Well… that and there are far too many people on the planet to be supported through a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Even when you get into the millions, you need agriculture and animal husbandry. And farming and herding is a lot more work.
With modern farming, 10% of the people can now produce enough food for everyone. And if everyone had equal income instead of the top 1% syphoning off half the wealth, we could globally support a middle class lifestyle by everyone working 20 hours a week, the same amount that hunters and gatherers “worked”.
Source? Everything we do is more an more complex. A TV show requires hundreds of people. A smartphone, millions if we include supply chains. Same for a car. A modern house requires dozens of highly specialized workers for weeks at a time, plus materials. People live much longer with better health, that’s a lot of labor in research, machines, drugs and raw manpower (nurses, surgeons, etc).
10% of the people, first of all, is around 800 million people. And secondly, that’s a lot of really hard work that can’t be done just 20 hours a week. I’m in Indiana. I know farmers. It’s not even a 40-hour-a-week job. It’s a sunup to sundown job.
So sure, everyone gets a break. Except farmers. Who earn the same amount as everyone else but have to work a lot harder.
If the required labor was split up more equitably then farmers wouldn’t have to work sunup to sundown.
The entire point of large scale agriculture is that it’s more efficient than individual peasants working a single field or whatever.
Nobody is saying that farming isn’t hard work, but modern farming should produce more food per man-hour than neolithic farming (or hunter/gathering), right? So why should it be that farm workers now have to work harder than prehistoric people?
So why should it be that farm workers now have to work harder than prehistoric people?
Do they? Because what has been said so far is that hunter-gatherers didn’t work as hard. Or do you mean pre-agriculture prehistoric people? Because agriculture predates written history by thousands of years.
Once we started farming and herding, the work was harder. But also necessary. That’s just how things are.
Because feeding eight billion people isn’t related to how many hours of work individuals have to do in order to achieve that unless you don’t have enough people to do the work.
I agree with but for one thing. If we doubled the farm workforce then each farmer wouldn’t have to work as hard. And we certainly have another 800 million people to throw at it.
They said industrial farming is more effective per manhour at food production.
And it is. There are obviously further complexities to have everything else in a modern society, but that doesn’t change the fact that even modern productivity increases aren’t decreasing work loads for some reason
It was in response to my saying that you cannot support a large population via hunting and gathering. You need to work harder than that. It is only more food per hour of work if you are talking about a small population. There is a point of diminishing returns and then it gets harder and harder to feed a growing population via hunting and gathering.
Nobody is proposing we switch to hunter-gatherer jobs, we’re saying that the jobs we’re currently doing are producing extreme excess and that excess is either wasted (fast fashion landfills, dramatic food waste) or just hoarded by the capitalist class.
We can support our current population with our current technology and work a lot less.
Anyone that is unemployed could be taking some of your work hours. Many of our jobs are redundant. A different economy can be created where we all work way less than we do while retaining our quality of life.
To say we can’t is to buy into the propaganda that we need Musks and Bezos’ or we’d be subsistence farming. There are other things in between.
This is a bad faith argument or complete misunderstanding of the point and in either case the conversation can’t continue productively.
The point is that a democratic economy where workers own the value of their production would NECESSARILY improve wealth for those workers. Nobody is employed as a charitable act, you’re employed if and only if you produce more value than it takes to hire you.
And my point is that farming is hard work even if it’s only 20 hours a week and why would enough people choose to do hard work when they can do something less physically taxing for the same amount of pay?
Also, people tend not to die from infections anymore, or starvation (usually). One bad famine doesn’t wipe out everyone you know. The vast majority of babies survive to old age and only extremely rarely does a mother die in childbirth.
And the entire population of earth doesn’t live around areas where you can forage anymore.
Well… that and there are far too many people on the planet to be supported through a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Even when you get into the millions, you need agriculture and animal husbandry. And farming and herding is a lot more work.
Oh yeah? Industrial farming gives less food per hour of work than collecting wild nuts? Are you sure about that?
If you convert it to money inbetween and state and distributors take 2/3 of it, yes.
Please do show me the data that 8 billion people can survive on hunting and gathering.
With modern farming, 10% of the people can now produce enough food for everyone. And if everyone had equal income instead of the top 1% syphoning off half the wealth, we could globally support a middle class lifestyle by everyone working 20 hours a week, the same amount that hunters and gatherers “worked”.
Source? Everything we do is more an more complex. A TV show requires hundreds of people. A smartphone, millions if we include supply chains. Same for a car. A modern house requires dozens of highly specialized workers for weeks at a time, plus materials. People live much longer with better health, that’s a lot of labor in research, machines, drugs and raw manpower (nurses, surgeons, etc).
Maybe you meant a pre-industrial middle class?
10% of the people, first of all, is around 800 million people. And secondly, that’s a lot of really hard work that can’t be done just 20 hours a week. I’m in Indiana. I know farmers. It’s not even a 40-hour-a-week job. It’s a sunup to sundown job.
So sure, everyone gets a break. Except farmers. Who earn the same amount as everyone else but have to work a lot harder.
If the required labor was split up more equitably then farmers wouldn’t have to work sunup to sundown.
The entire point of large scale agriculture is that it’s more efficient than individual peasants working a single field or whatever.
Nobody is saying that farming isn’t hard work, but modern farming should produce more food per man-hour than neolithic farming (or hunter/gathering), right? So why should it be that farm workers now have to work harder than prehistoric people?
Because the tools are more expensive. But that’s only half of it.
Do they? Because what has been said so far is that hunter-gatherers didn’t work as hard. Or do you mean pre-agriculture prehistoric people? Because agriculture predates written history by thousands of years.
Once we started farming and herding, the work was harder. But also necessary. That’s just how things are.
The question I am posing is not “do modern farm workers labor harder than prehistoric hunter gathers” (they do).
Instead, the question is “should modern farm workers labor harder than prehistoric hunter gathers”.
Farming is more efficient than gathering. That’s why we farm. So why is it the case that modern farm workers are working harder?
Because feeding eight billion people isn’t related to how many hours of work individuals have to do in order to achieve that unless you don’t have enough people to do the work.
Have more farmers …
What if you can’t find more than 800 million farmers?
300 years ago 90% of the planet were farmers. Surely you can find enough people.
Not if everyone is paid the same. Why do hard farm work if you don’t have to?
300 years ago, people were forced to farm for a lord.
So are you suggesting a return to feudalism?
Then there’s a problem. However we somehow manage to employ a few billion people currently.
Those few billion people are currently not paid the same as an accountant to do much more demanding work.
I agree with but for one thing. If we doubled the farm workforce then each farmer wouldn’t have to work as hard. And we certainly have another 800 million people to throw at it.
They didn’t say we could.
They said industrial farming is more effective per manhour at food production.
And it is. There are obviously further complexities to have everything else in a modern society, but that doesn’t change the fact that even modern productivity increases aren’t decreasing work loads for some reason
It was in response to my saying that you cannot support a large population via hunting and gathering. You need to work harder than that. It is only more food per hour of work if you are talking about a small population. There is a point of diminishing returns and then it gets harder and harder to feed a growing population via hunting and gathering.
Nobody is proposing we switch to hunter-gatherer jobs, we’re saying that the jobs we’re currently doing are producing extreme excess and that excess is either wasted (fast fashion landfills, dramatic food waste) or just hoarded by the capitalist class.
We can support our current population with our current technology and work a lot less.
Anyone that is unemployed could be taking some of your work hours. Many of our jobs are redundant. A different economy can be created where we all work way less than we do while retaining our quality of life.
To say we can’t is to buy into the propaganda that we need Musks and Bezos’ or we’d be subsistence farming. There are other things in between.
Why would farmers in impoverished countries want to retain their way of life?
This is a bad faith argument or complete misunderstanding of the point and in either case the conversation can’t continue productively.
The point is that a democratic economy where workers own the value of their production would NECESSARILY improve wealth for those workers. Nobody is employed as a charitable act, you’re employed if and only if you produce more value than it takes to hire you.
And my point is that farming is hard work even if it’s only 20 hours a week and why would enough people choose to do hard work when they can do something less physically taxing for the same amount of pay?
Also, people tend not to die from infections anymore, or starvation (usually). One bad famine doesn’t wipe out everyone you know. The vast majority of babies survive to old age and only extremely rarely does a mother die in childbirth.
And the entire population of earth doesn’t live around areas where you can forage anymore.
Little things like that
Infectious disease became a lot worse than in hunter gatherer societies since animal husbandry and sendentary living.
Only since the advent of germ theory has it been better.
Okay, so how about medieval peasants also working 7-8 hour days, ~150 days per year?
https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html
You do know they starved to death all the time, right?
You do know people today starve to death all the time, right?
Compared to the middle ages?
As a consequence of the lack of technology, not the lack of work.
and, like, the nobles stealing their food, forcing them to go to war, etc etc…