead channels for anything new and wondered if I missed something here. Glad to see this pop up on the feed a day later.
On his website he has a progress tracker
Same
On average he uploads every 3 months look at his website
The constant ticking in the backgroud really HITS when you get to the portion about clocks. Amazing work.
I just quit my job. 10 hour shifts and the kind of gig that makes you sit to pee because otherwise you just don't get to sit. Watching this after that is whiplash.
i quit a job back in the summer, 13 hour shifts. did it for 2 years but could'nt do it anymore
I’m job hunting currently just worked 120 hours in 3 weeks just to get paid 500 dollars 130 without pulling teeth to get the 500 somehow that’s legal here
“The ancients thought their machines would set them free, but what they really did was allow other men with machines to enslave them.” - Dune by Frank Herbert.
Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind
I am so concerned about AI and automation in today's capitalist world. Hell, even space exploration just sounds like an opportunity to create horrible slave colonies
@@ssach7Bigger Gulag
Goddammit Frank! Why did he have to be so devastatingly on point with SO MANY problems in our modern society?
@@bilkishchowdhury8318 Why build Gulag when space one big Gulag comrade?
I remember during quarantine, when i was working my customer service job from home in my apartment (mostly just answering emails), I'd always get a lot of work done every other day and not pay it much attention on other days. It just kind of felt better having more to do, then less to do, then more to do, then less to do, etc. Those couple months were definitely the best I'd ever felt working that job
FAST SLOW type beat
The best parts of quarantine disappeared in a snap and we're back to the "nose to the grindstone" bullsh!t work paradigm.
After watching this essay, I think I know why they want Americans working back in the office rather than at home (even though it's better for the environment, saves precious oil, saves wear and tear on infrastructure, is a big hit with their workers , . I mean it's just a guess.
Ive never hated a blue square so much in my life
THAT!!!! did you copy that from somewhere? Genius!
This hits. Man, this hits and hurts on a deep, spiritual level. Love from Korea, the most overworked country on the planet.
North Korea have it worse. Be very grateful you live in South Korea.
Get out from the rat race buddy
I worked as a quality assurance scientist for a few months, 8 hr work day 30 min lunch and two 15 min breaks. We had a mandatory 1hr of overtime everyday and mandatory half day of overtime on Saturday. This was during the winter so I'd go in before the sun came up and left as the sun was going down there was barely any windows. Being fired from that job was the best thing that ever happened to me.
It's sickening to know just how overworked people in QA/labs are.
Bruh that's exactly my school time and the worst part is I am still in there
You got mandatory overtime? Can I have your job?
It’s eerie to me the degree to which is exactly mirrors my experience working for that one Danish-owned industrial company in the American midwest. 9-hour days mandatory, Spartan break schedule, invasive monitoring of how much you used the bathroom, and volun-told to come in on Saturdays for more overtime.
As in ironworker we worked 7 days a week 12 hours a day for a month at a time...then we'd get a week off
I work 12 hours as a night shift nurse. We're allotted a single 30 minute break. I don't officially take my break to eat. I eat, fraternize, and watch KZhead at the nurses station through the night, all against company policy. I then use my my 30 minute break to exercise in the hospital gym. 😎
What do you feel about the conservative dudes who bashed medical workers during the height of COVID for posting tiktok dances?
@@jerrystusrapworkshop5483 Nurse Tik Tok dances are cringe af but even after everything I just said I still don't think nurses make enough for the work they do (especially nursing home staff}
Yeah, my sister does a similar shift in London. She does 4 nights in a row 3 times a month. Pretty sweet. 18 days off most months 😂
@@jerrystusrapworkshop5483what a weird, leading question
@@SkyGlitchGalaxy yeah I'm doing 3 night 12s in a row every week until I switch jobs, retire, or die.
i always knew there was some reason why my whole life i always felt that doing BURSTS of work or studying or something. and then massively cutting back the next day to "recharge" always felt more natural. i always thought i was crazy. but now i know it's not! ty for this video ;D this is why society and humanity is slowly breaking down before us in real time. the industrial revolution completely messed up everything about this world
I'm sorry but that's so totally false it's disrespectful towards those who lived centuries before, living decades less than us with close to none social mobility, without affordable food, seeing their children dying at birth... (and I could go on) That the world is "breaking down before us" is your perception of it, and if you gave a look at some data and threw aside this horrible video you might become a fair bit more optimistic about it all Our World in Data is an awesome site, for example
@@giuseppeagresta1425 Just because people before us had it harder doesn’t mean that we have it easy. We only have it better compared to them, but in general it’s still hard.
@@giuseppeagresta1425This video literally uses multiple sets of data but go off and act like it doesn't exist I guess.
its a pendulum, industrial revolution swung it one way, but we are reaching the apex and will swing back. watch, once automation optimizes supply and labor, there will be far less strain on workers. workers will be able to work far less to pay for life necessiities
@@beamshooterThat will only occur if the current economic model is replaced or changed dramatically. automation without protection for the workers will destroy everyone but the upper class.
I've been starting to notice something akin to a burnout from working in customer facing jobs for close to 10 years, I think this is another challenge (the timeframe we work still a big one), but the accumulative stress from having to deal with challenges and also constantly display good customer service might be something also unique to capitalism.
I‘m a teacher and worked as a cashier, bartender, and travel agency during my degrees. I totally feel you. As a teacher the emotional stress got worse because I deal with a lot more people and I am present for a lot of mental health crises. But it is less dehumanising because I at least have some authority now and more freedom to be myself. Either way, the point I‘m trying to make is that I totally understand what you‘re going through. I hope things are a bit better for you now and that you will have some time off within the next few weeks. Take care
@@sarapocorn thanks for the kind words, I'm learning to make time for myself and to get rest. It helps that i at least work in an industry that has constant challenges, so I feel like i can play to my strengths of problem solving.
Same especially since Covid now you want me to risk maybe dying and definitely all my sick days and probably getting fired for getting sick on top of my other responsibilities for no extra pay too nah not worth it
Can't help but notice that while a lot of video essays can get bloated, one of the things that got me to sit down and watch this intently was that it was in a nice, easily digestible 30 minute chunk.
Definitely by design and something to praise HC for.
Seriously. KZhead videos are overly long a lot of the time. The 15 to 20 minute video while I eat is like a lost art form.
@@ZahraJoy theres few channels that can actually do it, CGP grey, historia civilis and Lemino are the best because they favor quality and efficiency in their videos instead of quantity.
Dan Olson 👀
@@lukasausenthe topics are a little more varied, but if you wanna give it a chance Jacob Geller has some great medium length video essays too, the video on the fear of depths is the one i would probably start with
I’ve been helping my dad build a house in the mountains. we work at a comfortable pace, our schedule lines up almost perfectly with your description of the Stone Age and medieval work day. It feels lazy compared to my regular job, but without realizing it we simply adopted the schedule humans evolved to live by.
I've been working at construction site w/ my dad for a short while. Turns out, I really enjoy working in construction, since it's a nice exercise filled with comradery and surprising amount of creativity. But work hours were INSANE. 11 hours per day, 7 days a week for a month with 1 week breaks in-between. Human body is not built to handle this kind of load. No wonder dads whole body hurts when he lies down. That's probably why he essentially forced me to get higher education. Even if I absolutely despise coding (he prefered something well paid)
Don't let anyone convince you that you're lazy ! You're doing a hell of a job. Fuck this modern system ... I hate it so much. Everything must be sacrificed on the altar of productivity.. Fuck that. We're human beings not machines... And who cares about all this productivity anyway. Life is ment to be enjoyed. This is easily obtainable if we would just change our system...
As a mason laborer, i slammed in three 12 hour days in a row working on a house in the hills. 10 working, hour lunch. Thirty minute drive there and another thirty coming back.
@@jedispartan55you trying to move down to 8 hrs
I also think it has a lot to do with working in an office vs manual labour where you're also limited by your body
Having worked at a major retail store, the bit about people having a life outside of work upsetting bosses brought me back to when I worked there, luckily for me I had my studies as an excuse to not work every day for 10-12 hours, some people though seemed to just be stuck there with no life outside of work
The recounting of a western medieval agricultural days work is very similar to what my grandparents in Bulgaria were doing 60-80 years ago. You wake up with the 🐓 roosters call(sunrise) have breakfast. Go to the field work untill 11-12. Large lunch and naptime. Work resumed around 15:00-16:00 work until the sky starts turning pinkish go home.
I'm always surprised about the level of production quality that can be achieved in videos in which people are depicted as squares!
we're all squares
Yeah, look at them medieval chickens, such level of details
It's hip to be square. Don't knock it.
I've had people ask me why I only work 6 hours a day and have had some even insinuate that I'm lazy, and it wasn't until this video that I realised how we've all been collectively gaslighted into believing that 8 hour work days are natural and if you don't work for 8 hours a day then there's something wrong with you. When I worked 8 hours a day I was tired and miserable, I don't believe the money I'd get from 2 extra hours a day is worth my health and happiness.
But the normal 8hr workday IS the same as working 4-6hrs. Lunch break is 1-2 hrs plus all the random 10 minute breaks we take in between (I take one every 1.5 hrs to go stretch my legs). I also presume that farmhands had a lot more commuting time compared than us.
@@purlp9483we don’t all live in Spain or Greece where we get a 1-2 hour lunch break lmfao
@@rtredz Exactly, I get a 30 minute one. Wait...
wait,@@purlp9483 you get 1-2 hour lunch breaks? I get a 30 unpaid lunch break, which means my job is not 9-5, it's 9-5:30
Hear hear!
“it isn’t about profits, it’s about pure power”
the irony of watching most of this on my lunch break and then immediately going to the clock app to set a timer for a 12 minute nap before heading back in to finish out the work day
Surreal dude, strength to you
To be fair, most workers in my office work about 4-6 hours a day of productive labour. The rest is spent in pointless meetings, pretend work and procrastination.
yea, so they should be at home enjoying their leisure rather than work where its still very limited by the clock
@@userjay4 I agree. I just think it's interesting
@@userjay4 for office work its fine, but not all jobs are created equally, for example a road work, the guys work about 3-5 hours of active labor, and the rest is resting or waiting for more materials to work on their stuff, so basically yeah they work in short bursts, but have to stay since its not affordable to drive 45 minutes back home for a 5 minutes rest, also in europe and USA manual labor is VASTLY well paid compared to the rest of the world, my family comes from brazil and a plumber there cant make living wage while in canada they pay you A LOT like in brazil being a plumber would be the same as earning like 5 dolars an hour, its not like you guys from developed countries can have such leisured lives without someone somewhere having to do the dirt work for penies on the dolar, like yeah you can work 4-6 hours but when you want to buy that iphone or that samsumg, a person in a near slave situation will have to build it for you since you wont have money to buy it if it was properly made with decency and etc, just my 2 cents being from a first world country is easy when your biggest problem is working 8 hours a day, while where im from 10-12 hour work is the norm, cant imagine what people in asia are going trough considering their situation is absurdly worse than in brasil, more power to you i guess if i could id work 4 hours a day too.
you still lose your time tho
That intro was so unsettling for me. I just wrapped up a long “fast” day at work and was listening to this video on my drive home. Being hyper aware of time passing just makes me super anxious. It’s really emblematic of how the institutions and inventions that we make have profound psychological effects. Excellent creative choice on your part! Thank you for the lovely content as always. Excited for whenever the next video drops-don’t forget to take your slow days, cheers!
Imagine being the first human to realize that everyday you wake up you get a little older and eventually die and how you can't stop this process. How mind blowing that must have felt
In tech, its heavily understood most people can only do good valuable thinking for 4 hrs a day tops. Sadly it took 2020 for remote work IN TECH to become commonplace. Tech still has a problem of unnecessary middle management, a holdover from when the focus was on managing people, not managing projects.
When you mentioned 3.5 months of vacation time it sounded crazy, but then I realized that's almost exactly what students and professors get
I can guarantee you professors don't get that. When they aren't teaching they have to be researching/writing or teaching summer courses or teaching at other schools, etc. Only the most senior professors have the possibility of that much time off. Everyone else has to continually justify their existence at the school.
@@ShummaAwilum That entirely depends on the university/country. I'm colleagues with a few professors from mine and they definitely don't need to continuously justify their existence. Saying their summer is entirely free may be an overstatement, but those 3 months are definitely not very intensive.
Though many professors and students have jobs over the summer too
Depending on the education system, students may end up working more hours per day than actual workers due to time spent studying, working on homework, or just working on unfinished classwork, so that reduces the total amount of leisure time gained from having longer vacation times.
Marking. Curriculum planning. Events. Believe me, teachers do not get it that easy.
“The life given us, by nature is short; but the memory of a well-spent life is eternal.” ― Marcus Tullius Cicero
"Like I Said before you know, I'm the one that can see John Cena. Yeah, I'm the one that knows Victoria's Secret. I'm the one that knows what the dog is doing. You know, I'm that guy. I'm him. I'm him. When I go into a gym... treadmills do push ups. That's how it is bro, I'm that guy." --- KSI the 1st of the chicken-eaters.
@@Vienic2That quote sounds extremely narcissistic, and if you actually think about it, it’s a nonsensical rant.
yeah i know, its something that KSI said for some reason lol@@Cannedbeef
Smart guy, that green square
Thank you for that!
Part of this issue seems pretty obvious to me: Supply and demand for jobs. When there is high demand for jobs, the power is with the employer. They can exploit you as much as they want because they know if you leave, they can fill your position easily. When demand is low, the power is with the employed. The employer is now in a position where they must keep their employees happy or risk losing their workforce. I have seen this occur first-hand when I worked on a remote construction job. The day labourers were not very reliable and only showed up to work half the time. But the company was not in a position to punish or fire these employees due to nobody else wanting to work in this location. So they just let it continue and worked with the situation.
My grandpa was a farmer here in northwest Germany until his 20s (1953 to be precise) like his ancestors. From October until February, the farmland turned into a huge puddle of mud and apart from looking after the cattle, there wasn't much work. Slaughtering took place in winter and there were a few more days of "stress", with the women doing most of the work. When the money ran out, he went to work in a factory on a daily basis, and when he had enough money, he enjoyed his free time again. Work peaks were for planting and during harvest time, up to 17 hours were worked in the field for a few days. When his brother inherited the farm, my grandpa left the farm and went to work in production and suddenly he had a 50+ hour week and initially 10 days vacation per year. He even worked after 10 hours of physical labor for another 2-3 hours in a plant nursery in the summertime, because money was sparse. My grandpa told me that he found it extremely exhausting at first, but later the situation eased up .And let's be honest: who nowadays works productively for 8 hours a day? For me it's more like 4-6.
I’m a union electrician, we get 1 or 2 half hour breaks per day depending on the length of the workday plus an hour lunch. We chill and talk pretty much at will, we take a week off with zero notice to go hunting or fishing, you might take a couple months off in between jobs just because you can and you feel like it. We’re all just peasants at heart!
Where ?
this is why I don't do business with union companies. lazy fucks.
you deserve it for all the labor you put in and it's the least they could offer when your labor generates the wealth that lines their pockets while you take home dimes in comparison, god i wish i could get a half an hour break but we get two ten minutes and a half an hour lunch, or an hour if you're lucky/have a medical condition that requires preparation before eating like diabetes. I also only get two paid actual vacations per year, and they give you shit if you take any time off or use your earned sick leave to cover days you missed. My job is definitely incomparable in difficulty to yours though, I've only been a retail worker for five years and I never had to fight for my union status so I shouldn't be complaining.
What local? I’m from 26
@@user-ws7ws9gn3e I’m in Richmond VA but it’s like this in most IBEW locals in the US
Holy cow. I remember getting called to the principal's office in middle school. My offense: I was skipping lunches because the lunch lines were so long, I'd hardly have any time to eat. I was told to my face that socializing during lunch was wasting time and I just had to eat. I never thought too much about it until now.
The advanced version of this is “you should have gone to the bathroom during break” which oddly has been said to me both at school AND at (former) job.
Just wait until you find out that a straight A student is not someone who is smart, but someone who is really good at doing what they're told even if they don't like it.
@@sirrebelpaulc3439 Yeah, too many people on honor roll were objectively less intelligent than many of the rest of us. I was a solid B+ student, but I probably retained more than those kids and had more fun while doing it. Not like my plan was to be a chemist, engineer, or doctor anyway.
I wouldn’t say Christmas made it into the modern period “intact.” More like, it made it into the modern period with some vestigial existence.
Yeah, there used to be 12 christmas days, imagine.
OCDE: working hours per year in Germany 2021: 1349. US: 1791. Mexico: 2128, the highest. However, 50% percent of Mexicans were living in poverty or extreme poverty. Also, Forbes: 2010-2013 richest man in the world: Carlos Slim, yes, you guessed, a Mexican. I wonder where the profit from all those working hours ended up, right?
Sounds about right. The harder you work, the more money you generate. If you're lucky, a fraction of that ends back up in your poxket.
An african probably works around 600 hours per year.
I think it’s very interesting that the academic/university calendar still looks quite similar to medieval work schedules. A Christmas, spring, and summer break; inconsistent work patterns with classes only some days of the week and cramming for finals; generally lax rules on attendance and punctuality; being friends with your peers and forming identity through work relationships; the list goes on. And we wonder why so many people find college/university to be some of the best years of their life…
Sports, clubs, independent study, pep rallies, no wonder modern academia is demonized by the working class and the managerial class. It behaves as the complete opposite of what is expected in modern capitalism.
It's even better in kindergarten
Very interesting indeed! A shame that in the last decades "productivity" has been a facade to end with this. Today, there is a increase in mental health problems and fraud in academic research that it is proof of this process occuring also in academia. No place is safe anymore
It's all based on farmers schedule.
That's a very smart Statement and I like it. Never thought of this before.
Watching this video after work today hits different. I work on wind turbines and today we couldn’t climb because of lightning. We worked around the shop and looking back I noticed that we were naturally working hard for about 30 minutes then relaxing and goofing off for 30 minutes. Our manager took us out for a nice long lunch and at the end of the day we had a good hard 30 minute sprint cleaning and organizing the shop before sitting around and chatting the last 30 minutes of the day. Definitely the best day on the job so far. Typically we have an 8.5 hour day with about 5 hour up tower of hard fast work, an hour or so of prep and and clean up and another hour and a half of of hanging around the shop chatting and doing paperwork. Sometimes we have long days with way more time up tower fixing issues to get the tower running. It’s hard work but still the best job I’ve ever had. Great pay and benefits, great environment, lots of time off and satisfying work.
@@sparklesparklesparkle6318 >complaining about things you can't hear Lol
Man I know it has only been a couple months since this came out but I'm already waiting impatiently for the next video
Honestly 4 day work week, seems like it makes the most sense to me, it creates 20% more jobs and gives people 50% more time off (roughly)
I worked a steel production job, 12hr shifts, that werent consistent. Always tired, always bored, and the job just sucked. The other workers were bluffed into thinking this was the greatest job in the world, promised a healthy work/lifestyle balance. Nope. You were always tired, stressed, and seemingly never able to enjoy your downtime. I lasted 6 months and got out, immediately went on a road trip and it was awesome. Ive never looked back
How can you be always bored and always stressed at the same time?
@@HontounoShiramizu Steel production is a very dangerous job from what I know. You could, as an example, be showered with molten metal if something goes wrong. That constant possibility of painful death is gonna be stressful.
@@HontounoShiramizuIt's repetitive work but requires a high level of care and attention. There can also be wait times where you're literally standing for the next job ( like machining a piece of metal, not employment) but you have to be very quick and also make sure the machine doesn't take your arm off.
I literally wipe the oil of around 600 steel ingots a day, all day, everyday.
@@HontounoShiramizu go do the job and find out pleb
I like that the video is roughly 30 minutes long… a very natural length indeed
the work never ends now. theres no goal. no finish line. no reward. no point.
It's called a paycheck.
watching this during a 48 hour shift hits different
I work in a global pharma company and I swear to god this is the reason that keeps me in this company. I could go somewhere make two times the amount I am currently making but the work life balance is just amazing I come at 9 and leave at 3 with a hour of break in between. as long as you have done your job nobody bats an eye. OK since this comment got a lot of questions I have to give some context. First I live in Europe. Germany to be exact. I studied pharmacy which took 5 years in Turkey then I have done my PhD in Germany. I did COVID research mostly because of the Pandemic (my thesis was about nanopharmaceuticals but because of COVID I worked on the formulation side of the Pfizer/BIONTECH vaccine.) Now I work in the clinical trials department where I look at the medical insights and my team decides to whether the company should conduct clinical trials about the insight and also where it should be done. I earn about 90K dollars a year. I am also an albino with 60 percent vision loss.
Consider that we even call it "work/life balance" instead of just "life"
what company? im interested in a career in that industry
Damn, what company. I am trying to have that.
Good for you, really. I wish I had a job like that. But remember that global pharma company makes outrageous profits most likely, so they finally feel like letting some people have some balance in their lives. If they were a thin margin business like retail, you would have one 15 minute break for that six hour shift and you would be required to stay the entire time every day, with maybe 1 week of vacation. It's just terrible out there.
@acmhfmggru "they took money to do tasks for the community" so its a community goal to get woken up at 4am every day against their will? Who in that community besides that business owner wanted to have a community alarm clock go off when it's still dark out every day? That's a really weird way to describe what the churches did in that particular case
As someone who works from home 100% for the last year and a half this is basically what my schedule has morphed into. It was odd at first having punched a clock for the previous ten years, but I’m able to get my work completed working roughly 6 hours a day and I’m exponentially more happy having the extra time in my day. Work life balance is now the top thing I’ll look for in jobs going forward
Same here! How HC described the rhythm of work is how pretty much my work sched became since I started working from home. And I get a lot of work done while being less stressed
Same boat here.
Same here! I barely work 6 hours now in an 8 hour work day working at home. It doesn’t effect the quality of my work, and yet I get done faster and get paid for the same work I’d be drawing out counting the minutes in an office. Modern Management is just a scam employed by business owners to squeeze as much productivity out of workers.
He is wrong about the origin of the two day weekend. It came about because of the Sabbath and Sunday was for church. Also Christians believed the Sabbath was Sunday.
This is why I try to spend at least 30 minutes in the restroom over the course of an 8 hour shift
You forget this was probably written by the bosses not the people experiencing the work. I find it hard to believe it was a good as this video suggests considering the shit we do despite so many worker laws.
Fair point about sources. That is one thing I'd want from this channel; he often mentions a historian here and a book there, but it'd be nice to see the source as reference because that is possible the conditions were skewed in a favorable light. That said, it is absolutely true that capitalism and industrialism ramped up hours and neglected working conditions. I mean, thats when kids were sent to literally work to death in factories. Many of the workers laws are in direct response to the age of industry.
@@skapunker96 The Soviet Union and other Socialist states were even worse when it came to worker's saftey so I'm going to have to strongly disagree with that claim
@@Matt_History bro that's the biggest non-sequitur. Me: "Yeah capitalism has brought up a lot of bad working conditions, especially during the industrial revolution." You: "I disagree because of conditions under communist and socialist states." How does that follow? I didn't talk about anything other than feudalism and capitalism. Nor did I make a claim that capitalism has had the worst conditions.
@@Matt_Historyyou got history in your name and worms in your brain.
@@Matt_History That's not even remotely true, under the soviet union literacy, life expectancy and workplace injury fell sharply, this was alongside a massive downturn in infant and child mortality. you cannot argue against the soviet union because what they were replacing was literally feudalism and serfdom. it baffles me how poisoned the waters have become on this, say what you will about the soviet union (even tho so much of it is a lie) it was better than tsarist russia in every way
It’s a rare treat when anthropology becomes the primary method of analysis featured in a Historia Civilis video.
My dad was an agricultural worker on the family farm in rural South India during the 1970-80’s, where the only evidence of the Industrial Revolution were the imported tractors. After watching this video, I asked him how is work day was back then, and what he told me was precisely like how you described pre-Industrial workdays (including the siestas and meals under a nearby tree 😴 🌳 , but minus the Sunday’s being off because no church) He is now an international supply chain and manufacturing manager at a Fortune 500 company whose clientele include TSMC, Intel, and Samsung. We are significantly wealthier than compared to his younger days, but he is significantly more overworked and underpaid, now basically living paycheck-to-paycheck despite our high quality of life. He basically went through the last 300 years of human technological and social development described in this video in half a lifetime.
I know an Indian man who lived around the same time period, and his experience is similar to that. Thanks for sharing, that's quite interesting.
Yet... your father chose to leave the family farm and sticked to the corporate job. 🙄
@@quetzalcubei’m sure it was entirely his choice, not motivated by any other factors than “i want to be more miserable”. do u hear urself lmfao
@@quetzalcube … yeah, he was promised a better life, and now he lives paycheck-to-paycheck with no way out due to the fact that he is underpaid and overworked. He isn’t “sticking” to his job, he’s *stuck* to it
If it's so bad now and it was so good then, why doesn't he go back? Why did he switch in the first place? Maybe it has to do with the fact that not working doesn't allow you to buy the stuff that other people have made through their work. In the video he says medieval peasants didn't save money because there was nothing to buy with it. He paints it as a good thing, but to me it sounds miserable.
I'm blown away :D I've watched lots of your videos on the roman republic and greek politics, but this is on a whole nother level! I'm very invested in connecting contextualizing political-economic systems across human history and this gave me a huge insight! Keep going, you're amazing!
Not me legit having to not watch this because it makes me depressed how much we work lol
What I learned: George Woodcock was a 20th century Canadian socialist.
Hehe
I was hoping he would be smarter than this. Typical lefty.. whining about capitalism while swooning over socialism which has failed every single time, and not offering a better solution. I bet he orders from Amazon too.
Anarchist actually, but yes still a socialist as well
@@RetroWizard_ Impossible. It's one or the other.
Learning that people used to get several half hour to hour long breaks for eating while meanwhile trying to eat my dinner on my 15 minute break is certainly an experience
Wait until you learn about how managers and the higher ups are allowed to have 1-2 hour lunch breaks after sitting in a heated/AC office all day while the peasants, I mean slaves, I mean indentured servants, I mean middle class break their backs for a fraction of their pay.
American?
One of the absolute glories of working from home was that I could just type "back" into slack to appear to return from my 15 minute dinner break while in reality I just kept eating and then started working again when I was done Nowadays though I do gig work, which is like, absolutely everything wrong with capitalist work with not a single perk.
Dinner that you paid for
@@boiboiboi1419 Yep, although I'll clarify that this was just a regular break, our actual lunch breaks are 45 minutes. I just had to eat during that little in between break since it was late you know
If I’ve learned anything, it’s that the people with power don’t care too much about learning from history
The tone of voice throughout this entire video is honestly hilarious but so, so deserved.
I live in the city, Work is always insanely stressful, but when I went to live in the farm for a short while my work was exactly like medieval times with lots of breaks and food.
Fascinating. I work a remote job where my time is not accounted for so long as I complete all my weekly tasks, and this is remarkably similar to the schedule ive ended up practicing
Same. I used to work exactly like that for years and now have to get used to an 8 hour work day and it's surprisingly hard. Up until this video I thought I was the weird one.
Same here. Technically had to work enough hours but in practise, no one checked as long as I did my work. I made a point (is that English? Been awake since yesterday, can't think straight) of always getting one more thing done than anyone else (we had lists, so it was easy to monitor). When I got good sleep in and managed to stay focussed, I'd finish my weekly quota in 20h. I'm fairly certain a lot of jobs are like that.
@@joseaguilar3323 yeah when I went from restaurant work to my silly nerd job I was blown away at how pretty much every office job could be reduced to like 50% or less hours if you removed the fluff and bs lol
It's just as productive and half as time consuming. This is why I wonder why businesses keep trying to drag everyone back to the offices, especially for low sec jobs.
@@trustytrest Right? Henry Ford supported the two day weekend because it would give workers more leisure time to buy shit. He could see the logic in that and he was legit insane. Bosses today are worse than insane
Something that really adds to the enjoyability of your videos is that you take actual pauses in your video. It's nice that you don't pursue a frenetic pace and that you can afford to take a few moments to allow the viewer to reflect on the content so far to lo-fi beats such as at 6:53. I've always appreciated these little lacunae.
This reminds me of Charles Dickens and a Christmas Story. In literature class we had a huge discussion break out about whether or not Scrooge was a villain before his redemption. Ultimately in this discussion I fell on the side of Scrooge Sympathizers in that the story is supposed to represent a reminder to all people that life is precious, which is rediscovered after Scrooge's redemption. That unlike most modern presentations he was not just being a jerk or mean or rude, but trapped in the times where success was measured in the soullessness that is productivity. You can even see from Scrooge's life that he was successful, but what did it mean? He didn't spend leisure or any time that wasn't dedicated to work, he hounded his underling, Bob Cratchit, to exemplify this. In Scrooge's lense of perspective, this is what makes success, but to most people we recognize the inhumanity of his interpretations. That's in essence the moral of the story, to be good to your fellow man, to not down trodden them with labor, to love community and family. The goal of Dickens' classic wasn't just to celebrate a holiday, but to be a kind of Morality story against productivity and the oppression of industrialization and pure capitalism. Personally, I think one of the best presentations of Scrooge is done by George C. Scott, in a 1984 production. His demeanor is not rude, disrespectful, nor spiteful save for a couple key occasions. He presents his point of view matter of factly and even though it's cold, it is a sort of Maxim that he follows shaped by his life experience. It is flawed and that is the point the pure capitalist all production mentality is flawed.
Should mention that Bob Cratchit made 15 shillings a week. Adjusted for inflation, that's $13.50/hr for a 40 hour work week.
he might not be a beligerent, abusive asshole of a boss but he still maintains a healthy contempt for all things that don't contribute to some ideal of success he strives to follow. The problem is that these qualities are much more accepted today than they were of Dicken's time.
@@roblach- Not to mention he was supporting his family on that income. Which means wages haven't increased to meet expenditure demands for over 150 years...perhaps this could be the problem?
Congrats everyone! After all these years, we clawed back... *checks notes* our ability to wear watches at work.
Who even owns a watch in 2023? And many places ban personal cell phones (the modern timekeeping tool of choice for most) on the work floor. We've clawed back nothing.
@@deletereddit1102Thank you for teaching me what CalArts means. Every single cartoon and indy video game has this kind of disgusting effeminate art style and I wasn't sure what it was.
@@deletereddit1102 -
@@deletereddit1102found the capitalist
@@deletereddit1102ok incel
In the Stone Age, as soon as it got dark, people would go to sleep. They worked little, but their days were shorter. Today, because of electricity, our nights are illuminated, and the correlation between night and rest isn't even the standard anymore in some places or families.
I've been following the channel for quite some years now but this video hit me differently. I've been trying to chance my relationship with work and it stunned me just how my own trials and conclusions also arrived at the slow and fast work cycles and reducing my work hours. Great video and very important information.
At my last job the management min-maxed the absolute shit out of every moment workers spent there. An alarm to signal the starts and end of work time, and break times. The amount of products we were expected to produce in a day was worked out mathematically and precisely down to the second. A whole team of staff were there specifically to keep the production staff supplied with materials, so they wouldn't have to stop producing to resupply themselves. Idle conversation between workers was frowned on as it would prevent us from meeting those targets. Hell I was once told off for getting ready to leave two minutes before the end-of-day alarm. I was exhausted the whole time and felt like the whole culture was incredibly dehumanising. I lost that job the other week. Despite my best efforts - as I really did need that job - I made too many mistakes that needed to be repaired in-house, and was deemed to be too costly to keep as a result. Capitalism doesn't see workers as people.
No fucking shit you made mistakes in that environment. Turns out that human beings are not lemons, and so you get more juice out of us if you squeeze less.
Sucks that shit like this isn’t even uncommon
Automatic resupply of materials sounds very efficient. It's actually really annoying when I have to look for a tool at work, or I run out of supplies and am forced to be a third wheel at some other job. I prefer consistency, but my job just isn't that way.
Capitalism doesn't see workers as anything. It only really sees the product and the owner.
If you didn't know this was work under a capitalist system, you would expect conditions like that in some sort of Stalinist dystopia.
also chipping in a personal experience from my last year: As a male Swiss citizen, I had the duty to serve in compulsory military service right after highschool and went on to complete boot camp and 3-4 weeks of repetition courses p.a. during the consecutive years. Getting fed up with these military repetition courses interrupting my studies and young adult working life every year, I decided to execute my right to switch to civil service. I found a civil service spot on a farm near Zurich and went on to do two months of agricultural aid there. I had just come out of 3 years doing project management in a hypergrowth startup in Berlin and the change to this purely physical labour was severe - and pure bliss. The work day started with a communal breakfast at 7am, moving on to everyday tasks around the stables (cleaning, feeding, leading the cattle out to the fields) and with the first coffee break of 30min at 9/9:30am. Then, more intensive labour until 12:00 followed by a freshly cooked lunch meal. After lunch, we all had another 30-60min off for a napping/relaxing until we had to be back at work around 2:00pm. The workday ended around 5pm with exception if we had a big harvest day or we had to get something done before the weather turned bad the next day or so. If this was the case there was another 30min-break around 4:30pm. So the workday was structured pretty much the same as explained in the video. When I asked the farmer in charge why this was the case, he told me: "It's pretty simple. If you do this kind of physical labour for 8h straight, even with a lunch break in between I guarantee you won't last a week without fatigue or injury." Bottom line: I've never felt so wholesome and fulfilled at the end of the these working days, falling into bed physically strained in the best of ways, sleeping like a baby. Working outdoors under the sun and with animals every day just added more joy to it all. Comes to show that there are still workplaces where they get it and workdays are structured in a similar way as they were in medieval Europe. And I guarantee you, they lead to a more balanced and fulfilled life. I am back in Berlin now working for startup lol
"I am back in Berlin now working for startup lol" hahaha! if only you could make the big bucks on the farm! thanks for your lovely write up. it was a great read. best of luck to you.
I'm not reading all that but I'm glad for you or sorry for your loss.
Dude, more like this. More. MOREEEE. You have a unique situation where you can teach us about past culture in ways I can only otherwise wonder about.
Historia Civilis woke up and chose to lead the Revolution.
I’m convinced that being jolted out of sleep by an alarm clock every day is horrible for your health.
I can't see it being healthy at all. If you're woken up in the middle of a natural body process is messed up
you can set your circadian rythym by avoiding (blue) light late at night and getting more in the morning so that you naturally wake up. also there are some alarms that turn on a light to wake you up. you could wake up an hour early and go on a walk or something productive doing this and only have an alarm clock as a back up/reminder to go to work.
I recommend f.lux if you use a PC in the evening
@@seand.5535a bell to go to work you say?
All Clocks are bad
In my imaginary Historia Civilis lore he was 5 minutes late for work and got yelled at by his manager, so to spite the manager he made this video.
I like this theory. Seems like science.
Yeh this video is really funny when you consider the fact that HC makes well over 6 figs every year from Patreon alone. I'm sure he's involved in the video production process, but that could be hired out work. He literally only needs to supply the voice at this point. So this is a man who, either sets his own schedule or sets the schedule of others, complaining about work.
@@TheGoldenFluzzleBuffhow did you reach this figure?
@@TheGoldenFluzzleBuffbruh you don’t know any of that plus why do you take any opportunity to invalidate the message of the video when you don’t consider what someone does as “work.” No wonder this exploitation continues
@@TheGoldenFluzzleBuff Well you see, caring about other peoples struggles, even when you don’t experience them, is called empathy. It’s odd how common a rebuttal it is to taunt people for having empathy…
My dear man, ambition brought us to this. We have deified material wealth and we thing that this will be the source of our happiness; the way to attract the most attractive women and to scale the social hierarchy. Many of my coworkers here in Greece work voluntarily a second job to afford commodities that they don't need. It takes an intelligent being to understand the value of free time today at the expense of a slighty more luxurius life. Especially since we are constantly shown ways to consume. As for myself, I try to follow my own path but I am constantly reminded that I am alone. Thank you, for sharing all this information. Stay free.
I like how the video is one natural work cycle long
I do have to point though, that Non working time in the Stone Age and medieval age was still full of jobs, mending clothes, tending your animals, gathering water, and so on. They didn’t just kick back and relax.
Fair enough, but that was labor for personal reasons, not labor meant for something or someone else
it is still labor just because they didnt get paid doesnt mean they didnt work, there is also the work of armies they sure as hell didnt just work for 4 hours, then the elephant in the room slavery
In the modern age, we call non-paid work for personal maintenance: errands The bane of adult existence 😂😂😂
thank god taking care of your pets, your hobbies (productive or not), groceries, cooking, cleaning your living space, fixing your possessions or getting them fixed, seeing and/or taking care of your relatives/friends/family, spending time with your kids, maintaining important relationships, and improving and educating yourself (among others) is all completely optional with modern labor! stone age/medieval workers were suckers lol
Historia Civilis is never late. Nor is he early. He uploads precisely when he means to.
He embodies philosophy of "getting work done, when it needs to be done"
Never felt more called out than watching this while working at a clock parts warehouse... feelin responsible rn
You sir, are the enemy.
Where I live (North-East Hungarian countryside) the church bells are still ringing at 5AM and 8 PM. It was proposed several times by the priest to abandon this practice (especially the 5 AM bell), but the local people INSISTED to keep it...
I suppose that's a really good example of the self propagating power of cultural norms, good on that priest rho trying to right old wrongs
Interesting phenomenon. Did the community feel like it was drifting apart at all? Church attendance dropping? Youth moving away to look for work? One thing that lots of people have written about is how capitalism is a metaphorical acid bath for communities. Destroying connections by instrumentalizing workers and subjecting them to market forces that overpower other ties. Seeing as material conditions demanding labor still existed, did the annoyjng bells feel like a symbol of an old community that was harder to see in the township?
Are they ringing the bells this way every day or just on Sundays? In both of these cases, the actual reason most probably is to call the people to prayer/Holy Mass and not to send them to work? Or am I too naive?
@@affel6559 They ring the bells every day at 5AM, noon and 8PM. Besides that, they ring the bells an hour before mass, 30 minutes before mass, at the beginning of mass and when the priest transubstantiates the bread and wine (it's a Catholic church). So the 5AM bell is not really for prayer.
@@IndieGinge I think is not that complex, but I might be wrong. I'm not originally from this place, I grew up in the suburbs of the capital city, Budapest. Of course urbanisation is a real thing here, but the effects on this particular village is not that bad, because it is close to a big city, so there are not that many people moving away (or if they move as young adults, most of them come back once they are settling down and getting kids, because the village is very family friendly and in a beautiful place). The church is also more or less full every Sunday. When we asked, why they want to keep the 5AM bell, they said: "Because that's how it always was". It's an old tradition and they certainly don't know the origins of that tradition. So I guess, that it could be for the reasons you listed, but I don't think that the local people would give it so much thought. I don't say, that the 5AM bell is necessarily a bad thing. It's just interesting, that something, that was originally created to exploit the local workforce became so engraved into local traditions, that even when everyone has an alarm clock or a cell phone (and most of them don't need to get up at 5AM), people are not just used to it, but actively defend it, when the priest suggests to abandone the practice.
I'm surprised you didn't reference the roman poem "hacked up days" raving against sun dials. It's one of my favorites
Never heard of it. Title sounds good though.
The gods confound the man who first found out How to distinguish hours! Confound him too Who in this place set up a sundial To cut and hack my days so wretchedly Into small portions! When I was a boy, My belly was my sundial: one more sure, Truer, and more exact than any of them. This dial told me when it was time To go to dinner, when I had anything to eat; But nowadays, why even when I have, I can’t fall-to unless the sun gives leave. The town’s so full of these confounded dials, The greatest part of its inhabitants, Shrunk up with hunger, creep along the streets.
@@codekillerz5392Thanks for posting this. I was just wondering whether anything like the modern phenomenon had happened before.