Did People Of The 15th Century Have A Better Life Than You?

[katzgar]

Life expectancy numbers for those days are heavily skewed by their outrageous infant mortality. If you made it to ten, you were probably going to make it to sixty.

like I said everything nets out to life expectancy.

 

[Gaugingcatenate]

Besides which, I think most of the labor shortage, the cause for the increase in wages, was a dark little thing called the Black Plague which eliminated at least a third, other estimates are higher, of the total population of Europe. Would be great for wages, but maybe a little gloomier than I might tend to enjoy.

 

[Renae]

When we think of the Middle Ages we often think of the negatives (and rightly so). Sadistic "interrogation" methods, superstitions, seemingly endless warfare, apocalyptic plagues, oppressive monarchs, etc.

But it wasn't all horrible. Even in the late Middle Ages, a typical English laborer with a family of five was arguably better off financially than the same family in the 21st century. That is because even after paying for food, clothing, and shelter, he still held 2/3 of his income.

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Did people of 15th century and first 1/4 sixteenth have a better life than you? | thedepression.org.au

Yes, taxation certainly plays a role in the change. But rising cost of living cannot be 100% attributed to taxes. Until we abandon the dogma of neoclassical economics I believe we are stuck in this tailspin.

No toothbrushes. Nuff said.

 

[tres borrachos]

May be I am misunderstanding the question.
No AC!!!!!!!!!!!!
Minimal medical care. Just think, having a tooth pulled without local anesthesia, or dying from a ruptured appendix etc.
Where was the nearest grocery store?
Washer/dryer?
Car?
Social safety net?
The lucky had a plot of land to survive off. Some were lucky to know a trade.
Family values and structure was more intact.
Life was simpler perhaps.
All in all, and may be because I am spoiled rotten, I like the here and now with all its ups and downs.

Don't forget having indoor plumbing. In the 15th century (indeed, as many as 3 centuries later), people peed and pooped in a chamber pot, then tossed the contents out the windows into the streets. Even forgetting about the horrific smell of an open sewer 24/7, imagine the amount of diseases. That's why typhus was so common.

 

[Quag]

I absolutely agree with the lot of you: it depends on one's POV and that today's society requires spending on many other things, not just for luxuries but necessities such as insurance, transportation, etc. Heck, most 15th century commoners probably didn't own more than one or two pairs of pants (or trousers, pantaloons, or whatever you want to call them for the time period). And I too much prefer living in this time period than that one.

I do think, though, it is a curious statistic considering how the enclosure of the commons was beginning about the time wages went down/cost of living went up. Are we forever damned to more and more debt as we make progress in society? Or is there another way?

We are not damned to more and more debt, why would you even think that?

 

[Geoist]

Financially?

What about **** literally steaming in the pan, if you could afford a pan, a short brutish life often subject to random injustice, the ease of dying from a small cut that gets infected, etc etc etc?


What about the fact that every single thing OTHER than finance was objectively worse for the average person in the 1400s?

Did you read my op? I address all of these points.

 

[Geoist]

[emphasis added by bubba]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequences_of_the_Black_Death

a time when the only shortage was labor

Yes, bubonic plague certainly "helped" wages, but they were also seeing an increase before the Plague hit Europe.

from your hypothesis, the conclusion might be that society needs a huge enema for good times to return

Lol, of course not. What society needs is a return to treating land as a commons, not capital to be speculated on.

 

[Geoist]

No their lives were far far worse than ours.

From just about every perspective, I agree.

 

[Geoist]

probably not. they had for real feudalism instead of the modern version of it, and i would have died a few weeks after being born due to lack of modern medical technology. i am fascinated by history, though, so it would be cool to visit that time period and to walk around for a bit.

I too would have been dead by 21 (got MRSA that required heart surgery). Certainly wouldn't trade this life for one back then (and probably any other time period of the past). The financial aspect is just an interesting and provoking one to me. As we have developed the technology to teleport atoms and send robots to Mars, we still struggle with financial security in a 1st world country.

 

[Geoist]

We are not damned to more and more debt, why would you even think that?

Assuming you are not being sarcastic (hard to tell sometimes) but our financial system is completely reliant on debt to profit.

 

[Quag]

Assuming you are not being sarcastic (hard to tell sometimes) but our financial system is completely reliant on debt to profit.

Not being sarcastic and why do you say our system is reliant on debt for profit?

 

[Geoist]

Not being sarcastic and why do you say our system is reliant on debt for profit?

Most of money in the UK is created by banks when they make loans. The only way to get extra money into the economy is to borrow it from banks, leaving us all trapped under a mountain of personal debt and mortgages.

1. Banks create new money when people go into debt

When you take out a loan, new money is created. As people borrow more, more new money comes into the economy. All the extra spending this newly created money funds gives people the impression the economy is doing well, which encourages them to borrow even more. As the debt goes up, so does the amount of money.
2. For every pound of money, there’s a pound of debt

Because banks create money when people borrow, for every pound of money in the economy there will be a pound of debt. If there’s £100 in your bank account, someone else must be £100 in debt. Across the whole economy there will be as much debt as money.1
3. If we want more money in the economy, we have to go further into debt

If we need to get more money into the economy – for example, during a recession – then we have to go further into debt to the banks. This is why the government is desperate to get banks lending again: if banks start lending more, they’ll create more new money in the process, and the people who borrowed will spend this new money.

But if the financial crisis was caused by people having too much debt, how can the solution be for people to take on more debt?
4. If we try to pay off debt, then money disappears

When you pay down your debts, the money that leaves your bank account doesn’t go to anyone else – it just disappears. This is because loan repayments are just the opposite process to money creation: banks create money when they make new loans, and effectively ‘destroy’ money when they repay loans.

So when lots of people try to pay down their debts at the same time, money disappears from the economy. As a result of there being less money and less new lending spending slows down. When this happens, it’s like draining the oil from the engine of a car: pretty soon, everything stops working.

This means that it’s almost impossible to reduce our debts without causing a recession. And you personally can only pay off your debts using money that was created when someone else went into debt. This creates a debt trap, where over time the level of personal debt in the economy has to keep growing.

Debt Problems: Why is There So Much Debt? - Positive Money

 

[Skeptic Bob]

I find it difficult to believe that even the most privileged people of that era had it better than I do now.

 

[Geoist]

I find it difficult to believe that even the most privileged people of that era had it better than I do now.

They didn't.

 

[Mr Person]

Did you read my op? I address all of these points.

And yet, your thread title asked a question. I gave my answer...

 

[Helix]

I too would have been dead by 21 (got MRSA that required heart surgery). Certainly wouldn't trade this life for one back then (and probably any other time period of the past). The financial aspect is just an interesting and provoking one to me. As we have developed the technology to teleport atoms and send robots to Mars, we still struggle with financial security in a 1st world country.

we're in the first stages of a post labor economy due to exponentially improving technology. it's akin to the invention of the tractor, except this time, it's multiple sectors, and there's nothing that resembles the growing industrial sector that we had back then to pick up the displaced workers. if we really want to hang on to the work>money>access to resources model instead of a guaranteed salary / entitlement-based economy, then we had probably better remove the paywall in front of higher education / post secondary job training, IMO.

 

[beerftw]

We certainly live longer. I've already lived nearly twice as long as your average 15th century explorer.

What is wierd is how low the life expectancy was for a long time after civilization, but hunter gatherers had a life expectancy close to modern humans. It seems life expectancy plummeted with mass populations and no knowledge of disease prevention or sanitation, and stayed on that path until not too long ago.

Hunter gatherers moved around with the seasons, and stayed in small groups and tribes, so disease was much less common, whereas in the 15th century, or any other century until modern times, people throwing their feces trash and rotting leftovers into the streets was considered the norm, which explains their low life expectancy.

 

[Goshin]

May be I am misunderstanding the question.
No AC!!!!!!!!!!!!
Minimal medical care. Just think, having a tooth pulled without local anesthesia, or dying from a ruptured appendix etc.
Where was the nearest grocery store?
Washer/dryer?
Car?
Social safety net?
The lucky had a plot of land to survive off. Some were lucky to know a trade.
Family values and structure was more intact.
Life was simpler perhaps.
All in all, and may be because I am spoiled rotten, I like the here and now with all its ups and downs.

No AC!!!!!!!!!!!! True, but when was the Little Ice Age? I was thinking late 14th...
Minimal medical care. Just think, having a tooth pulled without local anesthesia, or dying from a ruptured appendix etc. I probably would have died from the very bad abscessed tooth I had in my early 20s. If I'd survived that, the severe appendicitis in my mid-forties would certainly have done me in, or the bad case of pneumonia I had a few months ago.
Where was the nearest grocery store? In the nearest dirt, if some bug, blight, drought or raid didn't do in your crops...
Washer/dryer? Look in the mirror LOL
Car? Feets do yo stuff... or an oxcart maybe... no wonder most people never traveled more than 30 mi from home...
Social safety net? Your children...
The lucky had a plot of land to survive off. Some were lucky to know a trade.
Family values and structure was more intact.
Life was simpler perhaps. Lots of superstition, though, and ignorance, and few options for most... and there were still plenty of mean nasty evil people around.

 

[Harry Guerrilla]

When we think of the Middle Ages we often think of the negatives (and rightly so). Sadistic "interrogation" methods, superstitions, seemingly endless warfare, apocalyptic plagues, oppressive monarchs, etc.

But it wasn't all horrible. Even in the late Middle Ages, a typical English laborer with a family of five was arguably better off financially than the same family in the 21st century. That is because even after paying for food, clothing, and shelter, he still held 2/3 of his income.

View attachment 67202091


Did people of 15th century and first 1/4 sixteenth have a better life than you? | thedepression.org.au

Yes, taxation certainly plays a role in the change. But rising cost of living cannot be 100% attributed to taxes. Until we abandon the dogma of neoclassical economics I believe we are stuck in this tailspin.

Some ways better, some worse.
People didn't have to work as much, but the work was harder.
Taxes were fairly low.
Situationally, you could immigrate by taking your limited stuff and walk.
School was entirely unnecessary.
There were still large areas of the world to get lost in.

Just thinking of the positives.