The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity

by David Graeber

The fact that many hunter-gatherers, and even horticulturalists, only seem to have spent somewhere between two and four hours a day doing anything that could be construed as ‘work’ was itself proof of how easy their needs were to satisfy. Before continuing, it’s worth saying that the broad picture Sahlins presented appears to be correct. As we pointed out above, the average oppressed medieval serf still worked less than a modern nine-to-five office or factory worker, and the hazelnut gatherers and cattle herders who dragged great slabs to build Stonehenge almost certainly worked, on average, less than that. It’s only very recently that even the richest countries have begun to turn such things around (obviously, most of us are not working as many hours as Victorian stevedores, though the overall decline in working hours is probably not as dramatic as we think). And for much of the world’s population, things are still getting worse instead of better.