Comment on Anon has a wholesome thought

• DahGangalang@infosec.pub ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  I agree that most today are on a subsistence lifestyle.

  But gonna have to disagree with “we’re at modern serfdom” in the sense that medieval serfdom existed. There are LOTS of economic barriers to picking your life up and moving somewhere else, to changing what you do for a living, etc; but there aren’t legal barriers. That is, if you decide to move or change jobs, you could land yourself in lean times, but no one is going to chop body parts off you or lock you in a dungeon for doing it (as could happen to serfs in the long ago.

  Additionally, if you’re one of the lucky ones who does manage to buy a place, it becomes a financial asset. If you have kids, it can be passed to them, at which point they an sell it to go move themselves somewhere else. Contrast this with the typical depiction (which I assume is at least moderately factually correct) where your kids are now tied to the land you lived on.

  Unless you mean to speak of serfdom to the government who can control your ability to travel (generally I mean internationally, but some nations do restrict intranational travel), who take a portion of your wealth on a regular basis in the form of taxes (thinking property taxes, but I guess could be applied to income and other taxes), and who can lock you up in a “dungeon” (prison - and for relatively arbitrary/subjective reasons).

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  • birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    I’m talking about rent and mortgages getting extraordinarily high, and that mostly financing other people’s opulent lifestyles, instead of financing general wellbeing.

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    • DahGangalang@infosec.pub ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Like I said, I’d agree that most live a subsistence lifestyle. Its hard to break out of a cycle of poverty, and life isn’t easy for most.

      But our lives hardly come with the same restrictions that serfs did. I think we think of our times as worse because they come after a period that (we’re told) was great and prosperous for all, while for serfs, they (probably) had no such cultural mythology. I could hear an argument that there lives were better due to community and simplicity of life or something like that (I don’t know if I’d agree, but I’d probably think there was something to it).

      But I also think we’re both looking at a wall and you’re saying its fuchsia while I think its magenta. When its all said and done, it seems like we agree that things are bad, that they could be a lot better, and that they should be better.

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      • birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Yeah, I agree with you on that. It certainly could be better.

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