There were still classes back in the day, serfdom, slavery, guilds that had similar exploitation to wage labor. There was plenty of coercion to get labor done.
Jokes aside, coercion was always a thing, but naturalizing it as inevitable or even desirable stumps any kind of radical thought for a differenti way of things. The world is something we make, and we can make it differently
We can make it different, but it doesn’t mean that we’ll be able to abolish coercion entirely.
If instead of commodity production we moved past it, abolished current means of coercion (money) and instead pushed for planned economy that focuses on meeting everyone’s needs, there would still be a need for some pressure to fill all the needed positions to meet all the production quotas.
It’d still be kilometers better than “get any job so capitalist extracts money from you or starve”, and is radical but still coersive nonetheless.
That very much depends on when and where you look in history. Many people didn’t live that way at all and still lived in large communities and built things with the only coercion being the ties of community for hundreds to thousands of years.
Being a serf was apparently a lot less work and less miserable than you might think from pop culture. They worked for another, yes, but they also were looked after in return, and they didn’t have to work the whole year. They also could just leave if they wanted to find a new place to live, which was a lot easier then than it is now. It wasn’t the false choice of today where you work or starve.
Slavery, also, depended on the culture. In some cultures slaves were typically people who were captured or traded in compensation for a killing. But rather than be forced labor, they were treated as a sort of trial family member, and once the debt was seen as paid they would often be fully adopted as part of the community.
I recommend a book by David Graeber and David Wengrow called The Dawn of Everything, if you’re interested in this sort of thing. It challenges the foundations of what we assume history was like using historical evidence, then reimagines foggy parts and builds an at least as probable image of the past in it’s place.
They (serfs) also could just leave if they wanted to find a new place to live, which was a lot easier then than it is now. It wasn’t the false choice of today where you work or starve.
That’s literally false - serfs were legally tied to their land and lord, and the only way out was if they were either let go or escaped to some town offering freedom. This obligation was hereditary too, and getting your own land/home was pretty much impossible given how ingrained in aristocrat culture owning land was, with the sale of land being a great dishonor on your lineage and family.
Are we literally falsifying feudalism now, is that what’s happening
There were still classes back in the day, serfdom, slavery, guilds that had similar exploitation to wage labor. There was plenty of coercion to get labor done.
Yeah, the famous neolithic serfs.
Jokes aside, coercion was always a thing, but naturalizing it as inevitable or even desirable stumps any kind of radical thought for a differenti way of things. The world is something we make, and we can make it differently
We can make it different, but it doesn’t mean that we’ll be able to abolish coercion entirely.
If instead of commodity production we moved past it, abolished current means of coercion (money) and instead pushed for planned economy that focuses on meeting everyone’s needs, there would still be a need for some pressure to fill all the needed positions to meet all the production quotas.
It’d still be kilometers better than “get any job so capitalist extracts money from you or starve”, and is radical but still coersive nonetheless.
That very much depends on when and where you look in history. Many people didn’t live that way at all and still lived in large communities and built things with the only coercion being the ties of community for hundreds to thousands of years.
Being a serf was apparently a lot less work and less miserable than you might think from pop culture. They worked for another, yes, but they also were looked after in return, and they didn’t have to work the whole year. They also could just leave if they wanted to find a new place to live, which was a lot easier then than it is now. It wasn’t the false choice of today where you work or starve.
Slavery, also, depended on the culture. In some cultures slaves were typically people who were captured or traded in compensation for a killing. But rather than be forced labor, they were treated as a sort of trial family member, and once the debt was seen as paid they would often be fully adopted as part of the community.
I recommend a book by David Graeber and David Wengrow called The Dawn of Everything, if you’re interested in this sort of thing. It challenges the foundations of what we assume history was like using historical evidence, then reimagines foggy parts and builds an at least as probable image of the past in it’s place.
Weren’t serfs basically tied to the land? They jad to get permission from the lord to go anywhere
That’s literally false - serfs were legally tied to their land and lord, and the only way out was if they were either let go or escaped to some town offering freedom. This obligation was hereditary too, and getting your own land/home was pretty much impossible given how ingrained in aristocrat culture owning land was, with the sale of land being a great dishonor on your lineage and family.
Are we literally falsifying feudalism now, is that what’s happening
That varied by country and a lot of places either never had serfdom or it only lasted a short time.