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Big houses are a display of wealth, plain and simple, and precisely because of that maintenance expense. Think back two or three hundred years ago when land was

Big houses are a display of wealth, plain and simple, and precisely because of that maintenance expense. Think back two or three hundred years ago when land was cheap or free. Who had gigantic houses? Only people who could retain enough slaves or staff to keep it for them.

thaumasiotes 9y ago
> Think back two or three hundred years ago when land was cheap or free. That's a very odd perspective. It applies to the United States, but the United States is at best 500 years old. In the Old World land hasn't been cheap at any time in recorded history.
- barry-cotter 9y ago
  I suggest you look up the Drang nach Osten and the expansion of Russia or the history of the Cossacks. There’s land in Western Europe that was cultivated before the Black Death that hasn’t been since. Europe has absolutely had frontier in the past 500 years. Manchuria, both what’s now Russian and what’s now Chinese also had abundant freeish land when the Qing dynasty opened it up for Han settlement. You’re wrong.
  - thaumasiotes 9y ago
    Ok. What do we mean by "when land was cheap"? There's plenty of land available cheap or free right now because it's worthless. That's always been true; it would make no sense to think of it as something that changed in the last few hundred years. Land cultivated before the Black Death and left unused since then would fall into this category. I was aware that the Black Death severely depopulated Europe such that everyone left was much wealthier (well, the peasants -- the nobility were poorer, in that their wealth included their supply of peasants), but it seems odd to say that land was cheap then since as far as I know European feudal law prohibited the owner of land from selling it. I'm aware of some other examples of land going unused despite high potential for productivity: Ukraine was historically very underpopulated because unrelenting slave raids kept the population down. Most of tropical Africa never experienced much population pressure because human populations were suppressed by diseases and elephants. What is now Xinjiang would have been pretty depopulated by the Zunghar genocide. On the other hand, it's not like the Chinese rushed to settle it voluntarily -- it was settled by forced relocations. The existing population of what is now the United States was wiped out in advance of European settlement, and the land was highly fertile. Cultivating it was purely a manpower problem - you could go out, settle land, produce enough food for a household of a dozen people, and not be subject to much in the way of environmental dangers, or competition from other people who wanted your land. Which of those sounds more like a period of "when land was cheap or free"? How are you defining "when land was cheap or free" such that it's not cheap or free right now?
    - barry-cotter 9y ago
      Land is cheap when it is literally being given away, or when it’s there for the taking and no one takes it. So, when Catherine the Great called for settlers, saying they could have free land, didn’t have to pay taxes, and didn’t have to serve in the military that land was not just cheap, but free. The Mennoninte of Canada and the USA are descended from those people. They’re Protestants, so that’s the last 500 years. What the hell is European feudal law? Property held in fee simple, dates from the 1200s in English law. I’m not familiar with other European legal systems but I know that Eastern European economic development is basically the story of German settlement and the good burghers were not serfs. They owned their own businesses and farms. The Ukraine is an example of a place where land was cheap. You gave some of the reasons why, but that does not detract from the fact that there have been times since 1500 when land was cheap.

thaumasiotes 9y ago

> Think back two or three hundred years ago when land was cheap or free. That's a very odd perspective. It applies to the United States, but the United States is at best 500 years old. In the Old World land hasn't been cheap at any time in recorded history.

barry-cotter 9y ago
I suggest you look up the Drang nach Osten and the expansion of Russia or the history of the Cossacks. There’s land in Western Europe that was cultivated before the Black Death that hasn’t been since. Europe has absolutely had frontier in the past 500 years. Manchuria, both what’s now Russian and what’s now Chinese also had abundant freeish land when the Qing dynasty opened it up for Han settlement. You’re wrong.
- thaumasiotes 9y ago
  Ok. What do we mean by "when land was cheap"? There's plenty of land available cheap or free right now because it's worthless. That's always been true; it would make no sense to think of it as something that changed in the last few hundred years. Land cultivated before the Black Death and left unused since then would fall into this category. I was aware that the Black Death severely depopulated Europe such that everyone left was much wealthier (well, the peasants -- the nobility were poorer, in that their wealth included their supply of peasants), but it seems odd to say that land was cheap then since as far as I know European feudal law prohibited the owner of land from selling it. I'm aware of some other examples of land going unused despite high potential for productivity: Ukraine was historically very underpopulated because unrelenting slave raids kept the population down. Most of tropical Africa never experienced much population pressure because human populations were suppressed by diseases and elephants. What is now Xinjiang would have been pretty depopulated by the Zunghar genocide. On the other hand, it's not like the Chinese rushed to settle it voluntarily -- it was settled by forced relocations. The existing population of what is now the United States was wiped out in advance of European settlement, and the land was highly fertile. Cultivating it was purely a manpower problem - you could go out, settle land, produce enough food for a household of a dozen people, and not be subject to much in the way of environmental dangers, or competition from other people who wanted your land. Which of those sounds more like a period of "when land was cheap or free"? How are you defining "when land was cheap or free" such that it's not cheap or free right now?
  - barry-cotter 9y ago
    Land is cheap when it is literally being given away, or when it’s there for the taking and no one takes it. So, when Catherine the Great called for settlers, saying they could have free land, didn’t have to pay taxes, and didn’t have to serve in the military that land was not just cheap, but free. The Mennoninte of Canada and the USA are descended from those people. They’re Protestants, so that’s the last 500 years. What the hell is European feudal law? Property held in fee simple, dates from the 1200s in English law. I’m not familiar with other European legal systems but I know that Eastern European economic development is basically the story of German settlement and the good burghers were not serfs. They owned their own businesses and farms. The Ukraine is an example of a place where land was cheap. You gave some of the reasons why, but that does not detract from the fact that there have been times since 1500 when land was cheap.