I don't think my human happiness would be particularly improved by being a peasant whose life consists of either grueling physical labor or doing shit with people that I better hope I like because if I don't too fuckin' bad I'm stuck in this one village of like 30 people for the rest of my life. Better hope I don't commit any social sins or in general ostracize myself!
I feel like leftists really romanticize tightly-woven small communities and forget that they're usually awful prisons for anyone stuck in the midst of them who doesn't fit in.
It's not so much that, it's that feudal life is hard work and oppressive in a different way. Capitalism relieved thos issues while adding many of its own.
Anyone who's got an idea of what farmwork takes knows when you do need to work it's backbreaking and you do it or you starve. The work is less consistent but still pretty hard and in hard times survival can be a lot more difficult than urban work or artisanship.
Remember, the landowners Mao killed were mostly Feudal, not capitalist.
I'm well aware that the idea is inaccurate, but that doesn't mean it wasn't still shit. It just wasn't parody-level awful.
And yes, capitalism was a liberation for the bourgeoisie, but that doesn't mean it didn't also put the working class into a better position. It was a secondary effect of the material conditions that allowed capitalism to arise.
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I don't think my human happiness would be particularly improved by being a peasant whose life consists of either grueling physical labor or doing shit with people that I better hope I like because if I don't too fuckin' bad I'm stuck in this one village of like 30 people for the rest of my life. Better hope I don't commit any social sins or in general ostracize myself!
I feel like leftists really romanticize tightly-woven small communities and forget that they're usually awful prisons for anyone stuck in the midst of them who doesn't fit in.
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It's not so much that, it's that feudal life is hard work and oppressive in a different way. Capitalism relieved thos issues while adding many of its own.
Anyone who's got an idea of what farmwork takes knows when you do need to work it's backbreaking and you do it or you starve. The work is less consistent but still pretty hard and in hard times survival can be a lot more difficult than urban work or artisanship.
Remember, the landowners Mao killed were mostly Feudal, not capitalist.
I'm well aware that the idea is inaccurate, but that doesn't mean it wasn't still shit. It just wasn't parody-level awful.
And yes, capitalism was a liberation for the bourgeoisie, but that doesn't mean it didn't also put the working class into a better position. It was a secondary effect of the material conditions that allowed capitalism to arise.
ok but I usually do