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The 1/10 is pretty much what could reasonably be taxed from a simpler medieval farmer without them starving.
Also today we do have systems like social security. There are also quite a few things very similar to commons. Roads, parks, public land and so forth come to mind. I am pretty sure, if you created something like common land for farming most everybody would not use it. At least judging by the number of gardens trying to grow food.
Modern public works have basically nothing in common with medieval commons, including use. Loitering being a crime is proof of that alone, but you also can't just plop down a house or tent in a public park legally.
To your second point community gardens are almost never empty whenever they're created.
Medieval commons had governance systems in place as well. Mostly it was just the right to fish, collect fire wood, pasture or something similar on the land. Building a house is clearly outside most of that.
Also today we do have systems like social security.
Not for much longer at the rate things are going.
Just don't try to live on public park land. They'll bulldoze your tent, sometimes with no notice. Sometimes they'll lie you into a false sense of security saying they will assist you with housing, then remove everything you own before said assistance is provided.
My garden is pretty much dedicated to growing food. Well, herbs mainly because it's not big enough to produce a useful amount of food. Also started growing opium.
"herbs"
The very best quality.
Interesting, in Australia we have community gardens in most areas and I have never seen any of them empty. Of course that being said, they aren't the sizes of industrial farms but are more intended for producing produce by hand labour
Where I live people can not even be bothered to pick apples from the apple trees on the site of the road, which are planted by the city so anybody can just do that.
So rather I am rathet amazed that most Australians seem to actually grow at least some of their own food.
Really? I know the location of around 10-15 apple trees around my area now and you pretty much never see any apples within arms reach, beyond that there are loads. Its clear that they are being picked.
Plums and sloes don't seem to be so popular and I think blackberries are so abundant that even though people are picking them there are more to go round than there is demand for them.
Ohhh, I'd be happy to pay a huge chunk of income to a lord. Because they at least maintain infrastructure and such. Nowadays, however, we have random self appointed robber barons, who see a whole bunch of income that is supposed to go to the workers and say "nah, I'll take whatever I can get away with". ...maybe shit needs fixing.
21st Century: ..... but I have an iphone and I get free wifi at the library ... check mate 13th century!
And access to unlimited cat girl pics. Checkmate.
All AI generated - worth less than trash
But now it's easier to shoplift. Markets used to be farmers selling stuff themselves, now its jusf a corporate chain. The employees of a corporate store don't give a fuck about you shoplifting, and it's much more ethical to steal from a corporate store than a farmer market.
good luck shoplifting a weeks worth of food regularly
Are you trying to make the case for indentured servitude? Serfdom?
Hey, but TVs are cheap, right? There's never been a better time to buy cheap plastic bullshit!
I mean there are some other shitty stuff feudal peasants had to do or had it harder than us, but it is kinda sad that there still are things peasants had that we don't (like shorter working hours and longer breaks). You'd think with the technological advancements we've had since the "death" of feudalism we would have more to distinguish ourselves from feudal peasants. I feel like the only major differences (at least in America) is the mass consumerism and that the feudal lords are capitalists rather than nobility.
The differences are a lot more than the current state of affairs. My great great grandparents were serfs, so I've heard quite a bit of stories about what it was like. As bad as stuff is right now, we are still worlds better off. Thanks to relatives that are still there today, I've been to where they lived during the serfdom, and saw the work they had to do. They slept on what looked like picnic table benches. Two people per bench face down with their arms and legs hanging over the sides. One tiny house, for a family with 7 children. They were constantly sick and weak from lack of food, despite growing it. Almost everything was taken from them from the insane taxes. Moving was not an option because they were bound to the land. Every day, they had to walk up and down a mountain to tend sheep. The one advantage over slavery is that they could only be bought and sold with the land they were bound to. So families couldn't be split apart. It was also illegal for owners to murder their serfs. Slaves, on the other hand, would have been legally considered dead in the court of law.
That said, the oligarchs absolutely want to bring back both serfdom and slavery. Prison labor will be the means of slavery. Freedom cities will be the path to serfdom. The fact that there is a long way to fall to get to that point should absolutely terrify us because YES, it gets MUCH worse, and yes, we are taking an express train straight to that dystopian reality. There is no bottom for billionaires. There is no road too low. The most horrible things imaginable are part of their plan. The road doesn't stop at late stage capitalism. Late stage capitalism leads to oligarchy, authoritarianism, and corporate feudalism. And the horrors of that we cannot yet comprehend.
it is kinda sad that there still are things peasants had that we don't (like shorter working hours and longer breaks)
I don't think you'd have to work longer hours than a medieval peasant if you were living a comparable lifestyle: a thatched roof hovel, basic staple foods, no electricity or running water, no car, phone, television, computer, or appliances, etc. Plus those working hours are often spent sitting at a desk pushing buttons, instead of sweating in a field.
Technology and industrialization has and continues to increase an individual's productivity exponentially. With increasing productivity we should be living better lives while being able to work less. Not equivocal or even more. The issue is capitalist economics are about over-production and constant growth, not meeting need. We'd still be living in candle-lit brick apartment complexes with your extended family in a studio apartment working 15 hours in the coal mines if it wasn't for labor unions and violent resistance. Then they found out they can pacify people easier through consumerism than they could with the barrel of a gun.
This is all to say, we do not need to work as much as we are to keep the quality of life we have.
No, you do. The lowest level of legal living is almost infinitely more expensive as a proportion of work hours now than ever before in history. If you're in the us, a weekly rate motel is likely your cheapest option, and that's still going to cost more than the federal minimum wage per month assuming full time work. In even industrial age cities a room at an inn cost about half a days wage for hard labor; and for the medieval ages land rent was basically a joke in comparison.
The lowest level of legal living is almost infinitely more expensive as a proportion of work hours now than ever before in history.
That kind of ridiculous hyperbole doesn't instill much confidence in the accuracy of the rest of your claims.
A studio apartment in my region, at the outskirts of a city, costs 50hrs at my state's minimum wage per month, under 2 hours a day on average. This source estimates 1620hrs/year of work for a 13th century peasant, an average of about 4.5 hours a day (although this was mostly seasonal, that doesn't affect our average). About half of that went to the lord or church, so we're talking a little over 2.2hrs/day for a peasant to afford rent, compared to 1.6hrs/day in the modern era.
And again, that apartment is connected to water, electricity, and Internet. It has modern insulation and air conditioning. So even just for lodging, we work fewer hours for more comfortable accommodations.
We do work more overall, but that's more to furnish the luxuries of modern life (compared to a 13th century peasant).
Congrats on living in a ridiculously low cost of living country that's not the us, the west, or even most parts of china at this point.
I live in a major US state in a moderate to high cost of living city. Most of the populous states have minimum wages between $12-18. Rent at a trailer park is easily doable at 1.5hrs/day at $15/hr.
It really isn't. Maybe 40 years ago. There's a reason we're in a cost of living crisis and the homelessness rate has soared in the last five years faster than any other point in us history. Its not a lack of jobs.
Hell working homeless is at its highest point in human history.
I'm basing everything on 2025 numbers. You seem to be just making claims based on vibes.
No, you're making things up entirely based on imaginary ideas. A studio for just a week's worth of work a minimum wage? Even in the early 2000s that was practically a myth. No american I have ever known has paid less than half their wages for rent; including myself when I still lived in that shit hole.
Maybe the rich lived differently, and from your naive idealism it's clear you did, but christ I would have loved to not pay nearly all my income for housing.
I don't know what to tell you. I searched rental listings and based my calculations off that. Reality disagreeing with your preconceptions is not my problem.
My first apartment was $525, I was making $10/hr as a gas station clerk, which you will find comes out to 52.5 hours of work. Full time work is 160-175hrs/month, so that was just under a third of my wages, and my math shows 1/3 < 1/2.
Prices for apartments have certainly outpaced wages, I won't argue against that, and obviously the calculations are a bit different if you're trying to live downtown in a major city. But those examples are way nicer than a peasant's hovel anyway. Trailer rent is still pretty cheap.