The butane deliveryman's economy in 1978

The 1978 butane deliveryman, the accounting of muscle

A man loaded with two butane cylinders explains the Spanish economy of 1978 better than any statistical bulletin. The image, now rescued from memory, shows a deliveryman climbing the stairs to a seventh-floor flat carrying two 26-kilo containers. The technique demanded balance: the upper cylinder resting on his shoulder, gripped with his right hand; the left hand stayed free for the intercom or the change. Muscle was the only machinery available.

The logistics of carrying 26 kilos

It was no act. Anyone carrying two full cylinders in 1978 needed strength and skill to keep the elbow from slipping and the shoulder from being crushed. The valve of the upper cylinder faced backwards, the lower one rested on the instep, and balance was found with the right hand. Daily repetition turned those men into athletes without a gym. The economic point is that the effort paid off: the security of buying a home and supporting a family on a single wage.

From hauling cylinders to the algorithm

The same era handed out happiness on four wheels: a Seat 133, an R-6, an R-8 or a Ford Fiesta. Today's app deliveryman climbs the same seventh-floor walk-ups, but with a phone in his hand and a rating system in his pocket. Labour rights and safety have changed; the back is still paying the price. The nostalgia the photo stirs up is not just an exercise in memory, it is a mechanism for comparing two economic models: one that rewarded physical effort with a home of one's own, and another that improves working conditions but pushes housing out of reach of those who work.

If the next economic cycle rewards muscle with the same proportion of housing again, the image will age badly. That does not seem likely: today's economy rewards skills that do not carry cylinders, though it also speculates on what did. The photograph, in any case, will still be there to remind us.