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Anon has a wholesome thought
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2025
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Do you own your own house?
No? Then no matter what petit bourgeois toys and little luxuries you have, you're still not doing that good.
EDIT: I'm halfing up? on this. Fine, the serf didn't own his house. your fucking parents and your grandparents did. so should you. Things are getting worse economically, and no amount of phones can change that.
How many owned their own land through history?
I know very little about how things were handled pre-medival, but its my understanding that serfdom (where you were attached to a piece of land and obligated to work it) was the norm for the vast majority of common people.
That's accurate to what serfdom was but it was an evolution of pre-medival slavery. Instead of being the personal property of a king working the fields on the kings owned land, it was about being the personal property of the crown, the state, the system (owned by the king.)
A slave could earn their freedom, be set free, or even kill their master and be free. A lot of slaves in antiquity had a tendency to overthrow kingdoms.
A serf though, was never meant to be free. Except, maybe, by another, foreign nation state. And now you know the basis of most European medieval war history.
Don't suppose you know any places that are good to go read up on this?
Places? At risk of sounding glib, your local library. It's such a wide and broad topic you can read up on pretty much any country or regions history and get a picture of how it developed.
Now for the specific topic of economic and labor systems? Honestly I think I would venture to say start with critiques of F.A. Hayek since what I was referring to was the development of the centrally planned nation state.
Hayek's influential work is definitely geared towards a Cold War era audience which is why I suggest critiques. Disentangling central planning from political ideology can be a valuable tool.
I suppose by places I meant like websites and/or resources (my word choice had room for improvement upon reflection).
And specifically looking for things regarding "what was serfdom really like".
So in that regard just be aware that serfdom is a really broad category that embodies the labor system that existed under fuedal societies. For example, one of the longest lasting systems of serfdom existed in the Russian Empire until the 1860s. The serfs of England revolted in the Elizabethan era and a system of tenant rent was implemented. So there are centuries long gaps in what serfdom was like depending on where you're looking. Material conditions for the 14th century peasant and the 19th century vary widely, but do have common structure and function.
Tolstoy and Dostoevsky wrote extensive literature of Russian serfdom, and worth a read. Although, well, its Tolstoy ans Dostoevsky. I have barely read either, for context.