this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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Historia Civilis did a very good and very concise (~25 minute) breakdown of work/free time of labour through the ages:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvk_XylEmLo
TLDW: we used to be paid by the day, not by the hour, and we would do a little more in summer and lot less in winter and still be paid the same. Moreover, employers used to incentivise employees to work by providing free food and sometimes free lodging.
He's got some issues with his sources on this video (one is a secondary source from the 1840s for example). I want his claims to be true but take the info with a grain of salt.
One thing that tends to get left out is that peasants had a lot of work to do at home. Washing and repairing clothes, maintaining tools, cooking and preserving food, etc all had to be done by hand.
Yes, the historical name for providing free food and shelter in exchange for a person's coerced labor is slavery, though sometimes the ruling class dresses it up in laws and calls it serfdom or indentured servitude.
In the example he provides, they were compensated for their work and had homes they could go back to.
You have to remember that the plague successively wiped out a third of Europe. Employers were practically begging people to come to work
If "providing free food and shelter in exchange for a person's coerced labor is slavery", then isn't providing currency in exchange for a person's coerced labor slavery?
Yes, wage slavery. /j