5 ms·

I'd also say that the relationship between the average 10th-centry peasant and his feudal lord strikes me as a lot less "exploitative" than the typical employee

I'd also say that the relationship between the average 10th-centry peasant and his feudal lord strikes me as a lot less "exploitative" than the typical employee-employer relationship today.

LegitShady 5y ago
...please explain your point using a logical argument, because on its face it's ridiculous and untrue.
- yerwhat01010 5y ago
  Wait, I'm an idiot. I wrote "less exploitative" when I went to write more exploitative. You're right: to say that it's less exploitative would be absurd. I need to write fewer posts when it's late at night...
  - LegitShady 5y ago
    no worries, I wasn't sure what you intended but it didn't make sense so I asked.
s_fischer 5y ago
How is a two-way, 'at will', relationship more exploitative than one which comes with legal penalties for choosing to complete your job? (a job that you were born into, I might add)
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  "At will" is vastly insufficient to generate an equality of power. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily: and the law, besides, authorises, or at least does not prohibit, their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work, but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes, the masters can hold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, or merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks, which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year, without employment. -- Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3300/3300-h/3300-h.htm#link2HCH0008 http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3300/3300-h/3300-h.htm#link2H... Under the feudal system, lords had at least a nominal obligation to see to the welfare of their charges. I'm not claiming the relationship was otherwise equal, but that sense of obligation is now all but wholly absent.

I'd also say that the relationship between the average 10th-centry peasant and his feudal lord strikes me as a lot less "exploitative" than the typical employee-employer relationship today.

LegitShady 5y ago

...please explain your point using a logical argument, because on its face it's ridiculous and untrue.

yerwhat01010 5y ago
Wait, I'm an idiot. I wrote "less exploitative" when I went to write more exploitative. You're right: to say that it's less exploitative would be absurd. I need to write fewer posts when it's late at night...
- LegitShady 5y ago
  no worries, I wasn't sure what you intended but it didn't make sense so I asked.

s_fischer 5y ago

How is a two-way, 'at will', relationship more exploitative than one which comes with legal penalties for choosing to complete your job? (a job that you were born into, I might add)

dredmorbius 5y ago
"At will" is vastly insufficient to generate an equality of power. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily: and the law, besides, authorises, or at least does not prohibit, their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work, but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes, the masters can hold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, or merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks, which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year, without employment. -- Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3300/3300-h/3300-h.htm#link2HCH0008 http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3300/3300-h/3300-h.htm#link2H... Under the feudal system, lords had at least a nominal obligation to see to the welfare of their charges. I'm not claiming the relationship was otherwise equal, but that sense of obligation is now all but wholly absent.