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This doesn't account for the work they had to do at home. They had their own food to harvest, animals to tend to, clothes to make and the materials to make those clothes didn't fall out of the sky. They had to chop firewood, mend the home, cook the food from scratch. Their mandatory holidays weren't spent pursuing a hobby, traveling, playing games or consuming entertainment. Those days off just meant they could do all the work they needed to do at home instead of doing all the church's work on top of their own.
Another way to phrase it:
As our personal workloads were reduced, that free time was commandeered by our employers
Our personal workloads reduced because the industrialisation of agriculture meant we didn't have to grow our own food any more.
Not trying to defend capitalism, but it's disingenuous of you to imply that you don't get anything in return for working.
Either I wasn't clear or you misinterpreted but that's not what I'm implying. Productivity went way up and instead of reduced working hours, we worked MORE and saw proportionally less of the profit.
that's all well and good until the price of necessities is just raised to the point where you need to work as much as a medieval peasant anyways, and don't even get the fresh air they did.
and uh, in many places that happened quite a while ago, the USA is at a point where elderly people need two jobs to afford to live.
Peasants' work was dominantly agricultural, with some required contribution to maintenance of lands and structures around their manor.
Each peasant worked either a family lot, or an open field directly managed by the manor.
They may have worked at home for mending clothes and other simple tasks, but very little was a private responsibility.
Days not committed to work could be spent for games and festivals. There were no private hobbies, but public life was quite rich.
They worked for their Lord, and in return could live there and be subsistence farmers. And the late middle ages had taxes on everything.
Want to mill your wheat? Use the lords mill. Bake bread? Lords ovens. Also pay your tithe, and more taxes due to the war of course.
Enjoy your holiday, but you'll still have to work your own field, milk the goats, gather firewood (no cutting trees from the lords forest though), fetch and boil water, mend the roof, put food away for winter, etc etc. But enjoy only working for rent every other day.
I feel doubtful that the scenario involves taxes as you describe them.
Under a manor, polity and production are fully integrated. Each peasant takes a share the harvest, and may have entitlements for the commons, while the rest falls under control of the lord and his house.
The holidays were also just to placate them so they didn't rise up against their overlords.
Netflix works just as well.
Also social media.
No one actually uses it, though.
Where are you getting your information?
I'm more interested in why you think no one uses social media. I mean, you're using it right now.