| Subject: | [socialcredit] Thorold Rogers | | Date: | Thursday, August 4, 2005 08:36:58 (EDT) | | From: | Triumphofthepast <Triumphofthepast @...com>
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Dear Friends,
"How is it that in 1495 the labourer was able to maintain himself in a standard of living considerably higher, relatively to his generation, than that of the present time, with only 50 days labour a year?" (Douglas, not sure which work)
"In so cheap a year as this [1495], the peasant could provision his family for a twelvemonth with three quarters of wheat, three of malt, and two of oatmeal, by fifteen weeks of ordinary work; an artizan could achieve the same result in ten weeks." (Rogers, Six Centuries of Work and Wages, p. 389; this was the 1949 reprint with a preface by GDH Cole; 591 pages, just like Keith's copy)
Perhaps Douglas came up with 50 days by multiplying 10 weeks x 5 days a week. In any case the Rogers quote says not that the artizan WORKED only ten weeks in the year but that ten weeks' work would buy a year's worth of grain. The Douglas quote makes it sound as if he WORKED only 50 days.
"From 312 to 252 or 235 days are reckoned in the mason's year. That of the carpenter . . . is as long as the first of these quantities. . . . An employment for 312 days leaves only one holiday besides the Sundays" (Rogers, p. 181).
By the same token, 252 workdays would leave 61 holidays beside Sundays, and 235 workdays would leave 78 holidays beside Sundays. However, I do not know where I came up with the number 40, and I have to convict myself of sloppy scholarship and/or math here.
Rogers give evidence for an eight-hour day on pp. 180 and 542.
Michael
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Thorold Rogers
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