Article

2009-07-22 Europe

14th century European attitudes about peasants versus today

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Posted by gromky 2009-07-22 00:00|| || Front Page|| [4 views ] Top

#1 Just for one comment, The Black Plague was said to have killed so many people in Europe, about a third, that the remaining folks had more land to use--which was prepared--and could command higher wages.
So maybe you should rethink this.
Peasant revolts were, afaik, a matter of sheer desperation but localized, since the circumstances varied locally, and communications were limited.
Still, an old bit of doggerel:
"When Adam dolve and Eve span,
Who was then a gentleman?"
The folks who recited that had something in mind.

Posted by Richard Aubrey">Richard Aubrey 2009-07-22 06:45|| 2009-07-22 06:45|| Front Page Top

#2 This distinction between the noble classes and the peasants still exists, and is what I call the "Old Europe disease".

Its basis goes way back to the time of the Romans and Roman law. This remained the legal system of the rather ineffectual Holy Roman Empire until its reformation by Bonaparte as the Napoleonic law. Today it dominates international law as the French Code Civil.

During the colonial period, it also migrated to central and South America and the French dominated colonies, and is today responsible for most of their endless political problems, with the wealthy upper classes and the peasantry, punctuated by the lowest order of communist rejection of that structure.

It is night and day with the Common law, whose roots began with the Germanic tribes, and migrated to England and thence to America. It is inherently far more egalitarian, and at least tries to provide the same rules for the wealthy and the poor.

However, they are right that the self-appointed American "elites" admire and want to embrace the Code Civil, and openly despise the American Common law based legal code.

They, like their European counterparts, cannot enjoy their champagne and caviar, unless they can look out the windows of whatever palace, and see it surrounded by starving and hateful peasants.

This is why major international economic conferences are held in cities where unruly mobs fighting police are guaranteed, instead of in isolated castles out in the hinterland. It is also where "Eurotrash" tourist destinations are fenced enclaves surrounded by literally starving people, like Acapulco.

And it is why bandits like Chavez, who are supposedly populists, become dictators and think themselves nobility as soon as they can. Old Europe disease.

Posted by Anonymoose 2009-07-22 10:13|| 2009-07-22 10:13|| Front Page Top

#3 The plague drastically reduced the numbers of people who were workers and producing the wealth.
We don't have these...yet. Modern medicine and modern agriculture have held them off.

Wait till health care is rationed and the borders controlled, reducing illegal immigration.

Posted by Lumpy Elmoluck5091 2009-07-22 10:45|| 2009-07-22 10:45|| Front Page Top

#4 As Solomon said, "there is nothing new under the sun":
President Obama's "science czar," Paul Holdren, once floated the idea of forced abortions, "compulsory sterilization," and the creation of a "Planetary Regime" that would oversee human population levels and control all natural resources as a means of protecting the planet -- controversial ideas his critics say should have been brought up in his Senate confirmation hearings....The 1,000-page course book, which was co-written with environmental activists Paul and Anne Ehrlich, discusses and in one passage seems to advocate totalitarian measures to curb population growth, which it says could cause an environmental catastrophe.

The three authors summarize their guiding principle in a single sentence: "To provide a high quality of life for all, there must be fewer people."

As first reported by FrontPage Magazine, Holdren and his co-authors spend a portion of the book discussing possible government programs that could be used to lower birth rates.

Those plans include forcing single women to abort their babies or put them up for adoption; implanting sterilizing capsules in people when they reach puberty; and spiking water reserves and staple foods with a chemical that would make people sterile.

To help achieve those goals, they formulate a "world government scheme" they call the Planetary Regime, which would administer the world's resources and human growth, and they discuss the development of an "armed international organization, a global analogue of a police force" to which nations would surrender part of their sovereignty.

Posted by Lumpy Elmoluck5091 2009-07-22 11:11|| 2009-07-22 11:11|| Front Page Top

#5 The Constitution expressly forbids the granting of titles of nobility. That must have seemed like a good idea at the time, but with all these "czars" running around and with Congresscritters holding office for decades, I've begun to think the people would be better served if we just went the whole hog and used European titles for our lords and masters in Washington. At least the pretense would be gone and we could have some fun naming them:

The Duke of Chappaquiddick
The Viscountess Pelosi
etc.

Posted by Matt 2009-07-22 12:46|| 2009-07-22 12:46|| Front Page Top

#6 I've begun to think the people would be better served if we just went the whole hog and used European titles..

The reason the title Caesar came into use was because the Roman culture couldn't accept reusing the older Etruscan title for king. King was an anathema to nearly all Romans. So, by events and evolution the name of Caesar would become its substitute. Just as we today have people who sit for life and are unaccountable to the people yet issue decrees that do not match the words of our own Constitution. We call them federal judges.

Posted by Procopius2k 2009-07-22 13:39|| 2009-07-22 13:39|| Front Page Top

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Posted by Redneck Jim 2009-07-22 14:31|| 2009-07-22 14:31|| Front Page Top

Redneck Jim, don't go there at Rantburg. Capiche???

One warning.

LAST warning, Jim. I'm tired of the nonsense. Stop the bullshit or find another blog. AoS.

Posted by lotp 2009-07-22 15:07|| 2009-07-22 15:07|| Front Page Top

#9 As an interesting parallel to this story, consider the feudal condition of serfdom, where the serf was freeborn but was indentured to the land as a condition of tenancy/use of the land. A step up from slavery, it had restrictions and conditions that limited rights and effectively tied the serf to the land. The fealty due to the leigelord required taxes through actual cash (rare) or a percentage of the crops and other produce of the land. The standard varied, but generally approximated ONE THIRD of the years production of the land and labor.
In other words, the taxed classes in America, roughly 60% of the population, and more particularly the upper 20-25% of taxpayers, are more severely taxed than serfs from the early Middle Ages!
Nothing could be more proof of the frog in the pot on the stove analogy than the sad plight of the American taxpayer, whose upper end tax burden now is TWICE that of a serf, witness to the rise in taxation and size of government from 1917 to today.
This level of theft by force of law is unsustainable.... it is the stuff of revolution and the collapse of public confidence in those who govern them. We have developed a ruling class in America, and they increasingly are coastal, progressive, and deaf to our National culture, character and ideals.

Posted by NoMoreBS">NoMoreBS 2009-07-22 18:34|| 2009-07-22 18:34|| Front Page Top

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