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When I was 19, I had an economics professor who did a great job of explaining that idiom to our young ears. He talked about feudal times when landowners had to
by hluska 7y ago
When I was 19, I had an economics professor who did a great job of explaining that idiom to our young ears.
He talked about feudal times when landowners had to store their gold. So they had to build these massive castles with walls, hire professional soldiers, train their kids to wield weapons and even give some of their land to particularly good soldiers. That system was really expensive so they needed slaves to keep the whole system going. Since all the other landowners knew that you had all your gold in your castle, when they came upon hard times they would often attack. So, you would give your slaves primitive weapons and have them fight to defend ‘their homes’.
From the serf’s perspective, that system sucked. They worked hard, didn’t get paid and occasionally had to go into battle to protect their landowner. After a few generations, when you say “you know, Grandpa died in a battle. Dad and all my uncles died in battles. Three of my siblings died as infants. And they want me to take a fucking spear and protect that system?
Over the years, the system collapsed because slaves could get a better deal in cities. Landowners couldn’t afford their fortunes and castles fell into disrepair.
Basically, banks seem like a real ripoff until you consider the reality of having to store all your money in an environment where everyone knows whereabouts you have it stored!
- solaxun 7y agoThat analogy works when everybody is doing the same thing and it's common knowledge that the average person has their assets sitting in their castle, but we're talking about 2020 when that would be the exception, not the norm. You're acting like I would go on hackernews and tell everybody where my money is or something...
- bryanrasmussen 7y agoI assume if you were going to tell hackernews it would be with a Show HN post for your new pirate app that allows users to find where you have hidden the treasure in your house.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 7y agoI believe the HN-friendly term for that is "geo-caching."
- chewz 7y agoActually until industrial revolution the only asset generating yield was not gold but landowning. It wasn't risk less but on average it was the only asset available generating positive returns. The castles and gold vaults were nice but only as a temporary store of wealth. Most of rulers were constantly in debt used to pay for wars and representation (buying influence). XIX century introduced bonds which paid yields in coin, bankrupted most of landowners and created this new breed of entrepreneur capitalist.
- brokenkebab 7y agoThat's more a fairytale, then the explanation to human history at least. It sounds almost as if feudalism gone, because guys with swords had no banks to keep their heavy yellowish coins. Which is not very accurate. FWIW very few feudal families were able to hoard gold, or jewels, and for the most part they kept the same things in their castles a village granddaddy would, just in bigger quantities (i.e. food, and fuel). Coins were as expendable as a sauerkraut, and sausages, just easier to store (but not always as liquid as fantasy series makes us think). Were you a feudal you would care the most for the sole thing able to give you wealth almost every year - land.