Reply to Why are we okay with long work hours?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]40-hour workweek was not “designed” in such a way. It was a concession for labor, and a significant pullback.

If it doesn’t work for you, find something part time. My wife has been working part time for 15 years.[/quote]

Yup, in the industrial days, men worked 12-hour shifts, six days a week, with a 24-hour shift every 2 weeks followed by a day off. [/quote]

Agreed. People don't realize how intensely most people had to work in the past, especially before the 1950s. If you were a farmer as were most people into the early 20th century, it was up before dawn to start tackling the chores and didn't end until the animals had been put to bed, seven days a week. Factory workers worked 12 hour shifts including Saturdays. Office workers worked late hours. Dickens' infamous clerks in 19th century London worked well into the evenings and trudged home in the dark only to get up before dawn the next morning, six days a week. Stores and businesses were typically open till 9-10 PM during the week in London on those days.

Even into the 1950s it was normal to have half Saturday be working hours for factory workers, who worked five and a half days a week. And got one week vacation a year.

Most of our generous notions of 40-hour work week and minimum of two weeks' vacation a year is really a product of labor union movements in the 50s and 60s. Which is well within living memory. The only people who had plenty of leisure time were the wealthy or the poor, for very different reasons. [/quote]

On the other hand people don’t realize how NOT intensely historic (and modern) hunter gatherer societies have to work.  Weird how invested we are as a society in only comparing working hours to a time when people worked more…[/quote]

Yes... I've even visited those remaining hunter gatherer tribes. I've seen the quality of life. I'd rather work hard, thank you.

There's nothing stopping you from being lazy and going on welfare because you don't want to work. You'll be poor. But that's the price you have to pay. You want good housing and schooling and health care and amenities? Get off your bottom and work. [/quote]

Non sequitur.[/quote]

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