Quote Originally Posted by Bruno View Post
I think the reason that artisans are overworked has more to do with renewed interest, rather than people not wanting to be craftsmen anymore.
I think you may be right. I'm looking around at my peers and several of them have craftsman hobbies, are turning out professional-quality work, and one or two have expressed the wish that they could do that full-time rather than be network jockeys/ graphic artists/ purchasers/ whatever, but the money wasn't there. (Or, I suspect, the jump to setting up their own business and all the issues seems daunting.)

I wonder if we're going to see a renaissance of handcrafted items as people turn their hobbies into second careers over the next ten years or so. It would make sense -- people are willing to pay a premium for unique, top-quality items (eg, a week's pay for a custom razor), desk-job companies are less willing to hire people over 50, the Internet brings folks together and suddenly there's a professional workshop doing razors (or furniture or tools or whatever).

Of course, to really hit the quality potential of yesteryear, we need about three or four generations of this... or we need to take advantage of the folks who are now retiring.

Oh, look, I'm rambling. See what happens when you get me thinking about old times and a bad economy?