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I see a pattern post feudalism in which common people were paid wages for their hard work and enterprise and some were able to achieve greater wealth than the nobility. The rest improved their economic situation affording opportunities previously denied them. It is called capitalism. At present no other system is poised to replace it.
They had to sell their labor power in the first place because the rise of capitalism destroyed their way of life, forced them off their small farms, crushed their ability to self-provide through their own home industries, their own artisanship or craftswork. They had no choice but to go into the factories where they made a fraction of what they used to make on their own, and had to work many, many more hours to get even that.
And I just gave you stats to disprove your theory that “the rest improved their economic situation affording opportunities previously denied them.” No. They were far worse off than they were prior to the rise of capitalism, and in bad times, in much more dangerous straits. Now, they no longer can fall back on their own farms and small crafts. That’s almost all been destroyed by factory farms and mass production.
Did you know that more than 3 billion humans live on less than $2.00 a day around the world? Many tens of millions go to bed each night hungry, and several million die of starvation. Just 60 humans, worldwide, now hold as much wealth as the bottom 3.6 billion.
Seriously, how on earth can you continue to cheerlead for a system that produces such massive inequality, hunger, starvation, pollution and waste?
Wrong again. Feudalism drove people off the land and into the service of the nobility. When the Black Plague depopulated europe labor came at a premium and wages were paid for the first time. Specialization and the rise of guilds set the stage for capitalism with the onset of the industrial revolution.
My people were coal miners. If they weren’t then that was because they were forced into military service for the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Time and time again until they could pay their way here. In their lifetime they bettered their life here and four generations later their family has further bettered their lives. Capitalism can work.
Please provide links for your assertions. I’ve provided books that show you’re wrong.
Feudal relations allowed direct producers to control their own production, set their own prices, keep their earnings. They had to tithe a percentage to their overlords, but, unlike the (unprecedented) legal structure of capitalism (which followed feudalism), their production was not owned by others. For the first time, with the advent of capitalism, a producer’s work was owned from the getgo by a new kind of overlord, the capitalist boss. A true revolution would have done away with any kind — feudal lord or capitalist.
Small farmers were driven off their lands to set the stage for capitalist ascendancy. Google “enclosures,” which got their start in Britain, as did capitalism. The British state also help capitalism work its way toward dominance by doing away with centuries of traditional holidays for “peasants,” block them from hunting and fishing rights, and then allow mass production to crush the life out of the rest of home industries and self-provisioning.
Prior to capitalism, a family could make it on their own, decide how much time to spend on work and play. With capitalism, they were forced to give up their relative independence, and work far more hours, without those Feudal holidays.
Not saying Feudalism was good, by any means. It was terrible for many. But in many ways, average Joes and Janes had it better than they did with the rise of capitalism. And capitalism itself was “tamed” somewhat due to massive anticapitalist agitation, strikes, protests and the like, wherein average Joes and Janes were beaten or killed by capitalists and “the state.” They died so we could have tolerable working conditions, which capitalists never would have provided if they hadn’t been forced to.
You need to read — at least — The Invention of Capitalism and The Origin of Capitalism, as already listed. I have yet to see you post any references at all.
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