Fleeting questions

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As I was reading Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential, I was struck by the realization that his description of the ways and lives of cooks greatly resembled the ways and lives of the eighteenth century, French, journeymen printers as described in Darnton's "Workers Revolt: The Great Cat Massacre": rough, frequently unreliable, and sometimes minorly criminal. I'm wondering about the thread of commonality that connects the two. What occupational conditions create a group (or attract a group) with these characteristics?