This idea that peasants had it better because there were more “holidays” (which were feast days for specfic groups and religious holidays, mass was not optional) is asinine. There are good reasons they had a shorter expected lifespan.
The peasantry worked fewer hours because of the nature of production. Capitalist commodity production seeks to maximize profits, and does so by ensuring wages are regulated by cost of subsistence and replacement. Feudalism operated differently, peasants worked for themselves and produced essentially rent for their feudal lords, and thus did not have maximized working hours.
Question 8 : In what way does the proletarian differ from the serf?
Answer : The serf enjoys the possession and use of an instrument of production, a piece of land, in exchange for which he hands over a part of his product or performs labour. The proletarian works with the instruments of production of another for the account of this other, in exchange for a part of the product. The serf gives up, the proletarian receives. The serf has an assured existence, the proletarian has not. The serf is outside competition, the proletarian is in it. The serf frees himself either by running away to the town and there becoming a handicraftsman or by giving his landlord money instead of labour and products, thereby becoming a free tenant; or by driving his feudal lord away and himself becoming a proprietor, in short, by entering in one way or another into the owning class and into competition. The proletarian frees himself by abolishing competition, private property and all class differences.
-The Principles of Communism
This isn’t to say the serfs had it materially better, but that their mode of production was different. Their low level of technological development stood in the way of great progress, and we cannot return back to such a model, but instead should progress onward to Socialism now that Capitalism has largely run its course and centralized most modern industries for central planning and public ownership.
Marxism is useful for understanding this phenomena, I made an intro to Marxism reading list if any of you are interested.
There’s a staunch libertarian view on Lemmy, wherein people will advocate for personal liberty ahead of technological progress. The Country Mouse has it better than the City Mouse, because he can own a gun and drive a big truck and smoke weed without the neighbors ratting him out to the cops. The lack of basic amenities - subways and school systems and high speed internet and big medical centers - is worth the increased personal autonomy.
The “Serfs had it better” trope takes this to its logical conclusion. Rolling back the technological frontier 500 years is worth it, because the surveillance/police state and the corporate oligopoly even on the fringe of society is seriously that bad.
I don’t agree. But I can’t really argue against it. This is just a personal preference. Its not any kind of objective truth.
The idea that medieval peasants somehow had more free time than the average modern american still is absolute bullshit as far as I’m aware. Unless “necessary preparations for survival” count as free time just because it’s not contracted work (it doesn’t that’s not what free time means).
The idea that medieval peasants somehow had more free time than the average modern american still is absolute bullshit
Paleontologists will tell you otherwise. One reason you had all those giant cathedrals going up in the Medieval Era stemmed from the enormous excess labor just wasting around in between harvest seasons.
Agricultural surplus creates free time. It’s the whole reason why people opt for farming over hunter gathering.
I’m old enough that my grandpa in 1930’s was living not much different than a serf and was constantly malnourished, and it was in one of most fertile parts of Poland, country famous for its fertile fields (it’s even in name, Poland means “Land of the fields/farmlands”). And that was 70 years after serfdom was abolished, because before that it was one huge horror story and literal slavery.
In short: peasants did not had it good.
