📖 Read more: Technology History: From Fire to AI in 300,000 Years
Before "work": the paradise we lost?
Anthropologist Marshall Sahlins published a paper in 1966 that shocked the academic world: “The Original Affluent Society.” By studying the !Kung San of the Kalahari and the Aboriginal peoples of Australia, he proved that hunter-gatherers worked far less than modern humans.
The !Kung San spent about 15-20 hours per week securing food. The rest of their time? They slept, gossiped, played, told stories. They weren't “lazy” — foraging was simply efficient enough that more time wasn't needed.
"Agriculture was the worst mistake in the history of the human race."
Jared Diamond argues that the Neolithic Revolution — the transition to agriculture 10,000-12,000 years ago — was a trap. Yes, agriculture meant more food, but also: more work, worse health (monotonous diet, animal diseases), social hierarchy, property, wars. The average farmer was shorter, sicker, and more exhausted than the average hunter-gatherer.
Slavery: work as punishment
In nearly every ancient civilization, manual labor was considered inferior. In ancient Greece, Aristotle was clear: work is for slaves, scholē (leisure = free time) is for free men. The Greek word “scholē” — meaning free time for thought — gave us the English word “school.” Think about it: education began as the opposite of work.
Egypt: the first “labor force”
The pyramids weren't built (only) by slaves. Recent archaeological discoveries show that thousands of workers were paid in beer (4-5 liters/day!), bread, and onions. They even had sick leave — surviving papyri note: “Khnum didn't come today, stung by a scorpion.”
Athens: democracy built on slavery
Athenian democracy functioned because the “hard work” was done by 80,000-100,000 slaves. Free citizens (30,000-50,000 men) could devote themselves to politics, philosophy, athletics. Democracy was a luxury — paid for with others' labor.
Rome: bread & circuses
At its peak, Rome had 1-2 million slaves. The emperor provided free grain to 200,000 citizens. “Bread and circuses” (panem et circenses) — the Roman way of keeping the unemployed quiet. Sound familiar?
The Middle Ages: peasants, craftsmen, and holidays
The Middle Ages have a bad reputation — the “Dark Ages,” we say. But when it comes to free time, they were more “enlightened” than we think.
Historian Juliet Schor (Harvard/Boston College) estimated that the medieval British peasant worked about 150 days per year. The rest of the time? Religious feasts (the Catholic Church mandated 70-100 holidays per year), winter (too cold for farm work), fairs, and of course Sunday. Compare that with the modern American worker: ~250 working days, 10-14 days off.
🛠️ The birth of the Guilds
Guilds — associations of craftsmen — were the ancestors of modern trade unions. A craftsman started as an apprentice at age 12-14, became a journeyman after 3-7 years, and if good enough, a master. Guilds regulated prices, quality, and working hours. No one could work after sunset — it was forbidden, “because candlelight is not sufficient for quality work.”
The Industrial Revolution: the machine devours the human
If agriculture was the first “trap,” the Industrial Revolution was the second — and far worse. Within a single generation (1760-1830), millions of Britons moved from the fields to the factories — and entered hell.
The first cotton factories
Work hours: 14-16 hours, 6 days a week. Indoor temperature: 27-32°C (to prevent cotton thread from breaking). Windows sealed. The noise so loud that workers developed their own sign language.
Factory Act: the first rules
The first law that banned — listen: banned — child labor under age 9 in textile mills. Children 9-13: maximum 8 hours/day. Children 14-18: maximum 12 hours. Adults? No limit.
Mines and Collieries Act
Banned women, girls, and boys under 10 from working in mines. Before this law, children aged 5-6 crawled through 45-centimeter-high dark tunnels, pulling carts with chains strapped to their waists.
Friedrich Engels: “Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse”
The 24-year-old Engels published “The Condition of the Working Class in England” — a relentless account: average life expectancy of workers in Manchester was 17 years, filth, disease, alcoholism. Engels was an industrialist's son — he knew the factories from the inside.
⏰ Working conditions by era
The fight for the 8-hour day
The demand was simple: 8 hours of work, 8 hours of rest, 8 hours for whatever we want. Sounds obvious — but it took decades of struggle, imprisonments, deaths.
May Day and the Haymarket
350,000 workers in 11,562 factories strike across the US for an 8-hour day. On May 4, at Haymarket Square in Chicago, a bomb kills 7 police officers. 8 anarchists are arrested — 4 executed (exonerated 7 years later). May 1st becomes International Workers' Day — everywhere except the US, which celebrates in September.
Henry Ford: 8-hour day + $5/day
Ford shocked the world: 8-hour day instead of 9, $5 daily wage instead of $2.34. It wasn't philanthropy — Ford wanted his workers to have enough money (and time) to buy Ford cars. “A hungry worker is a bad customer.”
Fair Labor Standards Act (USA)
The law that established: 40-hour work week, minimum wage ($0.25/hour), overtime at 1.5x pay, ban on child labor under 16. Passed after the Great Depression — a moment when employers lacked the political power to resist.
Taylorism and Fordism: the worker becomes a machine
Frederick Winslow Taylor believed that work could be “optimized” scientifically. Stopwatch in hand, he measured every movement of every worker: how many seconds to lift a shovel, at what angle, how many kilos. “Scientific management” (1911) turned the worker into a cog in a machine.
📖 Read more: The Triangle Fire: The Tragedy That Changed Labor Rights
Henry Ford took it a step further: the assembly line (1913). Instead of the worker moving around the car, the car moves past the worker. Each worker performs one motion, again and again, 8 hours a day. Build time for a Model T: from 12 hours to 93 minutes.
"Why is it that whenever I need a pair of hands, a whole brain comes attached?"
Charlie Chaplin satirized this world in the film Modern Times (1936): the worker-Chaplin tightens bolts at such speed that he continues tightening invisible bolts even after his shift ends. The film was banned in fascist countries.
After World War II: the golden age of the worker
The period 1945-1975 was the “golden age” of the wage earner in the Western world. Wages rose in parallel with productivity. A car factory worker in the US could buy a house, a car, send their kids to university — on a single income.
🏠 The American myth
In the 1950s, an average American worker needed 2-3 years' salary for a house. Today it takes 8-10+. Meanwhile, productivity increased 246% since 1948 — but wages only 115%.
🇪🇺 The European model
Europe took a different path: welfare state, free healthcare, free education, 4-6 weeks paid leave, strong unions. In France, the 35-hour law (2000). In Denmark, “flexicurity” — flexible market + generous social safety net.
🇯🇵 The Japanese extreme
Japan developed a culture of exhaustive work: “karoshi” (過労死) = death from overwork. Officially recognized as a cause of death in the 1980s. The Japanese word “inemuri” (sleeping warmly at the office) is considered a sign of dedication.
The digital age: work follows you home
Email, the smartphone, the laptop destroyed what sociologist Christena Nippert-Eng called “boundary work” — the clear dividing line between work and personal life.
The first email
Ray Tomlinson sends the first email via ARPANET. No one imagines that 50 years later, the average worker will receive 121 emails per day — and spend 28% of their work time on them.
The first smartphone (IBM Simon)
Email, fax, calendar, notes — in one device. Work now fits in your pocket. You can't “leave” work if work follows you.
iPhone: always connected
The iPhone made email omnipresent. Leslie Perlow (Harvard) found that McKinsey/BCG consultants check email every minute they're awake. The “always-on” culture becomes the norm in every office.
Slack: “Where Work Happens”
Workplace chat apps (Slack, Teams) created a new form of pressure: the green “online” icon. If you're not online, it means you're not working. Even after 6 PM, even on weekends.
📱 France fights back: “Droit à la déconnexion”
France passed a law in 2017 on the "Right to Disconnect": companies with 50+ employees must define hours during which workers should not send or reply to emails. Italy, Spain, Portugal followed. America? Still waiting.
Gig economy: freedom or new exploitation?
The gig economy — Uber, Deliveroo, Fiverr, TaskRabbit — sells an attractive narrative: you're your “own boss,” work whenever you want, as much as you want. The reality?
🚗 Uber Driver: the truth
Labor historian Louis Hyman (Cornell) observes that the gig economy isn't anything “new” — it bears a striking resemblance to working conditions before labor rights: no set hours, no insurance, no union, complete dependence on the “client” (platform). The 19th century, but with an app.
Remote work, AI, and the future
The COVID-19 pandemic (2020) accomplished in 2 weeks what companies had been planning for 20 years: mass remote work. Suddenly, millions discovered they didn't need to go to an office.
But the real seismic shift is happening now. Artificial intelligence no longer threatens only manual jobs — it threatens cognitive ones: writing, analysis, programming, design, legal, accounting. McKinsey estimates that 400-800 million jobs will be automated by 2030.
🤖 Was Keynes right (?)
In 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that by 2030 we'd work only 15 hours per week — technology would free our time. Technology did increase productivity. But instead of working less, the savings went to profits — not leisure.
🏖️ 4-day work week
Iceland tested a 4-day work week (2015-2019): 2,500 workers (1% of population) worked 35-36 hours instead of 40. Result: same or higher productivity, improved mental health. 86% of Icelandic workers requested permanent implementation.
💰 UBI — Universal Basic Income
If robots replace workers, who buys the products? The idea of UBI is gaining ground. Pilot programs: Finland (2017-18, €560/month), Stockton USA ($500/month). Results: health improvement, increased job searching — not “laziness.”
"In a world where machines can do everything, what does a human do? This is not a technical question. It's existential."
Work was never a “natural state.” Once it didn't exist — foragers didn't “work,” they simply lived. Then it became a necessity, then an obligation, then an identity. Today, we ask “what do you do?” and mean “what's your job?” — as if work is you.
Perhaps the next revolution isn't about what robots will do. Perhaps it's about what we will do — if we ever decide that life is worth more than a “productive” schedule.