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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: January 15th, 2024

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  • In the medieval book, The Aristocracy in the County of Champagne, 1100-1300 (2007), Theodore Evergates dedicates an entire section to ‘The Market in Fiefs’

    So… where were the medieval capitalists? O.o

    The serfs left the farm because for all its hardships, it was better. They could have gone back but didn’t.

    Nope, the enclosure of the commons prohibited the serfs to come back. If living conditions were so much better in the proletariat, the conditions wouldn’t have led to several revolutions.


  • I fail to see a distinction between a Lord owning a farm with a mill that produced flour and a capitalist owning a factory that produces flour.

    The difference is that a feudal lord didn’t sell the flour for profit which he invested to buy more farmland (that’s the M -> C -> M' process Marx explains in “das Kapital”). You couldn’t buy land in feudal times.

    Nor do I agree with Engels that serfs had it better because it was in their Lord’s interests. If that was the case then a Capitalist would treat it’s workers better as well.

    You don’t need to agree with Engels. The industrial revolution lead to a stark, tangible decrease in living conditions for the proletariat/former serfs. That’s just a historical fact.