Meszaros, progress

[Jim heartfield]

In message <37F3649A.474838B1 at mail.ilstu.edu>, Carrol Cox
<cbcox at ilstu.edu> writes
>Re productivity as "saving time." Then the clock has been running backwards
>for about 12000 years. Hunter-gatherers seldom labor over 15-20 hrs
>per week. Capitalism also eliminated scores of xtian holidays in order
>to increase hours of work. And if one includes commute time in the
>work week (as one should), then the work week in the u.s. has been
>increasing for decades -- perhaps for over half a century.
>
>Progress. It's wonderful.
>
>Carrol

This absurd myth comes courtesy of Marshall Sahlins. 

Who was doing the time and motion study on these prehistoric hunter
gatherers, one wonders? And since when did people who lived in such
societies have even a concept of free time. The whole methodology is
just childish fantasy dressed up as mock profundity. It is what Brecht
parodied as the imaginary land of Cockayne, where ready-roasted chickens
fly into your mouth. That 'free time' was just idle hunger and anxiety.

Carroll should be released in the rain forest to make his own way in
life.
-- 
Jim heartfield