A Brief History of Labor

Everything Everywhere Daily

Gary Arndt

History, Education

4.8 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 28 August 2023

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ever since humans came out of the African savannah, they have had to work to survive. But the nature of work has changed dramatically since we had to hunt wooly mammoths for food. We’ve gone from hunting to farming to sitting in front of a computer making podcasts. Along the way, labor has become a subject of study for economists, an organizing force in politics, and a driving force in culture. Learn more about human labor and how it changed over time on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponsors Newspapers.com Newspapers.com is like a time machine. Dive into their extensive online archives to explore history as it happened. With over 800 million digitized newspaper pages spanning three centuries, Newspapers.com provides an unparalleled gateway to the past, with papers from the US, UK, Canada, Australia and beyond. Use the code “EverythingEverywhere” at checkout to get 20% off a publisher extra subscription at newspapers.com. Noom Noom is not just another diet or fitness app. It’s a comprehensive lifestyle program designed to empower you to make lasting changes and achieve your health goals. With Noom, you’ll embark on a personalized journey that considers your unique needs, preferences, and challenges. Their innovative approach combines cutting-edge technology with the support of a dedicated team of experts, including registered dietitians, nutritionists, and behavior change specialists. Noom’s changing how the world thinks about weight loss. Go to noom.com to sign up for your trial today! Rocket Money Rocket Money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps you lower your bills—all in one place. It will quickly and easily find your subscriptions for you –and for any you don’t want to pay for anymore, just hit “cancel,” and Rocket Money will cancel it for you. It’s that easy. Stop throwing your money away. Cancel unwanted subscriptions – and manage your expenses the easy way – by going to RocketMoney.com/daily Subscribe to the podcast! https://link.chtbl.com/EverythingEverywhere?sid=ShowNotes -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Charles Daniel Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Thor Thomsen Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Ever since humans came out of the African savanna, they've had to work to survive.
0:04.0	But the nature of work has changed dramatically since we had to hunt woolly mammoths for food.
0:08.0	We've gone from hunting to farming to sitting in front of a computer making podcasts. Along the way, labor has become... to Learn more about human labor and how it's changed over time on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Book your ticket to happiness with Sun Express Airlines. This episode is going to be a bit different than most. I'll usually talk about some
1:05.0	event, a thing, or a person with some sort of reasonable parameter on what I'll be
1:09.6	talking about. In this episode I want to talk about something that's a bit more vague and a concept that is much more expansive.
1:16.0	Labor. In the United States, we have a Labor Day.
1:20.0	In some countries, they have a Labor Party. There are labor economists and labor historians.
1:25.0	One of the problems is defining exactly what labor means.
1:29.0	If you look at the definition of labor, you will find some very different meanings.
1:34.0	One says, quote, the expenditure of physical or mental effort, especially when difficult or compulsory.
1:40.1	This would be like being sentenced to hard labor.
1:43.6	Another definition says, quote,
1:45.0	the services performed by workers for wages
1:47.2	as distinguished from those rendered
1:48.9	by entrepreneurs for profits.
1:51.2	This implies that work is explicitly wage labor.
1:55.0	Yet another definition says, quote, human activity that provides the goods or services in an economy.
2:01.0	In this sense, labor is simply synonymous with work.
2:04.4	For the purpose of this episode, I'm going to focus on the third definition
2:08.6	which is just work, but that will naturally, eventually lead to me talking
2:12.2	about the second definition which is
2:14.0	wage labor. So with that the discussion of labor has to start with the earliest humans who were
	...

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