Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/medieval-peasant-only-work...
Wtf? Ok I guess so. I would have never guessed.
Its a favorite among degrowthers and those who romanticise life in primitive societies
Life, work, death and the peasant: Rent and extraction
101–110 of 200 posts
Re: Life, work, death and the peasant: Rent and extraction
#102When 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.
Until the industrial revolution, 80% of people worked the land.
Re: Life, work, death and the peasant: Rent and extraction
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
This analysis is highly muddled. "making things equal" != democracy. Capitalism can both create and break hierarchies. The concepts of democracy and capitalism have a far greater reach than the current US political climate where both are malfunctioning. The US is a superpower attempting to become a third world country and corruption and incompetence are a great way to reach that goal.
There's no other way to have a true democracy than to make things as equal as possible. As soon as you allow any level of inequality to exist, the power differentials caused by it will be used to increase the power differential and inequality even more, and over a long period of time you'll end up with a dictatorship. Once you have extreme concentration of power, it's only a matter of time until someone that should n…
Nothing has been as effective at dispersing and diffusing power than Liberal democracy.
Re: Life, work, death and the peasant: Rent and extraction
#104This series will really make you examine social hierarchies, including the ones that exist today. They are no accident.
Today'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.
I don't think we can. I think video game worlds (especially MMOs) have somewhat similar structures appear, where there's a portion of people that seem to become rich.
Re: Life, work, death and the peasant: Rent and extraction
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Japan seems to get at least the real estate stuff right. No nationalization needed when houses aren't worth investing in. Also, give people something else worth investing into. Make laws that move all the incentive out of the housing market and into something that helps in the long run. Energy, research, etc.
Japan has relatively cheaper real estate because of their lax zoning laws and frequent earthquakes drive the long term value of construction down. Everywhere else in Asia with similar laws people do pour their savings into real estate. It dosen't really have anything to do with what you are saying because the Nikkei underperformed relative to FTSE or S&P 500.
Better laws/incentives could still pull people out of the housing market.
Re: Life, work, death and the peasant: Rent and extraction
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
This analysis is highly muddled. "making things equal" != democracy. Capitalism can both create and break hierarchies. The concepts of democracy and capitalism have a far greater reach than the current US political climate where both are malfunctioning. The US is a superpower attempting to become a third world country and corruption and incompetence are a great way to reach that goal.
There's no other way to have a true democracy than to make things as equal as possible. As soon as you allow any level of inequality to exist, the power differentials caused by it will be used to increase the power differential and inequality even more, and over a long period of time you'll end up with a dictatorship. Once you have extreme concentration of power, it's only a matter of time until someone that should n…
What if a true democracy is not a worthy goal? What if some people should have more or less say in something.
Should someone unrelated and likely non-impacted by a thing have as strong a voice in that thing?
Should someone non-knowledgeable have an equal say to someone experienced? Is that fair?
If A knows 2+2=4 and B says it is five, we don't average votes and call it 4.5. And if a large debate happens and B convinces enough people that for very large values of 2, the answer is five, democracy says the answer is 5. How do you protect against this outcome in a pure democracy?
Re: Life, work, death and the peasant: Rent and extraction
#107This series will really make you examine social hierarchies, including the ones that exist today. They are no accident.
You realize pretty quickly that hierarchies (then and now) are often deliberately constructed to funnel surplus upward, not just accidentally emergent
I disagree, though only slightly:
I would say that it's rare that a hierarchy is deliberately constructed to funnel surplus upward.
Rather, many hierarchies emerge organically, but those at the top seek to eliminate any that do not funnel surplus upward.
It's less a process of deliberate construction, and more a process of deliberate curation. Something like cultural bonsai.
Re: Life, work, death and the peasant: Rent and extraction
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Today'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.
Japan seems to get at least the real estate stuff right. No nationalization needed when houses aren't worth investing in. Also, give people something else worth investing into. Make laws that move all the incentive out of the housing market and into something that helps in the long run. Energy, research, etc.
Japan also has less social mobility - it’s a great country but it’s no paradise.
Homes get torn down all the time because they aren’t worth anything - not exactly environmentally friendly.
Even in America today you have plenty of things worth investing in that don’t have to be homes if you can’t stomach the initial investment. Idk what you envision about replacing investment in homes with “research” though certainly curious to learn more about what you envision.
Re: Life, work, death and the peasant: Rent and extraction
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
This analysis is highly muddled. "making things equal" != democracy. Capitalism can both create and break hierarchies. The concepts of democracy and capitalism have a far greater reach than the current US political climate where both are malfunctioning. The US is a superpower attempting to become a third world country and corruption and incompetence are a great way to reach that goal.
There's no other way to have a true democracy than to make things as equal as possible. As soon as you allow any level of inequality to exist, the power differentials caused by it will be used to increase the power differential and inequality even more, and over a long period of time you'll end up with a dictatorship. Once you have extreme concentration of power, it's only a matter of time until someone that should n…
>There's no other way to have a true democracy than to make things as equal as possible.
Only if by that you mean equal opportunities for everyone.
But if you mean equal outcomes, then you're guaranteed to get USSR/Cuba/Venezuela poverty, famines and shortages, and even there that didn't fix the issue of the elites being super wealthy, it just made everyone else equally poor.
People will never end up equal no matter how many thumbs the government puts on the scale, that actually makes it so much worse.
Re: Life, work, death and the peasant: Rent and extraction
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