Comment by lp4v4n
12 hours ago
It certainly doesn't feel like craftsmanship has gained any kind of higher social standing in our time though. The Zeitgeist of the modern times seems to be one of 'try to do the cheapest sellable thing while paying people the least possible'.
Real craftsmanship, the kind that leaves you in awe and feels like an exceptional display of human capacity, seems to be relegated, from my point of view, to a minority of well-off hobbyists who are already free from work and can do what they want without worrying about paying bills.
Every craftsman I know expresses discomfort that the only way they can turn a profit is to sell goods to wealthy people.
So just like before the industrial revolution then. Because back then (pre-1750 or so), most goods were made for the wealthy as well.
That seems odd. I'd rather turn a profit selling goods to people who can easily afford them than selling goods to people who will have to make hard choices or struggle to find the money.
If you make really nice, high quality goods, you often want common people who would appreciate them to have it as opposed to an ultra wealthy person who is buying a door for their 2nd home they visit 3 times a year. (To use a real life example.) I needed a new door at the time and the craftsman told me how frustrated he was he wasn’t making nice doors for people like me.
I’ve felt the same frustration doing excellent quality work on a 2nd or 3rd home that is empty most of the year.
That's one way to spin it. The other is that good quality things have become so low-demand and expensive due to barely-passable-quality things becoming so cheap, that people buying good quality things is now ironically more uneconomical than ever.