4 ms·

What middle class person has thousands of literal servants who will spend every waking hour serving, feeding, cleaning, tailoring, cooking and creating for them

What middle class person has thousands of literal servants who will spend every waking hour serving, feeding, cleaning, tailoring, cooking and creating for them in their giant, country-spanning estates? How many middle class people have the God-given divine right to rule and demand the sons of every nobleman to fight to keep and expand their power? How many middle class people literally own a country and can dictate what happens in it from the top down? How many vineyards do middle class people own? How many garden hermits[1] do they keep on their estates simply for their ambience and kitsch? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_hermit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_hermit

anothereng 1y ago
you don't need that many servants when you have businesses that offer the same services and you can afford them. Or you think middle class people can't afford travelling, laundry services, food delivery, etc. The second thing you're referring to is power. Power I admit can be zero sum but most people are not ambitious in that way, they just want material wealth not political power.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- heavyset_go 1y ago
  Sorry, using DoorDash to order fast food is not the same thing as having a team of the country's best chefs cooking every meal for you in your castle using ingredients your farmers hand-picked on your own vast swathes of premium farmland. Sounds healthier, too. Similarly, spending $10 at McDonald's is not the same thing as having teams of servants tending to your every whim every waking moment until you die. If you can't see that clear difference, I don't think you're approaching this in good faith. You shouldn't have to stretch the truth this much to make your point if it's actually true and you know it.
  - ninkendo 1y ago
    Let’s compare my quality of life to a king 500 years ago. I have air conditioning. I have running water and a toilet. I have antibiotics. And all sorts of other medicine that actually works. When I have to get an operation done I can go under anesthesia rather than it being literal torture. And I won’t be killed by an infection resulting from the tiniest cut. I have literally endless entertainment. More than I can ever consume in a lifetime. I have access to just about any piece of information that has ever existed and been made public. I don’t have to worry about being killed by an uprising. I can go on.
    - betaby 1y ago
      > I have air conditioning. I find Spanish castels from 1500-1600 to be pleasant enough temperature wise even when it's +35C outside.
  - rpdillon 1y ago
    You act like having teams of servants is a good thing. It isn't. The best possible outcome is you don't need teams of servants and you can still have gobs of convenience. Which is exactly what the modern lifestyle has given us. You're comparing a ten dollar meal from McDonald's to a cooked meal by a team of professionals. Your comparison completely ignores the fact that in modern society you can absolutely have a meal cooked by a team of professionals or you can have McDonald's and you can decide moment to moment what you want, and all of it requires less outlay from you than it did 500 years ago, so it's available to practically everyone, not just the most wealthy.
jcranmer 1y ago
What king 500 years could do that? (Well okay, maybe Suleiman the Magnificent, but that about exhausts the list.) 500 years ago puts us in 1525, which is still in the transitional period of Medieval kingdoms becoming actual states. The kind of absolutism you're thinking about is still about 100-150 years away from coming to fruition. Medieval kings were almost entirely reliant on their vassals to be able to marshal any power whatsoever: if an important vassal decides he doesn't want to fight in the king's war, well, the king can't exactly force him (see e.g. the Burgundians in the Hundred Years' War--and this involves the most cohesive European monarchy!). You're starting to see efforts by 1525 to reduce the power of nobles to act independent of their liege, but they're certainly not there yet. But keep in mind the other luxuries people today enjoy that the kings of 500 years ago can't. The ability to see all of your children survive until, well, your own death. The ability to eat, say, fresh strawberries in the height of winter. The ability to know your wife isn't going to die giving birth to another kid. Hell, pretty good odds your bed is larger than a king's bed from 500 years ago, and more comfortable too.

anothereng 1y ago

you don't need that many servants when you have businesses that offer the same services and you can afford them. Or you think middle class people can't afford travelling, laundry services, food delivery, etc. The second thing you're referring to is power. Power I admit can be zero sum but most people are not ambitious in that way, they just want material wealth not political power.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
heavyset_go 1y ago
Sorry, using DoorDash to order fast food is not the same thing as having a team of the country's best chefs cooking every meal for you in your castle using ingredients your farmers hand-picked on your own vast swathes of premium farmland. Sounds healthier, too. Similarly, spending $10 at McDonald's is not the same thing as having teams of servants tending to your every whim every waking moment until you die. If you can't see that clear difference, I don't think you're approaching this in good faith. You shouldn't have to stretch the truth this much to make your point if it's actually true and you know it.
- ninkendo 1y ago
  Let’s compare my quality of life to a king 500 years ago. I have air conditioning. I have running water and a toilet. I have antibiotics. And all sorts of other medicine that actually works. When I have to get an operation done I can go under anesthesia rather than it being literal torture. And I won’t be killed by an infection resulting from the tiniest cut. I have literally endless entertainment. More than I can ever consume in a lifetime. I have access to just about any piece of information that has ever existed and been made public. I don’t have to worry about being killed by an uprising. I can go on.
  - betaby 1y ago
    > I have air conditioning. I find Spanish castels from 1500-1600 to be pleasant enough temperature wise even when it's +35C outside.
- rpdillon 1y ago
  You act like having teams of servants is a good thing. It isn't. The best possible outcome is you don't need teams of servants and you can still have gobs of convenience. Which is exactly what the modern lifestyle has given us. You're comparing a ten dollar meal from McDonald's to a cooked meal by a team of professionals. Your comparison completely ignores the fact that in modern society you can absolutely have a meal cooked by a team of professionals or you can have McDonald's and you can decide moment to moment what you want, and all of it requires less outlay from you than it did 500 years ago, so it's available to practically everyone, not just the most wealthy.

jcranmer 1y ago

What king 500 years could do that? (Well okay, maybe Suleiman the Magnificent, but that about exhausts the list.) 500 years ago puts us in 1525, which is still in the transitional period of Medieval kingdoms becoming actual states. The kind of absolutism you're thinking about is still about 100-150 years away from coming to fruition. Medieval kings were almost entirely reliant on their vassals to be able to marshal any power whatsoever: if an important vassal decides he doesn't want to fight in the king's war, well, the king can't exactly force him (see e.g. the Burgundians in the Hundred Years' War--and this involves the most cohesive European monarchy!). You're starting to see efforts by 1525 to reduce the power of nobles to act independent of their liege, but they're certainly not there yet. But keep in mind the other luxuries people today enjoy that the kings of 500 years ago can't. The ability to see all of your children survive until, well, your own death. The ability to eat, say, fresh strawberries in the height of winter. The ability to know your wife isn't going to die giving birth to another kid. Hell, pretty good odds your bed is larger than a king's bed from 500 years ago, and more comfortable too.