[SequoiaHope]

I’m not so sure. Unions (social progress) brought us the 40 hour work week more so than technology. Factory workers could potentially work more hours than farmers who had very busy periods mixed with slower times. I suppose they exist, maybe you have seen them, but I’ve not seen a real study of the hours worked by subsistence farmers in history. Though technology brings many other benefits, it’s not clear to me how it plays in to work hours.

[AlecSchueler]

It was factories that brought people together enough working as a single unit that allowed unions to flourish.

[myaccountonhn]

Before the machines there were guilds of cloth-makers and weavers that would work less than five days a week and at less strict hours, but they lost their jobs to automation.

I can really recommend the book Blood in the machine if anyone is interested in how automation early on affected workers.