Fun fact, the builders of the pyramids probably had better workers rights than people today. There's evidence of socialised healthcare and sick pay (and that being paid out for such chronic conditions as hangovers)
this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2024
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You mean people in the US today. Most Western countries have all those.
Most third world countries have that too I think.
Socialised healthcare, yeah. But I can't imagine many people being open about the reason they're calling in sick being a hangover
In the NL, your employer has no right to even ask why you're calling in. You just say I'm sick and that's it.
Not exactly thrid world country that, though.
I like to bring it up mostly as an example that socialist policies do work, even in the first world, even in Western-style economies.
Like unlimited sick days.
How could sick days even be limited? You are actually just bearing the risk of being sick more than your allotted quota, instead of your employer. Or why would your employer even be capable of determining whether you're sick, are they a certified medical professional?
Or my favourite, "no country has ever had a wealth tax, assets are impossible to tax, they would crash the economy". The NL has a flat wealth tax on assets over your first home plus 50k EUR. It works, and the economy is doing fine.
Of course things could be better, and there are crises as are everywhere, but it is just an improved state of peace of mind if nothing else with decent worker's rights. And it works.
Well, duh. It's just common sense. One that Americans are sadly lacking.
Workers had paid lunches, daily rates (not hourly), weekends, and implicit time off during winter when there wasn't much daylight or much to do.
The invention of the clock changed that to an hourly wage (which employers would cheat by fixing the clock, later saved by the invention of the pocket watch), and specialisation of labour meant that any worker could be replaced to serve as a cog.
Source: a great History Civalis video titled "Work"
Because they were skilled laborers brought in for the project and not slaves.
Not long before the pyramids start being built there were retainer sacrifices where your servants would be buried with you so they could serve you in the afterlife.
Those only ended because they created a convenient placeholder where dolls of your servants would be buried with you as an IOU for eternal servitude in the hereafter.
I may have missed that section of the US labor code.
Source?
Equally feels like Larson could have taken it in another direction like,
"... and as the pyramid stone slipped its holding and crushed him, Ahmotep became the first example of a trickle-down economy."
Except it would be a cow and an amoeba pushing the block.