this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2023
232 points (94.6% liked)
Asklemmy
43782 readers
872 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Back in the 19th century when unions were powerful and innovative, a lot of people had jobs where they had to sit and do repetitive tasks in a room all day. A lot of it was handwork that didn't have big loud machines.
So one of the demands made by workers in such situations was that the employer would pay someone to come in and provide entertainment such as reading a book or giving talks on subjects of interest. The book or lecturer of course being selected by the workers via the democratic process of the union. And then of course the workers became way more educated because they suddenly had 8-12 hours daily to read books together. Since knowledge is power, the workers became stronger and more decisive in their collective actions.
When you are listening to audiobook at work you can know you are in a long tradition of workers exercising power over their job conditions. Although now it is individualized in the implementation. The desire to have your mind even though the job has your body and some concentration is universal.