3 ms·
My guess was that standards of living were drastically lower back then, so the accumulated factory wages could make a difference. Back then, people lived in cra
by badpun 8y ago
My guess was that standards of living were drastically lower back then, so the accumulated factory wages could make a difference. Back then, people lived in crappy little houses with no electricity, no water/sewage, obviously had no cars etc. There was relatively little stuff in their lives, so, as long as the land provided you with food, you didn't need much money. My grandma used to live like this in rural Poland - they occasionally bought something with money, like salt or matches, both mostly were self-sufficient.
- jfindley 8y agoIsn't that likely to be the same as what people 90 years in the future will say about us, though?
- CamTin 8y agoIn most of the developed world, literally all of our necessities (housing, healthcare, even food) require interaction with the money economy, which is the opposite of what is described here, so probably not. Even the Amish have to interact enough with the "English" economy to buy things like nails, and to pay their property taxes. Possibly we can operate this way again, with nano-factories turning homegrown soybeans into jeans and iPads or something, and a self-healing infrastructure, but that's far future sci-fi, not current reality.