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Life, work, death and the peasant: Rent and extraction
- throawaywpg 1y agohttps://www.amazon.ca/Peasants-Knights-Heretics-R-Hilton/dp/0521280192 https://www.amazon.ca/Peasants-Knights-Heretics-R-Hilton/dp/... Highly recommend this book on the subject.
- dmbche 1y agoIf you enjoy even a smidge of this, please look at other articles/series on their blog, ACOUP is absolutely phenomenal and I've not seen many writers (here also historian and tenured professor) both be so accessible and graspable while having a deep and nuanced understanding of the situation AND providing ample sources. 10/10 couldn't recommend more. I believe the Sparta series is the most popular, but I really enjoyed the one on iron.
- mcmoor 1y agoI found the one for Sparta too emotionally charged for my interest. But I really really endorse most of the other ones especially ones touching in economics and logistics of ancient world. (Btw he's not a tenured professor, much to his chagrin, he's an adjunct professor. This is exactly why he wrote A LOT about broken academia system too.)
- dmbche 1y agoThat's an oddly specific thing to point out
- mcmoor 1y agoIt's just funny since his blog is the entire reason I learned about the difference of adjunct and tenured professor, and why a big problem in academia is that they tenure less and less and rely on lots of adjunct professors instead.
- theurerjohn3 1y agoThere is a vast gap in how academia treats adjunct vs tenure track professors, a difference the author of this blog has spent a decent amount of words explaining and complaining about.
- FearNotDaniel 1y ago> their blog _his_ blog. It’s all written by one man. But I agree that it’s a remarkable blog, so fascinating and freely given. While I’m in grumpy-old-man-shakes-fist-at-newfangled-grammar mode, I can _almost_ accept that people writing in the “historical present” is unavoidable these days since TV historians have made it so trendy, but it’s especially jarring when he changes tense in the middle of a sentence (emphasis mine): > These settlers _were_ remarkably well compensated, because part of what the Hellenistic kings _are_ trying to do is…
- immibis 1y agosingular "they" is older than singular "you"
- simgt 1y agoI've enjoyed Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond recently. If you have read it, how does it compare?
- vwem 1y agoIt's been awhile since I've read it, but it does offer a similar approach in the sense that it's an easy read. Bret does a good job of making the various topics fun and interesting, even in areas I normally wouldn't be interested in. As a side note, I've read some interesting critiques on Diamond's theories. But I did find the whole book to be an interesting perspective, even just thinking about things North America lacked such as animal husbandry that may have drastically changed the way it developed.
- StefanBatory 1y agoIt's a problematic work. From what I remember from my time on /r/askhistorians, they really did not like it. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/wd6jt/what_do_you_think_of_guns_germs_and_steel/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/wd6jt/what_d... https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/historians_views/#wiki_historians.27_views_of_jared_diamond.27s_.22guns.2C_germs.2C_and_steel.22 https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/historians_views... https://web.archive.org/web/20210619035356/http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/Blaut/diamond.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20210619035356/http://www.columb... My impression is that it is correct enough the look good on surface. Like learning Freud, you see his points, it makes sense, but the details are wrong and so you spend most of your time learning why he wasn't exactly right.
- racecar789 1y agoIt's a fitting title to describe life today for most people.
- decimalenough 1y agoThe series actually talks about this in detail, in particular the (incorrect) trope that medieval peasants worked a lot less than we do.
- adastra22 1y agoIs that a trope?
- ljf 1y agoYes https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/medieval-peasant-only-worked-150-days/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/medieval-peasant-only-work...
- adastra22 1y agoWtf? Ok I guess so. I would have never guessed.
- verisimi 1y agoIt is really great that Snopes was around in medieval times and can confirm or deny! /S The thing is, no one knows what medieval peasants were doing, cos we weren't there. We have this or that piece of evidence, but evidence can be misinterpreted.
- docsaintly 1y agoThis series will really make you examine social hierarchies, including the ones that exist today. They are no accident.
- martin-t 1y agoToday's social structures exist because they evolved through history and shifting incentives. I sometimes wonder if we could design a better system today taking today's knowledge of psychology (and psychopathology) into account and optimizing for values we have today like freedom, balance of power and equality of opportunity.
- roenxi 1y agoYes, trivially. The tricky part is building a system that the median citizen (and the officers in the military) can verify has been optimised that way vs competing, poorly optimised systems that sound good. Factor in the median citizen has maybe a couple of hours to do research, isn't very principled and doesn't understand game theory well. Also consider that high status people are perfectly happy to set up an "expert" in any given field to spread propaganda favourable to them. The problem isn't setting up a great system, the problem is what happens when charismatic leaders and people like Stalin turn up.
- kjkjadksj 1y agoBanning campaigning would go a long way. The state already mails out voter information containing a little stump speech of each registered candidate at least for Californian elections. Further advertisement is purely propaganda and leads to establishment victories over merit and a genuinely attractive platform.
- roenxi 1y ago> Banning campaigning would go a long way. With tongue in cheek, that qualifies you as the "people like Stalin" category. Not a good idea.
- martin-t 1y agoI can recommend reading ACOUP to any technically minded person even if it's about history. I haven't had the time to read this series yet but I can recommend for example his articles about the industrial revolution, making of iron and steel or sieges in the Lord of the Rings compares to read world tactics. He has a knack for analyzing society from a systems level perspective and going into the right amount of depth for somebody who wants to understand the principles without having any background in history.
- maxglute 1y agoVery good series on of all things, making bread.
- pessimizer 1y agoWhen you get to the end, remember that's how many to most black people lived until very recently until they were expelled from the land with nothing, due to the rise of more efficient farming techniques. The very few who owned their own land were more slowly pushed out when they were denied farm loans. Black people owned about 15 million acres of land in 1910, now they own about 1 million.
- eleveriven 1y agoThe idea that "efficiency" alone caused it glosses over how policy and power structures actively shaped who got to benefit from modern agriculture and who got left out (or pushed out).
- lanfeust6 1y agoUntil the industrial revolution, 80% of people worked the land.
- 93po 1y agohow much have land ownership shrunk per person, for all americans, since 1910? i wouldn't be surprised if it was similar. which isn't to, in any way, discount the especially terrible treatment people of color have had in american history.
- onetokeoverthe 1y ago[dead]
- eleveriven 1y agoThe way labor availability doesn't actually help most peasant families if they don't have land to use it on. And when land is locked up by Big Men or temples or aristocrats, the system traps excess labor in a way that looks inefficient, but is actually great for those doing the extracting
- lifestyleguru 1y agoPeople make mistake assuming that system is the same inefficient and exploitive for everyone. The owners and rule makers have everything in abundance, service providers from construction to healthcare queue at their doorstep. You might hear the owners and rule makers complaining about the reality and economy but it's something completely different from what you think.
- rocqua 1y agoThis blog series by Bret Devraux keeps bringing me back to the black death, and how that reformed labor relations. I have heard about that a few times now. But this series really emphasizes how much surplus labor the rich could extract. And hence shows how much social impact it had when that labor reduced, and could suddenly negotiate. I wonder if the black death, and subsequent social change, might have been the best thing to happen to the peasant class.
- mantas 1y agoI wonder what would happen given today’s demographic if mass migration was shut down. There may be similar change. But ruling class is hard at work to avoid that.
- missedthecue 1y agoThe black death killed a lot of people, but mostly the old and infirm. Europe was left an extremely young and dynamic place. Today's demographic situation also involves a shrinking population, but it's for lack of young people. The world is getting a lot older really quickly, and that means less energetic and dynamic, and it means a lot of resources flowing to older unproductive people.
- mantas 1y agoStill less work hands would mean change of balance between the capital and the labour. The changes in real estate pricing, which is one of the main expenses for labour, would be massive.
- missedthecue 1y agoIt doesn't really mean that because there isn't a forever fixed amount of labor being bidded on by the workforce. That side of the market is also dynamic. As population ages and then shrinks, labor demand will also shrink. If supply and demand shrink in tandem, wages don't increase.
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- ggm 1y agoA reminder unemployment and underemployment and labour displacement existed in Roman times, and could be inferred to have carried into post Roman serfdom and the age of kings. It might not be the best choice for a peasant normally but walking off the land did happen. There are court records seeking the return of successful townspeople provably off their lords domain, and similar documents around marriage and land inheritance. Peasant revolts would be fights for retained rights, even if informal - not just new rights, if at all about new rights. Labour mobility predates the modern era.
- n1b0m 1y agoYou’re right that "walking off the land did happen". Although the feudal system legally bound serfs to the land, there were ways for individuals to escape this bondage. For instance, a serf who lived in a town for a year and a day without being reclaimed by their lord could often gain their freedom. These people, known as 'villeins' in some records, were essentially free peasants who had successfully left their lord's domain.
- crossroadsguy 1y agoHow does this compare to employment bonds of today? At least I know of likes of Infy, TCS etc doing this (in the home country) — making freshers sign bonds for 2-3 years and if you want to leave within that period the only way is to pay a good amount irrespective of whether you didn’t receive a salary raise or didn’t get the opportunities which were good good for you. If you don’t pay the bond — they won’t usually drag you to a court (they send legal notices for sure) but they will also not issue you an experience certificate.
- southernplaces7 1y agoA boon for the very thing you describe was the Black Death of the 14th century. The colossal depopulation of Europe increased the de facto bargaining power of peasants to the point where they could competitively seek out better labor wages and land concessions in places well outside their previous manor. Thus, many peasants did exactly this, to the point where the noble elites and monarchies of Europe tried to enforce tougher regulations and laws against free movement, wage increases and even conspicuous displays of prosperity by the increasingly wealthy peasant classes of society (many of who were also turning to mercantile ventures to further diversify their income. As is usually the case with government social and economic dictates that attempt controls against the practical social and economic reality of the world around them, these laws slowly but inexorable failed, leading to the steady erosion of feudalism throughout Europe (though not everywhere at similar times, and in some places this repressive system lingered for centuries longer, ie: Russia, Sicily, etc) If anything, for all its grim deadliness, the Black Death was oddly beneficial to the future social and economic flourishing of Europe, starting with the rise of the Renaissance, and leading from there to so many other things, for better or worse for the rest of the world.
- lastdong 1y agoThe modern UK leasehold system is, in many ways, rooted in the feudal landholding arrangements. In the UK, when buying a house, the buyer sometimes leases the land rather than owning it outright, and must pay ground rent to the landlord. A lease is usually bought for 80 years or more, but occasionally properties are sold with only a few years remaining. If the lease is not renewed, the homeowner risks losing the property to the landlord. The right to renew is not a given and comes with premium costs. Over the years, there have been numerous attempts to restrict or abolish this system but it continues to persist.
- lifestyleguru 1y agoIn UK and most of the rich EU, one doesn't even have to get indebted to be in precarious position. The land owning and tenancy alone make it, any person at any time is one letter away from being homeless or from at least months long legal battle.
- u02sgb 1y agoJust a point to say leasehold is very rare in Scotland. I remember being told about this when I was looking at places near London and being surprised.
- hdgvhicv 1y agoVast majority of houses are not leasehold. It’s 125 years at lease, and aside from a couple of decades the ground rent was always a peppercorn (actual ground rents started in the 90s and have now finished)
- throwup238 1y agoIs there a division within Weights & Measures that handles the regulatory framework for peppercorns?
- remus 1y agoYou're right, but the proportion of leasehold is still somewhat high (about 7% of houses in the UK). Kinda weird that it's still a thing. There's also a good scam going where leaseholders will try and persuade you to buy out of the lease for X thousand £, because people want the piece of mind rather than paying the ground rent.
- curtisszmania 1y ago[dead]
- echelon_musk 1y agoI'd normally be frustrated with all of the grammar mistakes, as it indicates to me that the author can't be bothered to proof read their own work before they expect others to read it. However, now I see the mistakes as an indicator that it hasn't been written with an LLM which then makes me more inclined to want to read it. Conflicted.
- Chris2048 1y ago"chatgpt, a guy on hacker news just said spelling mistakes are a sign llms haven't been used - write <thing> with a reasonable amount of convincing spelling mistakes so that it appears to be written by a human."..
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]