"In the early modern period -- by developing in Western Europe, absolutist tax/office states -- lords were able to stabilize their class domination. But by this point they were having to face a new, ultimately more dangerous threat. This was, of course, the rise in England and Holland of a qualitatively more effective system of class domination, which, by accomplishing the separation of the peasantry from the possession of their means of subsistence, entirely transcended the political difficulties and economic limitations of politically based exploitation." [Robert Brenner]
--CGE
On Mon, 20 Oct 2003, John Mage wrote:
> ...For the *survivors* things were better - MUCH better. The effect
> of the labor shortages post-Black Death included not only higher wages
> (despite futile legislation that attempted to stop the process), but
> the end of serfdom and slavery ... And the demographic disaster of
> the mid-late 14th century also resulted in the most marginal land
> going out of cultivation, with a consequent virtuous cycle of
> increased pasturage, a greater animal to people ratio, increased
> manure for the better fields, and increased yields.
>
> In the 15th century the average English diet (measured by calories and
> amount of meat eaten) reached the highest point in history until well
> into the 20th century.
>
> Thorold Rogers, of the great _History of Agriculture and Prices_,
> famously called the 15th century 'the golden age of the English
> labourer'. The best recent summary is the excellent Christopher Dyer's
> _Standards of Living in the late Middle Ages_ (Cambridge, 1989).
>
> The "Merry England" of church ales and maypoles, Hocktide, midsummer
> watches, Corpus Christi pagents, Robin Hood plays and morris dances
> was almost entirely a development of the post-Black Death late middle
> ages. See Ronald Hutton's _The Rise and Fall of Merry England_ (Oxford
> 1994).
>
> Kalecki understood. Labor shortage = Golden Age...