So what the data said was 3.79% landlords and ~3 percent rich peasants. The rest was divided among middle and low farmers.
We have an idea about what private assets are from our experience within capitalism, but in an agrarian economy land is pretty much the only private asset. Most basic things, soap, clothes, food, among others are done within the home. The creation of more complex goods, iron tools, carriages, barrels, pottery, are done by artisans, and while I don't know a lot about this I'd wager that their situation is pretty distinct from our modern idea of a small business owner.
My understanding is that in agrarian economies the ruling class generally lets the village run itself and then just comes in once in a while to take the goodies, execute a few people just because, whatever.
What this data is really saying, afaik, is that those whose work/life is inextricably linked with the means are about 3.79%. Like, someone might invest in a single apartment for rent or invest in a variety of stocks but they are still mostly experiencing life as an accountant, clerk, nurse, or whatever. Business owners, landlords, executives, shareholders/investors/venturecapitalists/speculators, are the ones in our current society who fall under the status most similar to the agrarian landlord. If we were to do a revolution those are the people who are in danger of getting the chop.
The existence of the petit bourgeoisie (to account for the more complex relationship between exploiter and exploited) does expand who is incentivized materially to keep the current system. However, I'd wager that those whose livelyhood is entirely rooted in the positive act of exploitation rather than the negative act of working to maintain it is pretty similar.
Sorry about the readability of that last bit.
Edit: this source says that there are 760,000 business owners in the USA https://www.zippia.com/business-owner-jobs/demographics/
this source says that only 6m of the 31m total US businesses employ workers https://smallbiztrends.com/small-business-statistics
that's just landlords too, if we consider allllll the other types of private assets, it's probably like 3-4x as much I'd guess
So what the data said was 3.79% landlords and ~3 percent rich peasants. The rest was divided among middle and low farmers.
We have an idea about what private assets are from our experience within capitalism, but in an agrarian economy land is pretty much the only private asset. Most basic things, soap, clothes, food, among others are done within the home. The creation of more complex goods, iron tools, carriages, barrels, pottery, are done by artisans, and while I don't know a lot about this I'd wager that their situation is pretty distinct from our modern idea of a small business owner.
My understanding is that in agrarian economies the ruling class generally lets the village run itself and then just comes in once in a while to take the goodies, execute a few people just because, whatever.
What this data is really saying, afaik, is that those whose work/life is inextricably linked with the means are about 3.79%. Like, someone might invest in a single apartment for rent or invest in a variety of stocks but they are still mostly experiencing life as an accountant, clerk, nurse, or whatever. Business owners, landlords, executives, shareholders/investors/venturecapitalists/speculators, are the ones in our current society who fall under the status most similar to the agrarian landlord. If we were to do a revolution those are the people who are in danger of getting the chop.
The existence of the petit bourgeoisie (to account for the more complex relationship between exploiter and exploited) does expand who is incentivized materially to keep the current system. However, I'd wager that those whose livelyhood is entirely rooted in the positive act of exploitation rather than the negative act of working to maintain it is pretty similar.
Sorry about the readability of that last bit.
Edit: this source says that there are 760,000 business owners in the USA https://www.zippia.com/business-owner-jobs/demographics/
this source says that only 6m of the 31m total US businesses employ workers https://smallbiztrends.com/small-business-statistics
3.79% of 328m is ~12.4m