Nice piece, thanks. I hadn’t noticed HC’s latest video, but am also a fan so look forward to watching the full thing.
An initial thought, though: there seem at least a couple of places where one can grant his facts yet argue his interpretation of these as “good” is backwards.
For instance, one can argue that lower preindustrial working hours reflect chronic underemployment and unemployment, one of that society’s chief problems, and that industrialisation alleviated this problem (and even that this was one of the great initial benefits of industrialisation).
And HC’s following point ought to be seen as evidence against the superiority of preindustrial life:
Notice how the workers were constantly eating. That was one of the perks of being a day laborer. Food was a worker’s biggest expense, and so part of their compensation was that their employer would take care of the food for that day. It would be like if part of your compensation was that your boss paid your rent. It relieved a massive financial burden.
Essentially he’s just pointed out that living standards were so low that the majority of budgets had to be spent just on food.
Nice piece, thanks. I hadn’t noticed HC’s latest video, but am also a fan so look forward to watching the full thing.
An initial thought, though: there seem at least a couple of places where one can grant his facts yet argue his interpretation of these as “good” is backwards.
For instance, one can argue that lower preindustrial working hours reflect chronic underemployment and unemployment, one of that society’s chief problems, and that industrialisation alleviated this problem (and even that this was one of the great initial benefits of industrialisation).
And HC’s following point ought to be seen as evidence against the superiority of preindustrial life:
Essentially he’s just pointed out that living standards were so low that the majority of budgets had to be spent just on food.