Date: May 29th, 2025 5:47 AM Author: Gold Up-to-no-good Haunted Graveyard
Have most large-scale agricultural civilizations over the last 5k years relegated the vast majority of their agricultural labor force /population to a state of semi-slavery enforced by an exploitative elite with a monopoly on violence?
Date: May 29th, 2025 5:51 AM Author: chocolate ungodly bbw crotch
Yes, it was terrible, it was the first form of mass-egalitarianism. All the old Tribal Clans were abolished & people were turned into landless serfs, the only exceptions were the Elite Warlord Clans that got to rule as Lords/Kings.
Date: May 29th, 2025 7:47 AM Author: chocolate ungodly bbw crotch
They were better because you had different tribal clans owning different regions, serfdom was a form of quasi-slavery, only the Kings/Lords had property rights.
i wish i could have sworn fealty to an employer like a serf to a feudal lord when i was younger. would have saved me a lot of pain cycling through shitty short-term jobs.
Serfs had tons of time off & feast days. It wasn't as bad as most people think. They didn't have running water or electricity, but neither did the rulers.
Date: July 16th, 2025 4:01 AM Author: bearded big house
really depended on the country, the region, and the lord
removing technology from the equation it could range from far more harmonious than what we have today to utterly hellish. the general trend towards centralization of power from the early middle ages and on and the rise of the professional state theoretically ensures a general better standard of living for a subject on average, or at the very least a set "floor" for QoL, but ends up removing a lot to do with the nuances of power relations and enduring senses of community in the process
Most societies were nomadic. Home sapiens only became a settled species during the most recent 5% of our time on earth. There's absolutely nothing normal (or even good) about anything we do today, unless your goal is simply to put more people on the earth's surface
Date: April 23rd, 2026 7:17 PM Author: khaki motley windowlicker
"Before capitalism, most people did not work very long hours at all. The tempo of life was slow, even leisurely; the pace of work relaxed. Our ancestors may not have been rich, but they had an abundance of leisure. When capitalism raised their incomes, it also took away their time."
The feudal sentiment par excellence is the sentiment of the value and dignity of the individual man. The feudal man lived as a free man; he was master in his own house; he sought his end in himself; he was (and this is a scholastic expression) propter seipsum existens: all feudal obligations were founded upon respect for personality and the given word.