would happily spend 6 hours any evening, drinking with anyone, gossiping about completely useless things.
They could be doing this with complete strangers whom they would never meet again,
they could even be doing this with someone visiting to let them know that they were going to sue them (actually happened at least once).
They thought they were very "social".
Yeah, if this is what "sociality" means, please spare me its gifts.
The wonderful life of a coal miner in 1890 lol. It is just a completely insane idea.
Take some take to think before casually dismissing others.
Tough to use them as proof that this "doesn't have anything to do with economics" when their entire social life was defined by the economics of coal mining.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A229RX0
Unless socialization activities like bars or athletics are major outliers, it seems likely that in income-relative terms, the average American has much cheaper access to social activities.
(Unrelated, but if you squint at that chart you can see why Trump got elected, almost & then actually reelected.)
And yes, in the 1800s housing was comparatively cheap because land was close to free and you built your own home. Same goes for booze and venues to drink it because you made your own and there was zero regulation.
Today everyone is being choked by the relatively high cost of real estate (inflation looks ok because we have cheap durable goods like electronics). The death of 3rd spaces is well documented.
