About a year ago, I got hooked on a series of historical novels about the British navy during the Napoleonic period. I have now read similar series by other authors, all British, that have several things in common. While the adventures of the heroes were quite fanciful, as these are entertainment adventures, the background commentary of the main characters is interesting in light of this essay.
As bad as conditions were for the sailors on ships of the British Navy of the time, there were often remarks that it was better than farm life in that they ate meat (for certain values of "meat") every day as well as a grog ration. Meat was quite rare for most farm folk, which is why poaching was common. Many of the stories had a character leave the farm as a puny youngster but end up several years later as a normal (for the time) young man.
The social upheavals of the time saw landlords (read: the lords who owned the land, think about the implications) " enclosing" their lands. That meant that many of their tenants, who had feudal rights to graze livestock on the commons, were now without the means for a living. Many were encouraged to go north, to the mines and factories. Some were offered passage to America, gratis, as that was cheaper than paying the Poor Tax and supporting such indigents. There are other examples of the protagonists showing modern attitudes in their treatment of their tenants and other poor, since the hero can't be seen by modern readers to be "mean." Although I would guess that a higher percentage of current day Brits know about conditions then than Americans do. We've always been rich and enlightened, right?
A long build up for my point, which is that the greatest hole in the historical knowledge of the average American (probably similar for others, but I haven't the experience of interaction with them) is that poverty is the base condition of humanity. It's the starting point. And until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and capitalism, which enabled each other, nearly everyone was bloody poor! And free markets with free trade are still lifting people around the world out of abject poverty. And yet there is opposition to this process, primarily from those either ideologically against freedom or those deliberately miseducated or left cripplingly ignorant by state schools.
Most people don't know history because they weren't interested in school (or went to school after it was taught properly) or didn't like watching movies and reading books. You are so right that reading leads to curiosity, which leads to research, which leads to knowledge. So much of this is lacking now.
I LOVED history and knew I wanted to be a history teacher in elementary school. I had a junior high teacher who helped us understand that people in history were like us, making real decisions that eventually impacted our lives.
I got a credential but didn't get to teach history/social studies. I wanted to teach high school using films and discussion. I think it would have been a meaningful way to engage students in critical thinking, logic, reasoning, relating current events to historical events, helping them understand that the people of the past were not much different than they were, seeing they may be someone who changes the future of our country.
Funny how the "mindset" changed! in skool (admittedly privit' with some schmarty pants profs) we larned that peasant life wuz deemed "hell" full stop (of course all monarchs/emperors/tzars etc were evil an' oft mocked by our more amusin' instructors) an' the Industrial Revolution saved the whirled... Kinda true, I'm 100% fer capitalism an' free enterprise... Yet we cain't ferget that when left ta their own "deVICES" many factory owners treated human workers no better 'n the farm workers, sometimes worse. Sad/true. Many sweat shops were abusive... my great gran worked in one when she, the first one ta arrive in the US, had ta earn enuf ta bring over her parents & 7 sibs! (They came piecemeal an' all old enuf ta help did!). Hence Chaplin's Modern Times rings troo too! (hilarious yet spot-on on how factories an' automation kin also de-humanize us... while not romanticizin' farmin' at all either).
If ya live in NYC (which wuz most of my life 'til recently), ya oft pass the sad sad Triangle Shirtwaist Factory bld. where the sweatshop girls (many quite young!) had been locked inta their workspace an' burned ta death, some jumpin' out windas ta escape bein' burned alive. So factories were a GREAT thang but with two caveats essential ta bein' great an' not deadly--better workin' conditions (many were truly unsafe exposin' workers ta fumes, lack of heat, risks of gettin' burned or cut badly etc). an' regulated hours etc. Unions started out ta address all this--an' became corrupt mob forces themselfs. We know someone worked on a "drill press" an' he'd report how many workers had missin' fingers (an' got little compensation fer their losses too). One got electrocuted (mortally) when an electric cord got caught in some kinda table saw blade--took out the power of the entire bld too. Cain't romanticize this stuff neither!
Farm work is a bear...we live near Amish now--bless'em they are TALL, SCHTARK, STRAPPIN' healthy people! They work from dawn ta dusk (the kids far fewer hours of course). The rosy cheeked kids DO have time ta play but when old enuf they join in. Nobuddy is lookin' underfed an' they indeed eat well--one kindly fella showed us one of his community "stores" (not a shop open ta Englishers but the "stores" fer their preppin' stuff)--oh my, floor ta ceilin' barn filled with potted veggies, meats, prepared stews 'n such, pickled eggs... these people are not just well fed, they're expurt preppers too!) But not all've us are made fer that life--that's fer sure!
Lord knows we need our farmers back (organic preferablly) BUT I think the bottom line is that under capitalism there is OPPORTUNITY that is sorely lackin' under feudalism an' any kinda forced labor (factory piece work WUZ like work camps..)
One more pernt a'propos of this great piece! I think we old 'nuff ta know are well-aware that folks who lacked nutrition were short 'n skinny an' had permanent health issues but ain't aware of the insane movement to push shortness fer ClimbAt Change! It'd be a joke ta laff off if there wasn't mainstream push on it! I'll leave ya with a few jaw droppers onnit...
NYSlimes sez there's never been a better time ta be short!
Wow, Daisy. The hubris of our self-proclaimed "betters" keeps reaching new highs. Amazing links, thanks.
About the terrible conditions you describe, I know too first-hand stories. It still remains, though, that for the first time, their children were better off.
We can hope that in 100 years, our current conditions will seem as primitive.
My son at 6 ft 4" is 7 inches taller than I am. This is primarily due to better nutrition in just one generation.
yup, dystopian INSANITY with a dose'a that hubris! totally nuts they wanna tell us ta marry short people cuz shorties consume less (less food, carbon, etc)--we are reduced ta bein' not just deplorables but "energy wasters." Mahvelous 'bout yer son bein' THAT much taller--yup, it's indeed nutrition! I'm no amazon but I'm 4" taller than my ma an' my own girls TOWER over me! I guess the powers that be wanna reverse engineer us an' LETTUCE lose the extra inches!
Totally right that the kiddos were much better off than the parents (albeit my great gran wuz velly happy ta ditch the sweat shop work an' thankfully git happily married). Howevah, sadly we've devolved in the late 20th & 21st--our current conditions ain't totally awful compared ta our pre-industrial age ancestors, but they ain't so good either--With ordinary grocery eggs $7/dozen (our pastured ones are even more!), folks cannot afford ta feed their fams 'er keep 'em heated & cooled as they could just one generation ago. NEVER did we see anyone suggestin' food shortages 'er gawdferbid eatin' BUGZ. All engineered crises of course... but it t'ain't progress!
In 100 years I'll only say we're primitive IF that determination has ta do zilch with AI & anythin' not-real / digital... A gauge ta judge current levels of societal advancement based on TECH-NOW-Logy... a junk conceit if ever there wuz one!--is a lousy one.
Capitalism seems ta be the best system however flawed but--not crony 'er stakeholder capitalism (I'd ruther be a STEAK-holder lol). If we cannot walk it back ta a less corrupt variation I'm not sure what'll be LEFT of us in 100 years (not ta wax grim but the nation is in more trouble than Boss Tweed an' with most jobs offshore an' I dunno how soon it'll be 'fore MASA -- Make America Solvent Again! an' on top've all that--all the UniVerSHitties are preachin' communism! egads!
Thank you Barry - excellent essay on both the importance of learning and understanding history and the impact of capitalism! Your vivid examples are outstanding. When I returned from Afghanistan- I was grateful for everything and looked at even the basics (clean water, bread without dirt on it, other) as something to celebrate and be thankful for!
I had just finished the chapter about the leisurely 16th century life and it did not sit right with me, so thank you for the clarification and going deeper on that. It’s an important historical reminder, and one we just don’t consider these days.
There are many hold homestead ruins near me, and I often think about what that hardscrabble life was like. There were no food pantries in case of hard times, and it was solely a life of daily survival.
And all of this makes me consider “Man’s Search for Meaning” in that the misery of my lack of work/life balance is quite possibly a bit self-induced.
I enjoyed this perspective on the impact of the industrial revolution on labor conditions. I'm a historian by academic training, but only on the undergraduate level, so my knowledge of that era (and the agrarian feudal era) is far from exhaustive, so I pose this response with genuine curiosity, not in an effort to debunk your argument. I should also add that I studied history under quality professors who demanded critical thinking. The result is that I'm highly skeptical of government and an advocate of free markets. (I'm only being semi-snarky when I say that, btw, I'm aware that people of good will came come to different conclusions than me).
With that clarification, I wish to note that the conditions of the agrarian laborer you reference were from the 18th and 19th century. To what extent were government policies responsible for the severe malnutrition experienced by the peasantry? My understanding is that subsistence farming-assuming livestock is part of the farm-while hard work is not terribly time consuming. (Running a farm in order to make a profit is quite another story, I'm well aware).
I'm wondering, specifically, what burdens were placed on peasant farmers to support growing centralized governments, and how this affected their quality of life (the Irish Potato Famine comes to mind as I ponder this). While far from a glorious utopia, it seems to me that peasants in the feudal era had minimal responsibilities and burdens placed on them by the nobility, and that the arrangement was far more reciprocal than it has been made out. A lot of this, of course, had to do with the fact that the elite were indigent poor by todays standards, and their standard of living was not much better than that of the peasantry. Overall it seems, though, that the labor demands on the peasants were primarily during the sewing and harvesting seasons, and the remainder of the year was largely for maintenance.
Please not that I'm not attempting to romanticize that era, it's hardships are not something I'm eager to experience (though I wonder if that is the fate most of us will be relegated to in the not too distant future). I'm mostly wondering to what extent the growth of central governments was responsible for conditions you describe. The answer to this question, it seems, is highly relevant to an analysis on the benefits and drawbacks of industrialization, and I welcome your insight if you have the time and are so inclined to offer. Regardless, thank you for this contribution to the conversation, and I look forward to reading more of your work.
This is a great contribution to explaining how freedom and Free-enterprise are the path to a better and lasting future.
Thank you, David.
About a year ago, I got hooked on a series of historical novels about the British navy during the Napoleonic period. I have now read similar series by other authors, all British, that have several things in common. While the adventures of the heroes were quite fanciful, as these are entertainment adventures, the background commentary of the main characters is interesting in light of this essay.
As bad as conditions were for the sailors on ships of the British Navy of the time, there were often remarks that it was better than farm life in that they ate meat (for certain values of "meat") every day as well as a grog ration. Meat was quite rare for most farm folk, which is why poaching was common. Many of the stories had a character leave the farm as a puny youngster but end up several years later as a normal (for the time) young man.
The social upheavals of the time saw landlords (read: the lords who owned the land, think about the implications) " enclosing" their lands. That meant that many of their tenants, who had feudal rights to graze livestock on the commons, were now without the means for a living. Many were encouraged to go north, to the mines and factories. Some were offered passage to America, gratis, as that was cheaper than paying the Poor Tax and supporting such indigents. There are other examples of the protagonists showing modern attitudes in their treatment of their tenants and other poor, since the hero can't be seen by modern readers to be "mean." Although I would guess that a higher percentage of current day Brits know about conditions then than Americans do. We've always been rich and enlightened, right?
A long build up for my point, which is that the greatest hole in the historical knowledge of the average American (probably similar for others, but I haven't the experience of interaction with them) is that poverty is the base condition of humanity. It's the starting point. And until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and capitalism, which enabled each other, nearly everyone was bloody poor! And free markets with free trade are still lifting people around the world out of abject poverty. And yet there is opposition to this process, primarily from those either ideologically against freedom or those deliberately miseducated or left cripplingly ignorant by state schools.
Chris, I appreciate your outstanding addition to my essay. Thank you!
Most people don't know history because they weren't interested in school (or went to school after it was taught properly) or didn't like watching movies and reading books. You are so right that reading leads to curiosity, which leads to research, which leads to knowledge. So much of this is lacking now.
Teachers often present it as a series of dates when "great men" accomplished something.
I LOVED history and knew I wanted to be a history teacher in elementary school. I had a junior high teacher who helped us understand that people in history were like us, making real decisions that eventually impacted our lives.
I got a credential but didn't get to teach history/social studies. I wanted to teach high school using films and discussion. I think it would have been a meaningful way to engage students in critical thinking, logic, reasoning, relating current events to historical events, helping them understand that the people of the past were not much different than they were, seeing they may be someone who changes the future of our country.
Funny how the "mindset" changed! in skool (admittedly privit' with some schmarty pants profs) we larned that peasant life wuz deemed "hell" full stop (of course all monarchs/emperors/tzars etc were evil an' oft mocked by our more amusin' instructors) an' the Industrial Revolution saved the whirled... Kinda true, I'm 100% fer capitalism an' free enterprise... Yet we cain't ferget that when left ta their own "deVICES" many factory owners treated human workers no better 'n the farm workers, sometimes worse. Sad/true. Many sweat shops were abusive... my great gran worked in one when she, the first one ta arrive in the US, had ta earn enuf ta bring over her parents & 7 sibs! (They came piecemeal an' all old enuf ta help did!). Hence Chaplin's Modern Times rings troo too! (hilarious yet spot-on on how factories an' automation kin also de-humanize us... while not romanticizin' farmin' at all either).
If ya live in NYC (which wuz most of my life 'til recently), ya oft pass the sad sad Triangle Shirtwaist Factory bld. where the sweatshop girls (many quite young!) had been locked inta their workspace an' burned ta death, some jumpin' out windas ta escape bein' burned alive. So factories were a GREAT thang but with two caveats essential ta bein' great an' not deadly--better workin' conditions (many were truly unsafe exposin' workers ta fumes, lack of heat, risks of gettin' burned or cut badly etc). an' regulated hours etc. Unions started out ta address all this--an' became corrupt mob forces themselfs. We know someone worked on a "drill press" an' he'd report how many workers had missin' fingers (an' got little compensation fer their losses too). One got electrocuted (mortally) when an electric cord got caught in some kinda table saw blade--took out the power of the entire bld too. Cain't romanticize this stuff neither!
Farm work is a bear...we live near Amish now--bless'em they are TALL, SCHTARK, STRAPPIN' healthy people! They work from dawn ta dusk (the kids far fewer hours of course). The rosy cheeked kids DO have time ta play but when old enuf they join in. Nobuddy is lookin' underfed an' they indeed eat well--one kindly fella showed us one of his community "stores" (not a shop open ta Englishers but the "stores" fer their preppin' stuff)--oh my, floor ta ceilin' barn filled with potted veggies, meats, prepared stews 'n such, pickled eggs... these people are not just well fed, they're expurt preppers too!) But not all've us are made fer that life--that's fer sure!
Lord knows we need our farmers back (organic preferablly) BUT I think the bottom line is that under capitalism there is OPPORTUNITY that is sorely lackin' under feudalism an' any kinda forced labor (factory piece work WUZ like work camps..)
One more pernt a'propos of this great piece! I think we old 'nuff ta know are well-aware that folks who lacked nutrition were short 'n skinny an' had permanent health issues but ain't aware of the insane movement to push shortness fer ClimbAt Change! It'd be a joke ta laff off if there wasn't mainstream push on it! I'll leave ya with a few jaw droppers onnit...
NYSlimes sez there's never been a better time ta be short!
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/01/08/new-york-times-there-has-never-been-a-better-time-to-be-short-mate-with-shorter-people-for-a-greener-planet-to-save-the/
https://www.climatedepot.com/2017/10/19/hollywood-film-joins-nyu-professor-to-promote-shrinking-humans-to-fight-climate-change/
https://www.climatedepot.com/2015/09/29/nyu-professor-to-stop-climate-change-we-must-genetically-engineer-humans-make-shorter-induce-allergies-to-meat-medicate-to-create-empathy/
(Comin' from a fambly of feisty shorties, I think we'd all be THRILLED ta have a few xtra inches--comes in handy at concerts lol!)
Wow, Daisy. The hubris of our self-proclaimed "betters" keeps reaching new highs. Amazing links, thanks.
About the terrible conditions you describe, I know too first-hand stories. It still remains, though, that for the first time, their children were better off.
We can hope that in 100 years, our current conditions will seem as primitive.
My son at 6 ft 4" is 7 inches taller than I am. This is primarily due to better nutrition in just one generation.
yup, dystopian INSANITY with a dose'a that hubris! totally nuts they wanna tell us ta marry short people cuz shorties consume less (less food, carbon, etc)--we are reduced ta bein' not just deplorables but "energy wasters." Mahvelous 'bout yer son bein' THAT much taller--yup, it's indeed nutrition! I'm no amazon but I'm 4" taller than my ma an' my own girls TOWER over me! I guess the powers that be wanna reverse engineer us an' LETTUCE lose the extra inches!
Totally right that the kiddos were much better off than the parents (albeit my great gran wuz velly happy ta ditch the sweat shop work an' thankfully git happily married). Howevah, sadly we've devolved in the late 20th & 21st--our current conditions ain't totally awful compared ta our pre-industrial age ancestors, but they ain't so good either--With ordinary grocery eggs $7/dozen (our pastured ones are even more!), folks cannot afford ta feed their fams 'er keep 'em heated & cooled as they could just one generation ago. NEVER did we see anyone suggestin' food shortages 'er gawdferbid eatin' BUGZ. All engineered crises of course... but it t'ain't progress!
In 100 years I'll only say we're primitive IF that determination has ta do zilch with AI & anythin' not-real / digital... A gauge ta judge current levels of societal advancement based on TECH-NOW-Logy... a junk conceit if ever there wuz one!--is a lousy one.
Capitalism seems ta be the best system however flawed but--not crony 'er stakeholder capitalism (I'd ruther be a STEAK-holder lol). If we cannot walk it back ta a less corrupt variation I'm not sure what'll be LEFT of us in 100 years (not ta wax grim but the nation is in more trouble than Boss Tweed an' with most jobs offshore an' I dunno how soon it'll be 'fore MASA -- Make America Solvent Again! an' on top've all that--all the UniVerSHitties are preachin' communism! egads!
Absolutely, Daisy. Cronyism is the way back to serfdom.
Thank you Barry - excellent essay on both the importance of learning and understanding history and the impact of capitalism! Your vivid examples are outstanding. When I returned from Afghanistan- I was grateful for everything and looked at even the basics (clean water, bread without dirt on it, other) as something to celebrate and be thankful for!
Thanks for the kind note, Pete.
Yes, ignoring our many blessings and/or assuming we have always had them is so easy and so foolish.
Thank you for this important corrective Prof Brownstein.
I had just finished the chapter about the leisurely 16th century life and it did not sit right with me, so thank you for the clarification and going deeper on that. It’s an important historical reminder, and one we just don’t consider these days.
There are many hold homestead ruins near me, and I often think about what that hardscrabble life was like. There were no food pantries in case of hard times, and it was solely a life of daily survival.
And all of this makes me consider “Man’s Search for Meaning” in that the misery of my lack of work/life balance is quite possibly a bit self-induced.
Thank you, Jennifer. Incredibly hardscrabble, indeed!
You might also enjoy my old photo essay:https://givingupcontrol.wordpress.com/2008/10/19/ghosts-of-americas-past/
I enjoyed this perspective on the impact of the industrial revolution on labor conditions. I'm a historian by academic training, but only on the undergraduate level, so my knowledge of that era (and the agrarian feudal era) is far from exhaustive, so I pose this response with genuine curiosity, not in an effort to debunk your argument. I should also add that I studied history under quality professors who demanded critical thinking. The result is that I'm highly skeptical of government and an advocate of free markets. (I'm only being semi-snarky when I say that, btw, I'm aware that people of good will came come to different conclusions than me).
With that clarification, I wish to note that the conditions of the agrarian laborer you reference were from the 18th and 19th century. To what extent were government policies responsible for the severe malnutrition experienced by the peasantry? My understanding is that subsistence farming-assuming livestock is part of the farm-while hard work is not terribly time consuming. (Running a farm in order to make a profit is quite another story, I'm well aware).
I'm wondering, specifically, what burdens were placed on peasant farmers to support growing centralized governments, and how this affected their quality of life (the Irish Potato Famine comes to mind as I ponder this). While far from a glorious utopia, it seems to me that peasants in the feudal era had minimal responsibilities and burdens placed on them by the nobility, and that the arrangement was far more reciprocal than it has been made out. A lot of this, of course, had to do with the fact that the elite were indigent poor by todays standards, and their standard of living was not much better than that of the peasantry. Overall it seems, though, that the labor demands on the peasants were primarily during the sewing and harvesting seasons, and the remainder of the year was largely for maintenance.
Please not that I'm not attempting to romanticize that era, it's hardships are not something I'm eager to experience (though I wonder if that is the fate most of us will be relegated to in the not too distant future). I'm mostly wondering to what extent the growth of central governments was responsible for conditions you describe. The answer to this question, it seems, is highly relevant to an analysis on the benefits and drawbacks of industrialization, and I welcome your insight if you have the time and are so inclined to offer. Regardless, thank you for this contribution to the conversation, and I look forward to reading more of your work.