1 Comment

"The living-standard crisis of the industrial revolution famously led Friedrich Engels to conclude that the machine-owning industrialists “[grew] rich on the misery of the mass of wage earners.”

This kind of seems to be a running theme throughout human history. Work oneself to the bone at the hope for a better life (just not usually to the laborer who toils away).

Agricultural Revolution: Racket ran by feudal lords.

"Cultivating wheat provided much more food per unit of territory, and thereby enabled Homo sapiens to multiply exponentially. But the extra food did not translate into a better diet or more leisure. Rather, it translated into population explosions and pampered elites. The average farmer worked harder than the average forager, and got a worse diet in return. The Agricultural Revolution was history’s biggest fraud."

"This was the essence of the Agricultural Revolution: the ability to keep more people alive under worse conditions."

Jump passed the Industrial Revolution - into whatever age we are in today - and you start to see some interesting parallels.

"Entrepreneurship: work 60 hours a week so you don’t have to work 40 hours a week." —@shl, https://twitter.com/shl/status/1359670684675239936?s=20

Expand full comment