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Some people have no business voting
This is not an attack on the precived stupid or poor.
It is an attack on this insane notion, that once every 4 years people who don't care and have no idea about politics get sweped up in one month of insanity. Suddenly everyone's an expert on policy decisions that took years to formulate and come to fruition.
Politicans pander but I can't even get new pandering because no one pays attention long enough
Tl:Dr Fascist
There's an interesting theory that low-information voters tend to cancel one another out. Can't find linkage to the theory, but maybe someone with more time and better Google-fu will source it.
Of course it's not ideal to have ill-informed voters, but the problems created by removing the vote from them are worse than letting them keep it.
I don't think democracy is an important part of a state's legitimacy, but if it was to be unfair and give some a vote that affects decisions made over everyone else, then that is a big problem.
It doesn't matter whether they are informed or not. Politicians never do what they say they're going to do and do things they never mentioned in the first place.
The talk about low-information voters is a red herring.
Watch Watter's world or one of those shows. The low-information people are the best. The "high-information" people can string together enough names and talking points that they think they know what they are talking about.
There are hardly any experts on the specific policy areas, and no one is an expert on the whole range of fields that come into play in a single debate. That's why after a debate everyone talks about "scoring it like a boxing match" and "who seemed more likable".
watters world is just like those "Americans R Dumb at geography" videos on the you tubes.
You can't ask a coherent question, much less answer one in the time alloted in the debates
You can't limit the franchise to the point where just the people who really understand the issues can vote...there aren't enough of them to fill congress.
The purpose of the popular vote can't be about the people making use of their expertise. They don't have it and they shouldn't have to have it. If we restrict the franchise it shouldn't be with the goal of getting more expert voters but with getting voters less likely to be greedy, ideological, naive, partisan etc. Filter for character not for IQ or "high-information" or "civics knowledge". I don't see how that could be done though. Raising the age could help a bit.
Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro:
I disagree, the inverse would most likely be better. As the saying goes, it is hard for an old dog to learn new tricks. The older population are usually rigid and set in their ways, they do not like to move or adapt. They prefer to stick their feet in the ground over issues which are for the worse or continue to promote something because of an incident which 30-50 years ago, which now makes no rational sense.
I don't see how that could be done though. Raising the age could help a bit.
I know of a local headmaster around these parts who actively prefers recruiting Teachers straight from University over the old-agers. It is because lack of 'experience' doesn't outweigh the fact the new teachers are fully equipped with the latest methods, tools and knowledge whilst the older ones are usually equipped with older and inferior methods, unable to adapt and handle issues. Just as a side note, that school changed from an Ofsted of "satisfactory" to "outstanding", which is a massive difference, and the whole educational ethos has significantly changed for the better changing from a 'rough' school to one of 'quality' education in less of 5 years of the Headmaster taking over.
From a statistical point of view, citizens aged under the age of 30 are those which are most often not likely to vote, those who actively vote are in fact the people you want to cater for, the "old guard" generation. The reason is, there is much apathy with the younger populations mostly due to the lack of visible and viable change, it is the older generation which holds back the younger generation, attempting to snuff out the ideas which will form a far better society.
in the particular case of UK teaching i am not surprised, experience may very well be an acceptable trade-off to ensure teachers arrive without have been lobotimised by he NUT.
< son of a teacher
I fear a non-democratic apartheid police state more then terrorism.
Each country can chose how they want to run their nation. Take my vote in my country from myself or others and I would partake in the revolution.
The whole point of democracy is that the people have representation in government. If good governance is the goal, and voting rights get in the way of that goal, then we should just ditch democracy and go for something else.
I am willing to vote. Now, where do I get my Obamaphone?
Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube:
But we know that the people who are educated are not open minded. In the subcultures that are very pro education (universities) they are not enlightened voters. And why should everyone have to have expertise on economics, foreign policy, etc? We don't think everyone has to be fit enough and well trained enough to fight in the army. We don't think they should all be qualified as emergency medics.
Blaming the ignorant masses is only half of the equation. Why are they so ignorant? Because we have a culture and society that promotes it, from Jersey Shore to the ignorant travesty that was the republican primary debates. You want an enlightened electorate? Spend more on education, and teach your children to be open-minded and intellectual.
Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube:
We shouldn't have as democratic a society as that. The majority of people should be free from most civic burdens--free to enjoy their lives and have their families, to simply be prosperous. They are never going to want to be objective and wise, or to know all there is to know. Do you? Most of my interests lie elsewhere. I have a half read book on the financial crisis that I put down a year ago.
And that's the problem with our society. Nobody is willing to really take on their civic burden. If you aren't aspiring to know all there is to know, and to participate to the best of your abilities, you are nothing but a drain on the system and a waste of breath. For Democracy to work, everyone must want to be objective and wise.
Lofty? You bet. But anything less is not the real thing. It is the effort that counts, and effort is something lost on this society.
The civic burdens should be left to the right kind of upper class--not the elites like we have, who lack a sense that with their position comes responsibility--who simply cloister themselves in rich neighborhoods, or devote themselves to their pet causes. But we would need to be fundamentally different. I want to say more but I'm only part way through the book I got this bit from (puritan boston and quaker philadelphia--digby beltzell) so I'm not really sure what I think about it. But ideally an upper class competes within itself for the honor of doing the greatest things for their country, instead of going for wealth and celebrity.
I really liked your last sentence; this kind of thinking is indeed the first step on the fascist ladder.
If you feel other people are misinformed, it is in your own bloody interest to inform them. Take away their right to vote and suddenly you can see them as second class citizens with no repercussions. That their opinions matter just as much as yours is the cornerstone of democracy, and one of the fundamental reason why democracy is so succesful. It is in no way whatsoever a handicap or a fault in democracy.
And at any rate; your point is moot. The uneducated, poor and stupid don't vote anyway. Things like competence tests won't change a thing in voting, it will still be the same old people voting the exact same way they have done all their life. You will have change on fundamental thing though; your not-so democratic state will loose its credability as a state run "for the people, by the people". I don't have to be Nostradamus to predict massive civil unrest.
A bunch of dumb agents can outperform a couple of smart agents.
Intelligence is effected by the size of the network: quantity is a quality.
Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube:
We used to have more of an upper class.
Well, fortunately we are a Republic, so the point is moot as long as we are staying grounded in reality.
Originally Posted by :
Nobody is completely free of it, yes. But there is never going to be a nation of moral paragons. I don't believe we should try for such a society either, it's not really desirable. I think it's a dangerous idea--it sounds more like fascism than strike's post does. I'm not going to call people who don't dedicate themselves to politics a "waste of breath".
But, if we were to walk off the plank into some nice little fiction... Nobody is free of Civic Burden. Everyone has a role to play, whether it be something as small as conducting your business honestly and with integrity or something as grandiose as being a politician who cannot tell a lie! We are all capable of this, and it is our own fault for creating a society that enables people--nay, ENCOURAGES people to take the easy way out whenever possible.
That "sounds like fascism", but "a society ruled by an upper class competeting for the honour of doing the greatest deeds for the country" does not sound like fascism...?
You need an education, good Sir. That's textbook Mussolini, it's a direct copy of his words.
Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro:
I am not opposed to limiting the suuffrage, but cannot see any valid basis for the discrimination.
We used to have more of an upper class.
Nobody is completely free of it, yes. But there is never going to be a nation of moral paragons. I don't believe we should try for such a society either, it's not really desirable. I think it's a dangerous idea--it sounds more like fascism than strike's post does. I'm not going to call people who don't dedicate themselves to politics a "waste of breath".
Ignorance of political issues does NOT automatically mean an inability to select a person with good qualities as a leader or representative.
Intelligence, in and of itself, does not beget the wisdom to make a better choice of candidate.
Age, in an of itself, does not make an informed voter -- nore does experience.
So on what basis can you restrict the suffrage that will not do more harm than good? What basis of restriction would yield the opportunity for those disenfranchised to regain the suffrage by some reasonable means?
Should we deny the sufferage to any person who receives more in government subsidy, welfare, medicaid and the like than they pay in taxes?
Should we follow Heinlein's suggestion and require federal service to win the suffrage -- but deny it to those currently in federal service?
I fear Winston Churchill summed it up most accurately....
Originally Posted by HoreTore:
The British did well for a long time with a strong upper class.
That "sounds like fascism", but "a society ruled by an upper class competeting for the honour of doing the greatest deeds for the country" does not sound like fascism...?
Originally Posted by :
Great minds think alike.
You need an education, good Sir. That's textbook Mussolini, it's a direct copy of his words.
Originally Posted by seamus:
I can't think of a good one either, I'm not sure it's important anyway.
I am not opposed to limiting the suuffrage, but cannot see any valid basis for the discrimination.
Ignorance of political issues does NOT automatically mean an inability to select a person with good qualities as a leader or representative.
Intelligence, in and of itself, does not beget the wisdom to make a better choice of candidate.
Age, in an of itself, does not make an informed voter -- nore does experience.
So on what basis can you restrict the suffrage that will not do more harm than good? What basis of restriction would yield the opportunity for those disenfranchised to regain the suffrage by some reasonable means?
Should we deny the sufferage to any person who receives more in government subsidy, welfare, medicaid and the like than they pay in taxes?
Should we follow Heinlein's suggestion and require federal service to win the suffrage -- but deny it to those currently in federal service?
The elite in our country could be different however--the kind of people we vote for office.
We should do the opposite of the kind of petty insults the democrats have flung at Romney for his wealth and success.
Originally Posted by g-cube:
I thought you were saying something different, with the education and knowing all you can know stuff.
They don't have to dedicate themselves to politics, merely to being good people. How many times do I have to explain this? We should not expect everyone to be paragons of virtue, but we should expect them to try. People make mistakes. When good people make mistakes, they own up to them, ask for advice, and set themselves on a better course. How much of that do you see in America today?
Britain also had a strong social contract and a powerful yeoman class.
Helps if your peasants can skewer a Knight at 300 yards.
That british upper class was thoroughly corrupt and kept everyone else down in the drain. The debates among them were not about "how much should we give our workers", the debate was about "should we give our workers enough to live, or justless thanwhat they need to live longer than 10 more years?" The argument was that it was very beneficial for themselves, the ones who matter, if they only gave them enough money to live a decade or so. Adam Smith argued against that attitutde in Wealth of Nations.
And let's not forget Serfdom: the majority of Europeans were kept as slaves up until the 19th century. What a lovely society that is!
Anyway: it's sad to see how many of you self-declared "better than the rest of the lot"-people are against democracy. The name for your ideas remain the same as they always have, sasaki, and the name is fascism.
Wow - what a massive simplification. I'm not surprised as it backs up your preconceived ideas.
Most people just collect information that back up their own position and overlooking bits that don't. Best overlook how the UK was one of the more progressive countries with labour. Perfect? Nope.
There are even fewer persons who approach the situation without preconceived ideas.
~:smoking:
Originally Posted by rory_20_uk:
while he is over simplifying it the British Parliament WAS totally corrupt in the "Glory" days of the British Empire (1700's and early 1800's) - they were as he says only interested in maintaining the status quo and there are many accounts of them suppressing the people to do so (especially during and just after the Napoleonic wars)
Wow - what a massive simplification. I'm not surprised as it backs up your preconceived ideas.
Most people just collect information that back up their own position and overlooking bits that don't. Best overlook how the UK was one of the more progressive countries with labour. Perfect? Nope.
There are even fewer persons who approach the situation without preconceived ideas.
~:smoking:
this was before the Parliamentary reforms which gave the vote to the "uninformed masses" (ok not entirely all of them but to more of them - the reform of 1867 almost doubled the number of men who could vote from 1 in 5 to 2 in 5...) - quite on topic
Originally Posted by rory_20_uk:
I would suggest you read chapter 8 - "of the wages of labour" - of Wealth of Nations, as it gives an excellent insight into the debate on wages the upper classes engaged in. Unsurprisingly for a social democrat though, Adam Smith has a strong defense of higher wages.
Wow - what a massive simplification. I'm not surprised as it backs up your preconceived ideas.
Most people just collect information that back up their own position and overlooking bits that don't. Best overlook how the UK was one of the more progressive countries with labour. Perfect? Nope.
There are even fewer persons who approach the situation without preconceived ideas.
~:smoking:
The point wasn't about what the situation in England was, but rather how it would've looked if sasaki's ideas had been implemented. The upper classes did not rule England unopposed between 1600-1900, and so England wasn't a hellish place in that period. But that wasn't the doing of the upper classes, they wanted England turned into a hellhole.
Originally Posted by Lemur:
Intriguing theory, it probably holds more water in a duopoly than in a parliamentary system where a viable third (or more!) option exists.
There's an interesting theory that low-information voters tend to cancel one another out. Can't find linkage to the theory, but maybe someone with more time and better Google-fu will source it.
Originally Posted by rory_20_uk:
And here it is. The underlying problem of the entire enterprise.
Most people just collect information that back up their own position and overlooking bits that don't. Best overlook how the UK was one of the more progressive countries with labour. Perfect? Nope.
There are even fewer persons who approach the situation without preconceived ideas.
Originally Posted by HoreTore:
And not in britain...which really contradicts your argument...
And let's not forget Serfdom: the majority of Europeans were kept as slaves up until the 19th century. What a lovely society that is!
Originally Posted by :
Who said anything about ruling unapposed?
The point wasn't about what the situation in England was, but rather how it would've looked if sasaki's ideas had been implemented. The upper classes did not rule England unopposed between 1600-1900, and so England wasn't a hellish place in that period. But that wasn't the doing of the upper classes, they wanted England turned into a hellhole.
You have a prejudice against the british upper classes, that's obvious...
It should be clear from history that the people as a group can be corrupt and vicious as well.
Originally Posted by :
Nonsense. Britain was never a fascist country and neither was the US in the time period we are talking about. It has nothing to do with scorn for the people--the elites having scorn for the people is a natural outgrowth of democracy, as is the elites using the people as a weapon against their opponents among the elites.
Anyway: it's sad to see how many of you self-declared "better than the rest of the lot"-people are against democracy. The name for your ideas remain the same as they always have, sasaki, and the name is fascism.
There are always elites in a democratic country, the question is just which kind you want to have.
Fascism is little more than a rejuvenated feudal system.
Also, no serfdom in England? What?
Originally Posted by HoreTore:
What was said:
Also, no serfdom in England? What?Originally Posted by :
English serfdom died out before 1500. Hence sasaki's point: and not in Britain.
And let's not forget Serfdom: the majority of Europeans were kept as slaves up until the 19th century. What a lovely society that is!
Originally Posted by Greyblades:
Yes, they changed the name of it as well as some of the details, but things continued much the same for several more centuries in Britain too.
What was said:
English serfdom died out before 1500. Hence sasaki's point: and not in Britain.
And of course, the progressive changes from slavery to freedom in Europe was caused by the political involvment(in the form of revolts, mostly) of those sasaki proposes should have no say - and those he wants ruling the country fought tooth and nail to prevent people gaining freedom.
Fascism in a nutshell.
We owe our freedoms not to the efforts of the educated and superior, but to the blood shed by the ignorant and downtrodden.
That's really what they teach in norway?
Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro:
I'm starting to wonder what kind of school you went to, actually, if you honestly believe the tenure contracts from 16/1700-ish represent freedom in any way whatsoever. If you do, might I suggest you actually read a couple of them?
That's really what they teach in norway?
Yeoman and arrows = slightly before 18th century. I was comparing it to its nearest rivals. Also most revolutions have had a base that was more educated then their forefathers. The French Revolution relied on the printing press. Tunisia on Twitter.
Over the long term a country that has a wider net of equality out performs a country that has less equality.
Originally Posted by Papewaio:
It's surreal that this needs to be said, it should be completely obvious.
Over the long term a country that has a wider net of equality out performs a country that has less equality.
Also, is the declaration of human rights just toilet paper to backroomers? Or is it just relevant when someone we don't like breaks them, we have no obligation to follow them ourselves?
Originally Posted by HoreTore:
Maybe you need to read some more English history?
Yes, they changed the name of it as well as some of the details, but things continued much the same for several more centuries in Britain too.
And of course, the progressive changes from slavery to freedom in Europe was caused by the political involvment(in the form of revolts, mostly) of those sasaki proposes should have no say - and those he wants ruling the country fought tooth and nail to prevent people gaining freedom.
Fascism in a nutshell.
We owe our freedoms not to the efforts of the educated and superior, but to the blood shed by the ignorant and downtrodden.
Serfdom was on the way out by the 1340's, after the Plague. At the same time, there was increasingly freedom and literacy among the rural farming classes, and the urban population were essentially free because within the city it was the Guilds and the Burgesses that held power, not the King.
Even before that, English serfdom was not Russian serfdom, for starters they didn't work on feast days and saints days - take a look at a medieval liturgical calendar, the average English serf worked less than a modern wage-slave.
What's this rubbish about wanting to turn England into a "Hellhole"? More Marxist drivle - Marx was wrong, he read back the present into history rather than reading history to understand the present. I find the charactarisation of medieval Europe to be professionally offensive.
It was not that bad, life has never been that bad. It's a fantasy that people like to scare themselves with, as though medieval magnates were always violent, brutal sociopaths. Frankly, I think such historical fictions say more about the characters of the people who believe them than they do about the past or the present in general.
I thought the reasons why life was so bad had to do with lack of understanding of our environment. People's quality of life was impacted by disease far more then war or misrule.
Cities used to have a negative growth rate and required rural populations to sustain them.
Literacy plus improvements in medicine meant that people's focus could move from individual/small group survival to how to run the larger groups.
Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube:
Being a peasant in any pre-industrail civilization would have sucked major gonads to our modern sensibilities. Context of the serfs lot in society is FAR more important. Would the lot in life of a serf be worse than that of a freeman farmer or a burgher? Or, until the black death, was the loss of freedom of movement (and others) plus the requirement to work the lords lands for free worth it for the protections and benefits that came with serfdom.
So your answer to history you don't like is to dismiss it? By all accounts, life in medieval europe sucked.
Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla:
Marx correctly saw a pattern of subservience of the productive classes of society (medieval serfs and freemen, factory workers of his day, modern wage slaves and blue/white collar professionals) to the unproductive money classes (medieval feudal lords, factory owners of his day, modern CEO types). Now Marx being a product of the ugliest times of the industrial revolution could only see the dynamics of this relationship as being one of brutal domination and vulgar exploitation. When really the power dynamics were, and are, always in motion.
What's this rubbish about wanting to turn England into a "Hellhole"? More Marxist drivle - Marx was wrong, he read back the present into history rather than reading history to understand the present. I find the charactarisation of medieval Europe to be professionally offensive.
Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla:
And in 500 years some pinko minded rabble rouser will paint CEO's of today as all being brutal sociopaths.
It was not that bad, life has never been that bad. It's a fantasy that people like to scare themselves with, as though medieval magnates were always violent, brutal sociopaths. Frankly, I think such historical fictions say more about the characters of the people who believe them than they do about the past or the present in general.
Originally Posted by lars573:
Or you could save yourself the wait and just read Steve Jobs biography :smoking:
And in 500 years some pinko minded rabble rouser will paint CEO's of today as all being brutal sociopaths.
Originally Posted by Greyblades:
The relation between the British upper class and its servants are quite revealing far into Victorian ages though.
English serfdom died out before 1500. Hence sasaki's point: and not in Britain.
Originally Posted by lars573:
It's one of the few professions where having sociopathic traits are benfical...
And in 500 years some pinko minded rabble rouser will paint CEO's of today as all being brutal sociopaths.
Originally Posted by lars573:
I do put it into context. I don't compare a serf/tenants life to my modern life, rather I compare it to the lives of those in power back then, ie. the nobility. Which means their lives were crap.
Being a peasant in any pre-industrail civilization would have sucked major gonads to our modern sensibilities. Context of the serfs lot in society is FAR more important. Would the lot in life of a serf be worse than that of a freeman farmer or a burgher? Or, until the black death, was the loss of freedom of movement (and others) plus the requirement to work the lords lands for free worth it for the protections and benefits that came with serfdom.
Fortunately for us all, the serfs thought the same as I do and proved to be an unruly bunch which forced the powers that be into making concessions, making my own life a comfortable one.
Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube:
By all accounts?
So your answer to history you don't like is to dismiss it? By all accounts, life in medieval europe sucked.
Look me up GC - you'll find me on the University of Exeter's website under the Centre for Medieval Studies. Just because popular history says it sucked, doesn't mean it did.
I am utterly sick of this crap - the bald fact is that most of the things people "know" about the medieval period were invented during the Renaissance, like the frankly horrific slander that medieval scientists believed the world was flat.
Lars - Marx was wrong, because he, like you, assumed a static hierarchy and unchanging relationships. The serf may have been "owned" by the baron, but the baron was not equivilent to a 19th Century industrialist and in fact Marx actually compared the industrialist to the Guildmaster and the Proles to the Apprentices and Jorneymen in his historical works. That understanding is essentially flawed because the Journeymen became the Guildmasters.
Huh, I actually thought that misunderstanding was more modern, caused by college kids who misunderstood the Galileo story mixed with a little popculture...
Also PVC, I feel I must clarify my use of "crap". Medieval farmers enjoyed few of the freedoms I take for granted today, so in that respect their lives were crap. Kinda like the people I lived with in Tanzania - by "all accounts" their lives were horrible. Ask them, however, and they were quite happy. Just like I'm sure the medieval farmers were quite happy, if you don't count famine years.
It's still a long way from "medieval life was awesome"
Originally Posted by HoreTore:
Which is totally the wrong way to go about it. Compare the lives of working people today with the lives of the CEO types. The workers lives are still crap.
I do put it into context. I don't compare a serf/tenants life to my modern life, rather I compare it to the lives of those in power back then, ie. the nobility. Which means their lives were crap.
Fortunately for us all, the serfs thought the same as I do and proved to be an unruly bunch which forced the powers that be into making concessions, making my own life a comfortable one.
Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla:
I assume no such thing. Of course the hierarchies weren't static. But once the economic changes had finished we ended up with similar dynamics over time.
Lars - Marx was wrong, because he, like you, assumed a static hierarchy and unchanging relationships. The serf may have been "owned" by the baron, but the baron was not equivilent to a 19th Century industrialist and in fact Marx actually compared the industrialist to the Guildmaster and the Proles to the Apprentices and Jorneymen in his historical works. That understanding is essentially flawed because the Journeymen became the Guildmasters.
Originally Posted by lars573:
yes but not AS crap as the same comparison to the Serf's and their Elite class (the Nobility).
Which is totally the wrong way to go about it. Compare the lives of working people today with the lives of the CEO types. The workers lives are still crap.
Our "working class" enjoys far more freedom and our "Elite" have far less (they are mostly not above the law now for example)
that said I am sure horetore would agree that while we have made progress and lives are not as crap we still have a ways to go...
Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla:
My understanding is that the serf was not at all owned by the baron. Capitalism has a select few "capitalists" that control the means of production. They let workers use the means of production in return for the workers spending their money on the goods that they themselves produce. The goods workers produce are not seen as theirs and the capitalists are extracting wealth directly from the production line in this relationship.
Lars - Marx was wrong, because he, like you, assumed a static hierarchy and unchanging relationships. The serf may have been "owned" by the baron, but the baron was not equivilent to a 19th Century industrialist and in fact Marx actually compared the industrialist to the Guildmaster and the Proles to the Apprentices and Jorneymen in his historical works. That understanding is essentially flawed because the Journeymen became the Guildmasters.
European serfdom has the workers owning the means of production and the goods they produce, the barons simply tax the workers excess goods by essentially taking a cut for themselves and in exchange the barons provide basic governmental services like protection from raiders and other.....ummm I don't know the right word, because I don't know if the term "nation-states" apply to 12th century Europe. But you get the idea.
Idk if this is accurate or not, but from what I know, applying terms like "serf" to capitalism is wrong because they are two completely different modes of production.
The exact details of serfdom varied from place to place and decade to decade.
Still, serfs were owned. You could go technical and say the serfs was owned by the property which in turn was owned by the landowner, but meh. They could also be bught and sold along with the property. Typically, a serf was not allowed to gain any personal property; everything he "owned" was owned by the landowner. It wasn't the landowner who got a cut, it was the serf who got a cut; typically just enough to sustain himself. Cities became paradises to serfs - if they managed to sneak some of the produce away and accumulate a small amount of wealth, they would run away to the city. If they managed to hide in the city for a full year, they'd be free from their serfdom. If they got caught, they got executed, of course...
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name:
not quite - to be fair your closer than Horetore
My understanding is that the serf was not at all owned by the baron. Capitalism has a select few "capitalists" that control the means of production. They let workers use the means of production in return for the workers spending their money on the goods that they themselves produce. The goods workers produce are not seen as theirs and the capitalists are extracting wealth directly from the production line in this relationship.
European serfdom has the workers owning the means of production and the goods they produce, the barons simply tax the workers excess goods by essentially taking a cut for themselves and in exchange the barons provide basic governmental services like protection from raiders and other.....ummm I don't know the right word, because I don't know if the term "nation-states" apply to 12th century Europe. But you get the idea.
Idk if this is accurate or not, but from what I know, applying terms like "serf" to capitalism is wrong because they are two completely different modes of production.
A Serf and his family were required to spend x amount of time working for his lord and in return he was protected and was allowed to maintain his own fields and keep some his own produce (the rest taken as tax) - generally the work would either be Mining or Farm work on the Lords farms
Serfs were allowed to own personal property and keep what they didn't pay in tax - generally however they would barely make enough to survive
They did however suffer from some bizarre taxes - for example in England if a Serf wanted to marry his daughter to a man outside of his lords territory he was required to pay the Lord for the right to marry and compensate for the lost hours of work (since the Daughter would no long be available to work for the lord)
Originally Posted by HoreTore:
That's very qualified - don't forget that serfs have a guaranteed home and source of income - something people don't have today even in the most Socialist countries in Europe.
Also PVC, I feel I must clarify my use of "crap". Medieval farmers enjoyed few of the freedoms I take for granted today, so in that respect their lives were crap. Kinda like the people I lived with in Tanzania - by "all accounts" their lives were horrible. Ask them, however, and they were quite happy. Just like I'm sure the medieval farmers were quite happy, if you don't count famine years.
Serfdom was part of the Feudal system - where all means of production were ultimately owned by the State (Monarch) and then leased to tenants. One thing people forget about Feudalism was that it was essentially a decentralised system. The King owned everything, he leased to Tenants-in-Chief who leased to Tenants, who leased to sub-Tenants. The vast majority of serfs were under a rural knight they likely either knew personally or had at least met on Feast Days or at Court. Even the large landowners, such as the Berkeleys and the De Spencers visited their estates regularly and took an interest in the locals, often sponsoring the more promising young men to go to university, or taking them into service.
Originally Posted by HoreTore:
No - fundamentally wrong. Serfs were not owned, slaves were owned, and the distinction was a sharp one. Serfs were not free, but that was because of the conditions of the lease they held, which they could not sell, and which required them to work their landlord's land as well as their own. In England at least a serf could become as wealthy as a free man by selling his surplus at market and using that to buy small freeholds. Eventually he might be able to buy his own land's freehold from his Lord (at a very high premium) and that way he could secure legal freedom.
The exact details of serfdom varied from place to place and decade to decade.
Still, serfs were owned. You could go technical and say the serfs was owned by the property which in turn was owned by the landowner, but meh. They could also be bught and sold along with the property. Typically, a serf was not allowed to gain any personal property; everything he "owned" was owned by the landowner. It wasn't the landowner who got a cut, it was the serf who got a cut; typically just enough to sustain himself. Cities became paradises to serfs - if they managed to sneak some of the produce away and accumulate a small amount of wealth, they would run away to the city. If they managed to hide in the city for a full year, they'd be free from their serfdom. If they got caught, they got executed, of course...
The city thing is something I've never heard before, but it can't be true in England because Freedom of the City is still something granted, and not an automatic right. I am not a "free" man in that sense, although my father has a Freehold and as a graduate of a university I am officially outside the yeoman class, I'm still not a Freeman of the City of Exeter.
What you are describing sounds like the Reaissance's last gasp of the system on the Continent.
Have a read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom
Oh - and because I have a big ego - I typed all that from memory, then I looked up wiki and low, we agree.
Edit: OK, found the bit about Borough Towns (not cities specifically). That does ring a bell now, pesky Anglo-Saxon laws I suppose. Nevertheless, how common that was is debatable and the key point is that the serf was within the Borough for a Year and a Day, not that he was away from his Lord.
Originally Posted by HoreTore:
Actually, with the exception of Czarist Russia: nope. It was the citizenry which proved the unruly lot. This is of course a matter of definitions, since by and large the original Serf status no longer existed when that happened...
I do put it into context. I don't compare a serf/tenants life to my modern life, rather I compare it to the lives of those in power back then, ie. the nobility. Which means their lives were crap.
Fortunately for us all, the serfs thought the same as I do and proved to be an unruly bunch which forced the powers that be into making concessions, making my own life a comfortable one.
Anyway you are probably right that the lives of Serfs were by all accounts, crap. PVC is wrong here: it is the crappiness and the difficulty of upward social mobility (especially when the best farmlands were exhausted and plots became very small due to generations of subdivisions via inheritance) which led to the mass exodus from France, Flanders and England to settle in- and cultivate the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Ireland, Wales... Nobles would recruit in France and Flanders for instance, and provide upfront loans to pay for the serfs to up sticks, grant them the right to settle on some plots of land in their domains, grant them tax waivers for years until the new settlements were projected to be sustainable, grant them freeman status ... All to get them to come and cultivate their land, which they knew would in due time yield massive ROI even if it meant not being able to exercise as much power over your peasants.
What date are we talking about here?
Well High Medieval and to a lesser extent Late Medieval, more or less. Eventually of course the newly settled places became starting points for launching ventures further away. As a rule of thumb anything in Germany called -dorf (or -dorp in Dutch) is very likely the result of this expansion, all the old Dutch polders were built this way, for instance.
Originally Posted by rory_20_uk:
make that none.
Wow - what a massive simplification. I'm not surprised as it backs up your preconceived ideas.
Most people just collect information that back up their own position and overlooking bits that don't. Best overlook how the UK was one of the more progressive countries with labour. Perfect? Nope.
There are even fewer persons who approach the situation without preconceived ideas.
~:smoking:
Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios:
Well, before or after the Black Death?
Well High Medieval and to a lesser extent Late Medieval, more or less. Eventually of course the newly settled places became starting points for launching ventures further away. As a rule of thumb anything in Germany called -dorf (or -dorp in Dutch) is very likely the result of this expansion, all the old Dutch polders were built this way, for instance.
Even so, the fact that serfs could be tempted away from their lords' estates doesn't make their lives "crap" it just means they were at the bottom of the tree and there was room to move up.
I'm not saying it was a wonderful life in rural idyll, but I would think medieval serfs were better off than people during the industrial revolution. For one thing, they appear to have lived longer - Church records for most of the Middle Ages show people marrying in their early to late twenties, 26-28 being the most common irrc. That tells us that people weren't in a desperate hurry to breed and get their children to adulthood before they died.
We have a 2 party, first-past-the-post electoral system; built against the foolish notion that individuals are capable of governing themselves anywhere other than off of a cliff. Now, I think that individuals have the "right" to govern themselves - even off of a cliff, but power brokers also have the "right" to subvert the wants and desires of the lesser man - for better or worse - earned by their sheer power and the lack of anything resembling an objective universal/superlative morality. Is there a better way? Probably. "Democracy" is merely a tool of governments to reduce the people's frustration level using gimmicks and shiny objects - when things go wrong they feel like they only have themselves to blame. Pessimistic? Yes. Wholly inaccurate? Probably.
Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube:
Most of the research in the last 20-30 years has told us that we knew very little about the Medieval period and understood less, because we read back from when our records started (during the industrial revolution) and we believed what the Renaissance told us.
It is true that recent evidence suggests the average medieval person was in better health that previously thought.
But it is worth remembering that most children never made it to adulthood.
We now know that malnutrition and the resulting issues are the result of urbanisation - a largely rural population in Western Europe living off the land will be in generally better shape than an urban one with a similar level of technology. The average medieval serf in England's staple foodstuff would be oats or rye, possibly some wheat in places like Kent, supplemented by root vegetables, milk from cows, sheep or goats, cheese, some eggs, small game like rabbits, and the occasional fattened hog. There would also have been things like blackberries, which are rich in Vitamin C and would prevent scurvy.
This wasn't appreciated in the past because the Enlightenment myth of progress told us that we had moved forward in all ways since the Renaissance, when in fact we were moving backwards in some ways until the mid-19th Century.
Yes, there were famine years, in fact this year is a famine year - about 50% of England's crops failed this year - and it's conceivable that 700 years ago a lot of people would have died in the winter. Even so, the average peasant was better off than a factory worker in 19th Century Manchester or Birmingham - and taller too.
The mortality rate is certainly a fact - but it's also misleading. Most deaths occurred because of complications either during pregnancy or childbirth, or because of underlying conditions. If a child survived to the age of two it's life expectancy would jump dramatically, and would continue to rise until adulthood.
Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube:
The multi-party system is not the cause of the (few) stalemates you have seen in Europe.
The founders were generally against the notion of political parties, but that didn't last very long.
I still think a multi-party legislature, with many parties that have many specific platforms, would be a vast improvement over our two parties which (due to a lack of competition) can avoid standing on a platform except when it suits their immediate political ambitions. I think we could avoid the stalemates that European multi-party systems are prone to by keeping our executive branch very powerful, but those powers need to be defined far more specifically than they are today.
First, we have Belqium. The issue in Belgium isn't due to multiple parties, but rather the countey being split in two, with the two sides unwilling to work with each other. Not because of politics, mind you, but because of the flanders/wallon-thingy. The other source of complications arises when it is a requirement for a new government to have a majority in parliament. In more refined democracies, like Norway, a new government doesn't need to have support, it just needs to not have opposition. Ie. it doesn't need 51% of the representatives to vote in its favour, it just needs to avoid having 51% voting against it.
Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube:
Only Washington and a few other were explicit against parties. The beauty of the Constitution is that Madison anticipated and built the system around the presence of parties. Before every state had even ratified it, founders were lining themselves up under the Federalists or Democratic-Republicans.
The founders were generally against the notion of political parties, but that didn't last very long.
I still think a multi-party legislature, with many parties that have many specific platforms, would be a vast improvement over our two parties which (due to a lack of competition) can avoid standing on a platform except when it suits their immediate political ambitions. I think we could avoid the stalemates that European multi-party systems are prone to by keeping our executive branch very powerful, but those powers need to be defined far more specifically than they are today.
The issue isn't that there are only two parties the issue is that the current Representatives are too distanced from their constituents for the public to have control over their own congress.
1. Having Senators be elected by popular vote is silly. It makes the Senate a smaller version of the HoR, only worse. Instead of having 700,000 other voices shouting at your representative, you now have tens of millions.
2. Once the Senate returns back to being elected by state representatives, the Filibuster should either be abolished, or members must be present and talking to actually force a Filibuster.
3. The HoR is simply too small, and the number of constituents for a Representative must be at the most half a million people per rep. Ideally, it should be 250,000 per representative.
4. The Presidency is a joke. He doesn't control the economy. He can't magically make jobs appear with the right legislation. Yet, everyone is sitting around asking the President where all the jobs are.
5. The executive branch is only powerful because the public believes it to be so. The public treats the office of POTUS as borderline dictator status, able to change society and policy at his/her whim. What we saw in the debt ceiling fight was that Congress does and always has the final say in how the government is run, and only because people's low expectations of Congress, it is not tasked with tackling the problems that only Congress has the power to solve.
What we need is more emphasis on Federalism. Take away the public vote for all Federal offices except their local Congressman. Emphasize the importance of state, county and city elections to enact policies that you want done. This idea that if you want something done, you need to go to the Federal level and push it on everyone is silly.
Originally Posted by HoreTore:
Is it like Germany's sytem? Meaning, a vote of non-confidence can only succeed if it also appoints a successor at the same time?
The multi-party system is not the cause of the (few) stalemates you have seen in Europe.
First, we have Belqium. The issue in Belgium isn't due to multiple parties, but rather the countey being split in two, with the two sides unwilling to work with each other. Not because of politics, mind you, but because of the flanders/wallon-thingy. The other source of complications arises when it is a requirement for a new government to have a majority in parliament. In more refined democracies, like Norway, a new government doesn't need to have support, it just needs to not have opposition. Ie. it doesn't need 51% of the representatives to vote in its favour, it just needs to avoid having 51% voting against it.
Otherwise I don't think it's really different at all, and you're describing a "minority government". Which is perfectly workable until a majority in parliament is fed up and accepts a motion of no-confidence. In many countries (mine included) there's some sort of compulsive taboo against the idea of a minority government though, despite that there are plenty of precedents.
Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla:
Probably so, because the industrial revolution was in some ways a revival of serfdom in its most awful sense.
Well, before or after the Black Death?
Even so, the fact that serfs could be tempted away from their lords' estates doesn't make their lives "crap" it just means they were at the bottom of the tree and there was room to move up.
I'm not saying it was a wonderful life in rural idyll, but I would think medieval serfs were better off than people during the industrial revolution. For one thing, they appear to have lived longer - Church records for most of the Middle Ages show people marrying in their early to late twenties, 26-28 being the most common irrc. That tells us that people weren't in a desperate hurry to breed and get their children to adulthood before they died.
Serfdom is usually understood as being a form of slavery or semi-slavery without the formal label. If we go back to Rome, the legal details of both institutions were different (most importantly, serfs were not "propery") but de facto they were quite similar. The word servi was used to refer to both slaves and serfs with no distinction. In the middle ages the legal specifics differed from place to place and time to time, but the similarity is that the peasants are not inherently unfree like slaves but still have no realistic opportunity to escape from their current social standing, or even their place of residence.
In the industrial revolution it was common practice for a factory owner to monopolise all the goods and services that the common man from the region would need. The laborers were dependent on him for income and were obliged to buy goods and services from him as well. These people, despite being under no restrictions under the law, did not have the means to just pack up and leave try to make a better life elsewhere. This pretty much continued until the late 19th century until laws were passed against this business.
Granted, that just proves that during the height of the industrial revolution life was really really bad. I admit that I don't know a lot about the daily life of commoners in the middle ages. Allthough my impression is that they suffered far, far worse under wars because the slaughter was more local and more indiscriminate.
Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla:
Yes it does not automatically mean their lives were crap, but the second part of the sentence deserves qualification: their prospects were so bad they were willing to migrate quite a distance with nothing to go on but a gamble. It was their big bet.
Even so, the fact that serfs could be tempted away from their lords' estates doesn't make their lives "crap" it just means they were at the bottom of the tree and there was room to move up.
Originally Posted by :
That is true. Skeletal remains alone suggest quite strongly that the Industrial Revolution was by far the worse catastrophe ever to befall the common man, as the 19th century Industrial Revolution people are the shortest by far. But you know where this leads to, by the same token (skeletal remains) Medieval peasants are worse off than their Hunter-gatherer ancestors too...
I'm not saying it was a wonderful life in rural idyll, but I would think medieval serfs were better off than people during the industrial revolution. For one thing, they appear to have lived longer - Church records for most of the Middle Ages show people marrying in their early to late twenties, 26-28 being the most common irrc. That tells us that people weren't in a desperate hurry to breed and get their children to adulthood before they died.
Originally Posted by Kralizec:
It's different from the Belgians, who have to have a majority vote in order to get things started, which was the point.
Is it like Germany's sytem? Meaning, a vote of non-confidence can only succeed if it also appoints a successor at the same time?
Otherwise I don't think it's really different at all, and you're describing a "minority government". Which is perfectly workable until a majority in parliament is fed up and accepts a motion of no-confidence. In many countries (mine included) there's some sort of compulsive taboo against the idea of a minority government though, despite that there are plenty of precedents.
And no, the vote of no confidence is just that - no confidence. It doesn't include anything else. The succesor is appointed by the booted PM, and his choice isn't restricted legally, but rather by tradition, meaning that the leader of the strongest bloc gets the job. If that leader doesn't want it, he'll recommend the leader of the second strongest bloc(which is what happened when Bondevik I was appointed).
Originally Posted by HoreTore:
We don't, there have been minority governments in Belgium, but it's far too easy to delay/destroy any law they propose, so we always seek a majority.
It's different from the Belgians, who have to have a majority vote in order to get things started, which was the point.
Originally Posted by Conradus:
Yes, you do(in fact your system is the standard one), and that's not an obstacle for forming minority governments.
We don't, there have been minority governments in Belgium, but it's far too easy to delay/destroy any law they propose, so we always seek a majority.
When a new Belgian government is formed, a minimum of 51% of the representatives have to vote in favour of the government, but that doesn't mean they have to be a part of the government.
In short:
In Belgium, the government has to have the confidence of the parliament.
In Norway, the government doesn't need any confidence, it just needs to not have no confidence.
Any new government in Belgium is voted in. The Norwegian government isn't voted in at all.
Basically you can just make a deal with a party to give the goverment the starting support it needs. But I see your point. The government doesn't need to have that support the entire time though.
(You could actually form a legal goverment here with only 1/4 of the votes if enough people abstain.)
Originally Posted by Conradus:
That's what "a majority vote of confidence" means ~;)
Basically you can just make a deal with a party to give the goverment the starting support it needs.
Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios:
Well - poor people have always been surprisingly open to upping sticks, be it from France to Germany, England to the Americas, or from the East Coast to the West Coast across the Great Plains. Those are just the most obvious examples - the same impetus is behind the Viking and Mongol expansionism as well.
Yes it does not automatically mean their lives were crap, but the second part of the sentence deserves qualification: their prospects were so bad they were willing to migrate quite a distance with nothing to go on but a gamble. It was their big bet.
That is true. Skeletal remains alone suggest quite strongly that the Industrial Revolution was by far the worse catastrophe ever to befall the common man, as the 19th century Industrial Revolution people are the shortest by far. But you know where this leads to, by the same token (skeletal remains) Medieval peasants are worse off than their Hunter-gatherer ancestors too...
Consider what our own skeletal remains will say about us - endemic obesity and muscle wastage, ravaged by cancers, heart disease, diabetes... You'll be hard pressed to find most of these in medieval peasants, and not because they died young.
Originally Posted by HoreTore:
Yeah, but I thought you meant they needed that support the entire time. My bad :)
That's what "a majority vote of confidence" means ~;)
Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla:
there aparantly is this, http://discovermagazine.com/2010/sep...rain-shrinking, too
Well - poor people have always been surprisingly open to upping sticks, be it from France to Germany, England to the Americas, or from the East Coast to the West Coast across the Great Plains. Those are just the most obvious examples - the same impetus is behind the Viking and Mongol expansionism as well.
Consider what our own skeletal remains will say about us - endemic obesity and muscle wastage, ravaged by cancers, heart disease, diabetes... You'll be hard pressed to find most of these in medieval peasants, and not because they died young.
Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla:
indeed, my forbears are french hugenot on one side and irish catholic on the other, and various members of either moved out to hong-kong, india, australia and new zealand during the course of the 20th century.
Well - poor people have always been surprisingly open to upping sticks, be it from France to Germany, England to the Americas, or from the East Coast to the West Coast across the Great Plains
my immediate family lived in east africa for six years!
Originally Posted by The Stranger:
I don't care for the argument that people are getting dumber, it reminds me of this: http://xkcd.com/603/
there aparantly is this, http://discovermagazine.com/2010/sep...rain-shrinking, too
There are more factors when it comes to brain size than just volume. During the trend towards smaller brains, was there a corresponding trend for the average density of synaptic connections? If brains became smaller but more dense, then we saw a trend towards efficiency, not idiocy.
Originally Posted by The Stranger:
I suppose, though there is the bit saying it's a universal change, if it was a result of diet or lifestyle in recent human history I'd think there would be some variation.
there aparantly is this, http://discovermagazine.com/2010/sep...rain-shrinking, too
Originally Posted by Papewaio:
Early armorings, yes. Bodkins didn't punch through plate except at spear range. As the middle ages aged, the "pointy end" of the social contract was city-born pike and halberd blocks and not the famed yew staves of the English.
Britain also had a strong social contract and a powerful yeoman class.
Helps if your peasants can skewer a Knight at 300 yards.
Didn't punch through strong plate but it did hit with a lot of force, even ignoring the chance for a lucky hit on a weak point, arrow strikes would be like getting hit with a hammer, concussions and fractures abound and it is a very good way to dissuade a charging knight.
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name:
it doesnt say ppl are getting dumber, that would be a claim they cant investigate i guess, since they dont really know how smart ppl were back then. it just says brains are getting smaller.
I don't care for the argument that people are getting dumber, it reminds me of this: http://xkcd.com/603/
There are more factors when it comes to brain size than just volume. During the trend towards smaller brains, was there a corresponding trend for the average density of synaptic connections? If brains became smaller but more dense, then we saw a trend towards efficiency, not idiocy.
Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh:
Early armorings, yes. Bodkins didn't punch through plate except at spear range. As the middle ages aged, the "pointy end" of the social contract was city-born pike and halberd blocks and not the famed yew staves of the English.Originally Posted by Greyblades:
This debatable - modern bows rarely have a pull weight of over 60lb, medieval ones were in the 120-180 range, occasionally higher.
Didn't punch through strong plate but it did hit with a lot of force, even ignoring the chance for a lucky hit on a weak point, arrow strikes would be like getting hit with a hammer, concussions and fractures abound and it is a very good way to dissuade a charging knight.
Having said that the shorted clipped bodkin could piece some plate at 100 yards, but not the best Milanese.
Given the forum, I guess it's unavoidable for any given topic to derail into a discussion of medieval weaponry eventually...
Eat that, Goodwin.
Originally Posted by The Stranger:
The message of the article itself doesn't say that, but one of the scientists interviewed does:
it doesnt say ppl are getting dumber, that would be a claim they cant investigate i guess, since they dont really know how smart ppl were back then. it just says brains are getting smaller.
Originally Posted by :
Which brings us to an unpleasant possibility. “You may not want to hear this,” says cognitive scientist David Gearyof the University of Missouri, “but I think the best explanation for the decline in our brain size is the idiocracy theory.” Geary is referring to the eponymous 2006 film by Mike Judge about an ordinary guy who becomes involved in a hibernation experiment at the dawn of the 21st century. When he wakes up 500 years later, he is easily the smartest person on the dumbed-down planet. “I think something a little bit like that happened to us,” Geary says. In other words, idiocracy is where we are now.
I was disagreeing with the man's hypothesis. The article itself does a good job of getting many different opinions on the matter.
Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla:
Nice piece on this issue: actual tests
This debatable - modern bows rarely have a pull weight of over 60lb, medieval ones were in the 120-180 range, occasionally higher.
Having said that the shorted clipped bodkin could piece some plate at 100 yards, but not the best Milanese.
'blades' point about non-penetration damage is a fair point as well. The under-gear was designed to spread some of the impact force, but wouldn't have disapated it with the same efficacy associated with modern ceramics. I suspect it would minimize fractures, but contusions, possible light concussion, and getting dumped on your posterior would certainly have been possible.
Apparently the best piercer was the needle bodkin.
I think all of these numbers presume the use of steel. Iron tips -- which some argue are more likely because of cost -- would have been less effective at penetration.
Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh:
It looks nice but unfortunately it is a rather bad test. If one wants anything close to the real thing then the metallurgy is important, and in this test it seems they did the usual thing with some soft steel for the armour. That is how the needle bodkin suddenly becomes so great against the plate.
Nice piece on this issue: actual tests
Quite. Especially with steel the amount of carbon in it and other "impurities" tend to have a noticeable, if not drastic, effect on strength, flexibility and so on.