Amount of work would also vary by season, region and status. There’s bones that get dug up of people who physically fell apart from overwork, basically, if they were slaves or it was just a really rough period. It is true it could be light some times and places, though.
One thing they didn’t have were schedules. Tardiness to meetings was measured in days, and IIRC a Greek philosopher is on record listing them as a form of aestheticism, like flagellation or starving yourself. Hunter gatherers also benefited from doing work we naturally find appealing, and not necessarily having to deal with coercive authority of any kind.
There’s literally no country where it’s de jure legal now, and fairly few where it’s legal in practice. Compare this to any number of historical societies where they were the majority.
Modern slavery includes forced labor, bonded labor, trafficked people, and child labor - it’s analogous to chattel style historic slavery in that the conditions are similar.
Current estimates are 50m people living in these conditions today, vastly more than at any time in human history.
Depends what you mean by “easier”.
I think there was more down time in the day. Yes more manual work but not for 8 or 12 hours a day, at least before the industrial revolution.
There were also more hardships without modern medicine.
Amount of work would also vary by season, region and status. There’s bones that get dug up of people who physically fell apart from overwork, basically, if they were slaves or it was just a really rough period. It is true it could be light some times and places, though.
One thing they didn’t have were schedules. Tardiness to meetings was measured in days, and IIRC a Greek philosopher is on record listing them as a form of aestheticism, like flagellation or starving yourself. Hunter gatherers also benefited from doing work we naturally find appealing, and not necessarily having to deal with coercive authority of any kind.
Sure, but plenty of people are overworked today.
I agree that things will vary a lot by time and place.
I imagine any number of slaves would disagree with you on the downtime.
Is slavery less common today ?
Is that an actual question?
yes. Maybe look into it.
About .6% of the world is considered as living in modern slavery.
In say, the feudal era, that percentage would be some 70 or 80 times higher.
Maybe you should do some reading?
Sure but …
The number of slaves extant today is far greater than at any time in history.
Yes, vastly.
There’s literally no country where it’s de jure legal now, and fairly few where it’s legal in practice. Compare this to any number of historical societies where they were the majority.
Modern slavery includes forced labor, bonded labor, trafficked people, and child labor - it’s analogous to chattel style historic slavery in that the conditions are similar.
Current estimates are 50m people living in these conditions today, vastly more than at any time in human history.