Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax • Hacker News Board

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#131

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 25, 2021, 4:04 PM UTC

jackfoxy wrote: post #118

nomercy400 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of strange that the Dutch are blamed for this, when the British took over mid-1600 and the Americans after the independence war end-1700. Those are two moments where this whole notion of feudal estates could easily have been abolished, but for some reason the new rulers decided against this.

It was not unusual in the past for changes in sovereignty to still respect the prior established private property rights. For instance both the Louisiana purchase and annexation of California promised in law to respect existing Spanish land grants. So while this was the case in legal theory, these rights were not immune to corruption. I grew up on land in the Bay Area that formerly belonged to the Ranchero de las Pul…

[deleted]

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#132

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 25, 2021, 4:10 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #126

rini17 wrote: post #117

Consider yourself lucky that you can reliably trace land ownership for centuries. Eastern Europe went through multiple upheavals in last 100 years and every time the wheel of history turned, quite a lot of land was dispossessed/repossessed by law. In Slovakia we basically ended up with two versions of land registry (called register "C" and "E") and the ongoing effort to reconcile them. Many properties are said to be…

Sounds a lot like what's been going on in Israel / Palestine.

[deleted]

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#133

Post by salemh » Tue, May 25, 2021, 4:10 PM UTC

CaptArmchair wrote: post #33

pjc50 wrote: post #7

Now wondering which European countries still have intact feudal law. Scotland abolished feudal tenure in 2000: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_Feudal_Tenure_etc... ; most of the feu burdens were abolished or explicitly ported across. England&Wales still retains the feudal system in places and occasionally people are hit by "chancel repair liability" or somesuch. The chivalric court still exists: https://en…

It's a surprisingly hard question to answer. "feudal" is a historiographic term which was first coined in the late 18th century. It saw various interpretations over the course of the 19th and 20th century through various historical schools. Another term, at least for mainland Europe, would be "Ancien Régime" which denotes the political and socio-economic system before the French Revolution. As for legal traditions, y…

>Put in a different way, if you were born in 1760 and lived to 1840 (80 years), you'd experience a "societal collapse" (to describe with a hyperbole) in which any and all "old" ways that governed life were overthrown and replaced by an entirely new way of organizing society. This is not hyperbole, Napoleon promptly took over France as Emperor due to the power vacuum and plunged the entirety of Europe into what is now termed "total war." Millions and millions and millions dead, and not everyone wanted a "Republic" or "freedom" driven at the point of the sword from the French.

There are millions dead in between the "ideals" of the Revolution and the later Republics you skipped over.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Wars

>Historians have explored how the Napoleonic wars became total wars. Most historians argue that the escalation in size and scope came from two sources. First was the ideological clash between revolutionary/egalitarian and conservative/hierarchical belief systems. Second was the emergence of nationalism in France, Germany, Spain, and elsewhere that made these "people's wars" instead of contests between monarchs.[138] Bell has argued that even more important than ideology and nationalism were the intellectual transformations in the culture of war that came about through the Enlightenment.[139] One factor, he says, is that war was no longer a routine event but a transforming experience for societies—a total experience.

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#134

Post by zabzonk » Tue, May 25, 2021, 4:11 PM UTC

Mauricebranagh wrote: post #99

zabzonk wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, thinking back (it was a loooong time ago, and I was only on-site for five days) I think she may have mentioned typhoons. The thing that really struck me at the time was not so much the building, but the security. There were card-access only doors every few yards, and they wouldn't give me even a visitor card - I had to be escorted to the lav and canteen all the time, which was irritating for all concerned. God kn…

Back then it was a FAB - does seem excessive I have had a couple of interviews (both avowed jobs) like that. Huntings wouldn't even let me in the main building and Hanslope Park I was escorted (its much nicer than its description in the laundry files)

Yay, Laundry Files! If you are an IT nerd into Lovecraft, you owe it to yourself to read them.

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/The_Laundry_Files

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#135

Post by Spooky23 » Tue, May 25, 2021, 4:13 PM UTC

nomercy400 wrote: post #115

Spooky23 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not “blaming” anyone, these are just facts on the ground from nearly 500 years ago. I was introduced to this stuff as a teenager working for an old farm - their family was one of a few that had a land grant. The original taxes were 10 pigs and some wheat! The Dutch colonial system, continued in some form for a period of time. I’m afraid I’m ignorant of the details and complexity of land policy as the English, the…

I haven't got the facts either. Yet a lot has happened in those 500 years, and it would be a shame not to mention that. After mid-1600 the Dutch have had very little to say in New York (or should I say New Amsterdam, still such a shame they changed the name..), when the British decided New York should be theirs, despite being at peace with the Dutch. I wonder if the Dutch heritage still be taught in schools in the US…

It was in the 80s.

Standardization of core curriculum and political changes will probably eliminate most of that. The people who cared about this stuff have scattered as society became more mobile and slave holdings make most of these figures impolitic.

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#136

Post by Aperocky » Tue, May 25, 2021, 4:14 PM UTC

tpm wrote: post #130

rini17 wrote: post #117

Consider yourself lucky that you can reliably trace land ownership for centuries. Eastern Europe went through multiple upheavals in last 100 years and every time the wheel of history turned, quite a lot of land was dispossessed/repossessed by law. In Slovakia we basically ended up with two versions of land registry (called register "C" and "E") and the ongoing effort to reconcile them. Many properties are said to be…

Add to that the Hungarian inheritance rules - properties were divided evenly between the heirs, so I can now own a 13/6240 of an agricultural field. The farm still pays me a small yearly dividend and offers to buy my share, but that's really everything what can be done with it.

Are wills not respected? Usually wills try to leave (different) things in one owner.

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#137

Post by _jal » Tue, May 25, 2021, 4:14 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #42

CogitoCogito wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today's voters are capable of electing representatives who could repeal that amendment. It's not like voters are left without recourse.

It appears that elected officials have an extremely strong bias to adding/amending versus repealing/scaling back. I'm not sure the current approach is long-term viable.

> I'm not sure the current approach is long-term viable.

If your long-term is long enough, you're guaranteed to be correct...

Putting that aside, even if you think your 'big change' is right and prudent and will Make Things Better, other people have their own plans. Now, unless you get rid of popular representation, you have legal hysteresis, and everyone's planning horizon lasts until the Next Big Change. Suddenly nobody's building nothing.

So you're left with a mess or an authoritarian government. Resistance to wild swings is actual conservatism at work, and is a very good thing.

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#138

Post by mustafa_pasi » Tue, May 25, 2021, 4:14 PM UTC

I find these property rights that go back centuries a bit dubious. How was the property obtained in the first place? There were no modern laws at the time and common people had much fewer rights and protections. If the property was not obtained through outright violence, it was obtained in an environment that very much discriminated against common people, and God knows how much fraud and deception occurred. It actually happened in my hometown a couple of years ago that some people produced a document from the 1500s entitling them to a huge expanse of land. Now at the time the land was conquered through war, and then that empire collapsed and another occupying empire took its place and that one also collapsed, and yet another foreign people came and went before independence was finally declared. The people who actually lived on this land were always the same people. But somehow they don't have the right to the property that they lived on for almost a millennium, because a bunch of foreigners stole it through violence a few centuries ago and then handed what wasn't theirs to other foreigners. And now these foreigners think they have a claim to this land because their great ancestor murdered thousands of local people and took it for himself. The whole thing is ridiculous.

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#139

Post by TheCoelacanth » Tue, May 25, 2021, 4:15 PM UTC

mytailorisrich wrote: post #45

ajdlinux wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the likelihood of the risk is small, but the potential damage bill could be financially catastrophic, I think it's perfectly rational to buy insurance if the premium is so low.

Sure. My point is that often the risk is not small, it's non-existent. When I bought my current house my solicitor suggested that the seller should pay for insurance cover for the fact that there was no planning paperwork for a small side extension. Of course I said OK and of course the seller also agreed. But that extension was even shown on the land registry plan and was obviously 20+ years old. Since planning brea…

How do you make sure that the possibility is actually non-existent?

If it's only a small one-time payment, then it probably makes sense to pay someone that much just for doing the work to verify that it's not going to happen.

Re: Italian seaside residents hit with bygone feudal tax

#140

Post by PicassoCTs » Tue, May 25, 2021, 4:15 PM UTC

rini17 wrote: post #117

Consider yourself lucky that you can reliably trace land ownership for centuries. Eastern Europe went through multiple upheavals in last 100 years and every time the wheel of history turned, quite a lot of land was dispossessed/repossessed by law. In Slovakia we basically ended up with two versions of land registry (called register "C" and "E") and the ongoing effort to reconcile them. Many properties are said to be…

In east germany, there are strange constellations, were someone might own the ground, but not the house upon it and vice versa. Some pieces of land were bought, before the original "owning" aristocrats descendants laid claim to them.

In west germany, there were, originally very small, medieval fields, so a "Flurbereinigung" happened several times. This led to larger fields to work on, but below, some of them still are patchwork, paid yearly for, some only leaseholds from the church, some even still paid in natural products (deputats -> m^3 wood, grain, sugar) as per contract.

Some parts of lands have owners, but due to the exponential nature of "Erbengemeinschaften" (community of heirs), the land is splitting up more with each generation of inheritance and some of the heirs do not want to lay claim to the ever smaller pieces of land in the middle of nowhere, due to the juristic costs. Which in the long run leads to atomized "unclaimed" land.

Also the church runs alot of old folks homes, and thus persuades old people to transfer there land to the church, so in some towns, half the houses are owned by the catholic church, the children renting there parents home from them. Strange constellations.