3 ms·

This is quite a new deal and not one enjoyed by most people for most of history.

AngryData 3mo ago
Is that not how the 95% of the population of farmers lived before industrialization? The only difference is the job being their own farm or trade.
- deleted 3mo ago
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- lazyasciiart 3mo ago
  They didn’t own their own houses.
  - AngryData 3mo ago
    They owned their homes just as much as you own yours. Oh sure technically the state/king owned their home, but that is just pedantry when our government could also eminent domain our homes at any time and also demands taxes to maintain control. Subsidence farmers built and maintained their own homes and worked the same land usually for their entire lives. If strangers came onto their land and bothered them they could force them off, potentially even legally kill them, and if there is some more complicated dispute they could go to their government/lord and demand a legal ruling on their claim. Peasant farmers didn't sign up for and get given random plots of land by their lord for temporary holding that gets taken back later. They lived and died in the homes they themselves built on land they managed and worked in basically perpetuity down their family line, provided their family survived or wasn't driven off by or killed by war.
Loughla 3mo ago
What is the purpose of what you're saying? Because people lived like serfs and slaves for a lot of history, we should be okay with that? I don't mean to be shitty, and I fully understand that contrary takes are what HN is great at, but I genuinely fail to see what the point of your comment is other than a knee jerk nothing?
- lazyasciiart 3mo ago
  The first comment suggests that it was always like this and life has got worse. The second says it has almost never been like this, it was a short-lived condition only. That is in no way a normative statement on how it should be.
  - rexpop 3mo ago
    The first comment does not suggest "it was always like this", only that it was known, commonly accepted, even declaratively established to be like this. Truly, though, we did used to own many things in common that are now privately enclosed.

Is that not how the 95% of the population of farmers lived before industrialization? The only difference is the job being their own farm or trade.

deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
lazyasciiart 3mo ago
They didn’t own their own houses.
- AngryData 3mo ago
  They owned their homes just as much as you own yours. Oh sure technically the state/king owned their home, but that is just pedantry when our government could also eminent domain our homes at any time and also demands taxes to maintain control. Subsidence farmers built and maintained their own homes and worked the same land usually for their entire lives. If strangers came onto their land and bothered them they could force them off, potentially even legally kill them, and if there is some more complicated dispute they could go to their government/lord and demand a legal ruling on their claim. Peasant farmers didn't sign up for and get given random plots of land by their lord for temporary holding that gets taken back later. They lived and died in the homes they themselves built on land they managed and worked in basically perpetuity down their family line, provided their family survived or wasn't driven off by or killed by war.

Loughla 3mo ago

What is the purpose of what you're saying? Because people lived like serfs and slaves for a lot of history, we should be okay with that? I don't mean to be shitty, and I fully understand that contrary takes are what HN is great at, but I genuinely fail to see what the point of your comment is other than a knee jerk nothing?

lazyasciiart 3mo ago
The first comment suggests that it was always like this and life has got worse. The second says it has almost never been like this, it was a short-lived condition only. That is in no way a normative statement on how it should be.
- rexpop 3mo ago
  The first comment does not suggest "it was always like this", only that it was known, commonly accepted, even declaratively established to be like this. Truly, though, we did used to own many things in common that are now privately enclosed.