This seems plausible that it has something to do with our economy and maybe capitalism specifically, and I’m kinda familiar with Marx, but I wonder if there isn’t more to it. The reason I say this is because I think I’ve worked the hardest in my life when I started a business. I’m not 100% certain, because I’ve put in a lot of long hours on my various jobs. But, it felt like it was much easier to work long hours on my startup than it did for BigCo or even for someone else’s startup. The desire to make my startup successful, and the fact that I was the owner and was responsible for anything bad that happened, that all made me work even harder, I think. Poking around on HN, it sure seems like lots of other startup founders do the same and might be working harder than the average worker bee.