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A peasant's most valuable asset was his mind as well; you have to go pretty far down the curve before you find a worker's manual labor power output to be their

A peasant's most valuable asset was his mind as well; you have to go pretty far down the curve before you find a worker's manual labor power output to be their most valuable asset (oxen are usually cheaper) or where obvious mental retardation isn't a disadvantage. The historical solution (eg in the context of manorialism) was that if you couldn't afford to have a family, you didn't (and if you did, the kid got shunted into a monastery or the equivalent and was prevented from reproducing), so the "surplus" peasant population effectively shrank, and the English lower classes ended up being the descendants of downwardly-mobile gentry, who mostly found employment in different sectors. That solution breaks down in the context of modern welfare systems.

ZenoArrow 10y ago
> "A peasant's most valuable asset was his mind as well" All jobs require a certain level of intelligence to do, that much is true, but the call for creative thinking does vary from job to job, and there are plenty of jobs that are largely repetitive. As for the historical solution, I'm sure UBI and population control aren't mutually exclusive, though I don't think it'll ever fly that population control only applies to the poor, if it's going to happen it should be applied across the board (i.e. to the rich too). This has the added benefit of making it in everyone's interests to find better solutions to overpopulation than forcing people not to have kids (it should ideally be voluntary if it's ever needed).