It's polyworking now, get with the times!
this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2024
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Marx's analysis of Capitalism and predictions of where it heads are proven more correct with the passage of time. The reason the Proletarian is exploited to a greater degree than the serf is due to the nature of commodity production. As the M-C-M' circuit, whereby M is an initial sum of money, C the commodity produced with M, and M' the greater sum of money after selling said commodity is the basis of Capitalist production, said process is incentivized to be maximized. In Feudalism, rent is extracted and the rest kept for subsistence, in Capitalism wages are set by cost of continued existence and replacement, moving up or down mostly by societal norms.
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
The serfs did not have it better, of course. However, the nature of their production was limited to the low technological development of the time. With mass factories Capitalism was transitioned to, and now with complex development of production in the hands of massive, monopolist syndicates and cartels, we can move beyond Capitalism to Socialized prodiction, central planning and public ownership, far easier than ever before.
I highly recommend those interested to check out my Introductory Reading List on Marxism.
We don't even get gruel, just Krusty brand imitation gruel. 9 out of 10 orphans can't tell the difference.
I live for that imitation gruel. It's what keeps me going with producing Gucci wallets for the streets of Hong Kong.
We better at least get off for a national dictator day out of this whole debacle.
I could do a trump day celebration. I'll paint my face orange and cuss out my family. Win win win.
Just banks and federal employees.
You will of course be required to be in the office that day.
Well hopefully Susan will bring in some dictator shaped cupcakes at least.
Nah, it would be more like Dictator Beatings.
More dysentery also.. like a LOT more dysentery. So much so that people open believed your soul exists in your lower abdomen because when you feel pain there you sie shortly after.
Wow that's a lot of dysentery.
Sorry your point lacks proper context based on reality.
That's really a western Europe thing and American thing. Even then no where near as much as you're suggesting, not for the last 10k years or so at least. Beer/wine taking over and replacing water drinking unironically eliminated most of that, and in other cultures sanitation prevented it. English serfs had a lot of dysentery though, since they were too stupid to use Roman infrastructure.
You don't know how bad peasants actually had it.
I usually take these post less as 'look how great peasants had it' and more 'look how much better we could have it'.
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.
It's always funny when these dense contrarians completely bowl over the point of the person they replied to and respond to a non-sequitur showing that they're uninterested in anything resembling a conversation.
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.
^ exactly what he said
EPA and revitalize auto industry is obviously a conflict of interest.
I don't think that peasant economy was exploitative in the same way capitalism is. Peasants were largely farmers who grew food and provided the landowner with a percentage of their crop. They were integral to human survival and as far as I know the percentage taken by landowners was not comparable to the wealth extracted from workers today.
Ah, the good old days of serfdom when peasants were tied to the land/manor and its Lord in a slave-like state.
You see some wild shit on Lemmy apparently.
Now we are tied to corporations and state as slave-likes
Almost. We are proletarians working under late-stage Capitalism, where markets have largely coalesced into monopolist syndicates and cartels, and competition is rapidly dying out. The conditions are ripe for siezure, public ownership, and central planning, ie Socialism.
You see wild shit on lemmy .world
To be fair, they aren't entirely out of range of reasonableness here.
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
We cannot simply pretend the serf and the proletarian share the same nature of exploitation, rather, Capitalism's unfettered thirst for growth drives further exploitation and misery despite producing abundance, while feudalism did not share the same thirst for absolute growth overall, as technology largely didn't allow for it until inventions in production that gave rise to the Proletariat and Bourgeoisie.
The serfs had it worse, but owned more of their production.