I have not looked into any sources on what life was like for a feudal peasant. However, I’ve heard that peasants had more holidays and rest. I also believe the life of a peasant was more communal and satisfactory with religion being a central feature. This, to me, is a stark contrast to the life of the modern proletariat in the Global North who often lives for work, is more and more isolated, and maybe gets only a month off work. Yes, we have higher life expectancy now (quantity) but I cant help but think that peasants had a better quality of life. Please educate me on this topic and provide some sources to look at. Thank you! 🙏
Your argument is from the viewpoint as a westerner though.
Many workers in the global south are not given climate control, potable water, or consistent access to food.
Heck, even the people working on farms in the US get the shit end of the stick, and I’m not talking about tractor drivers. The actual workers, mainly immigrants, who spend over a dozen hours a day filling their baskets of berries, getting paid pennies per pound for their labor.
From a westerner’s lens (and I do this quite a bit, but we should all work to improve on it), we think of the working class as a construction worker who has OSHA mandated breaks and PPE, or a McDonalds employee who works in an air conditioned building. But there are A LOT of jobs in America that are operating illegally / do not follow regulation.
I can go on about how even the working class in the west is profiting from the exploitation of the global south, but that can be an entirely different story.
The question is about “labor aristocrats.” It’s an argument I’ve mostly seen made by westerners for other westerners, speaking about work in a western context. That’s what I was addressing.
There’s a better quality of life argument for workers in the global south, but still: