Serfs also had to pay like 2/3 of their produce to their lords. When was the last time, humanity really had to struggle for food (and not because they had to enable a wasteful upper class)? Before we settled down, invented agriculture?
The invention of agriculture didn’t end the struggle for food. Early agriculture was a much harder way of life than hunting and gathering at the time. The first agriculturist peoples were severely malnourished compared to their h-g neighbours. They had a very poor diet of limited variety, and a lot less available meat.
Early agriculturists were also easy pickings for hunter gatherers to raid their food stores and plunder everything. Between the poor soil, poor variety of crops, poor nutrition and low protein, infestations of mould and vermin, and constant attacks by raiders, life for these folks was an extreme struggle.
Looking at that situation, it should be a lot easier to see why agriculturalist societies soon developed militaries and became warlike. And why local lords demanding 2/3 of your produce was a fair trade for having a military that would drive its enemies hundreds of miles away from your farm.
Because that’s the foundation of a civilization? When humanity was able to produce more per farmer than they could eat is when society flourished the most. That allows other people to live off the farmer’s back and do other things. That might sound like they were taking advantage of them, but if Pythagoras and Archimedes and everyone else had to spent their days in the field, we wouldn’t have all that we do now. And I’m sure the farmers didn’t mind when those non-farmers came up with the tractor.
Serfs also had to pay like 2/3 of their produce to their lords. When was the last time, humanity really had to struggle for food (and not because they had to enable a wasteful upper class)? Before we settled down, invented agriculture?
The invention of agriculture didn’t end the struggle for food. Early agriculture was a much harder way of life than hunting and gathering at the time. The first agriculturist peoples were severely malnourished compared to their h-g neighbours. They had a very poor diet of limited variety, and a lot less available meat.
Early agriculturists were also easy pickings for hunter gatherers to raid their food stores and plunder everything. Between the poor soil, poor variety of crops, poor nutrition and low protein, infestations of mould and vermin, and constant attacks by raiders, life for these folks was an extreme struggle.
Looking at that situation, it should be a lot easier to see why agriculturalist societies soon developed militaries and became warlike. And why local lords demanding 2/3 of your produce was a fair trade for having a military that would drive its enemies hundreds of miles away from your farm.
Because that’s the foundation of a civilization? When humanity was able to produce more per farmer than they could eat is when society flourished the most. That allows other people to live off the farmer’s back and do other things. That might sound like they were taking advantage of them, but if Pythagoras and Archimedes and everyone else had to spent their days in the field, we wouldn’t have all that we do now. And I’m sure the farmers didn’t mind when those non-farmers came up with the tractor.