Wage labor is one of the core principles for organizing our lives in western societies. How did that happen? We attempt to answer that question in 20 minutes, moving backward from Keynes to seventeenth century England to Virgil’s Georgics. It’s quite a ride. We also talk about farming.

Contact US

Twitter: @PublicSeminar, @lmergner, @pete_sinnott

Email: [email protected]

Credits

Producer: Daniel Fermín

Music: Composed and performed by Samuel Haines. 

Artwork: Daniel Fermín

What We Talked About

John Maynard Keynes, “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren”

James Livingston, No More Work 

Ann Kussmaul, Servants in Husbandry in Early Modern England

Joyce Appleby, Economic Thought and Ideology in Seventeenth-Century England

Joan Thirsk, Agrarian History of England

The Natural

John Denver, “Thank God I’m a Country Boy”

James Suzman, Work: A Deep History from the Stone Age to the Age of Robots