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It does seem that extraordinary times follow disastrous periods.
The best of times in the 20th Century, at least in Canada, followed WWII when
there was lots of rebuilding to be done, government was expanding and labour was
relatively scarce.
I'd have to think about your definition of poverty. It would, as you
suggest, define a lot of people as poor or on the "edge". And given our
insecure times, who would want to take a month off without pay? As well,
it suggests a negative connotation to work, as implying that people would just
love to be away from their work if they could do it, or that they would eagerly
save whatever they could just so that they could do that. Those who could
not, would feel thwarted. This could only happen under conditions of
extreme labour scarcity, perhaps like your English golden age. But I don't
know if that's how most people think about work. When I was working full
time, I saw my paid vacation time as part of the contract I had made with my
employer. I guaranteed him that I would return after my vacation,
and even be on call, and he guaranteed that my job would be secure in
my absense. Perhaps, though, I'm being of an older school here.
During the recent high tech boom, it seemed there was a lot of jumping about
from employer to employer, with very little loyalty shown either way.
Personally, I prefer a low income cut-off definition of poverty, which
bears on the question of affordability: Can a family afford, even at a
basic level, the kinds of things that comprise the components of a decent living
by the standards of society? Can it pay for decent housing, food,
clothing, recreation, etc., etc. If it can't do so at a minimum level,
then it is poor and will likely need assistance.
Ed Weick
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, January 06, 2002 5:49
PM
Subject: Re: Very gentle reminder to Ed
(was Re: community and money
Ed,
You've used that quote before, for which I am
grateful. I copied it into my archive.
All countries have their ups and
down, but this period of a few years at the end of the 15th century was a
special case - which was why Rogers called it "The Golden Age of English
Labor". It was the lonely high spot over the six centuries that he
studies.
However, the point I was making was that people could have a
good life with a high wage in spite of their primitive conditions, so how come
all countries have a leavening of poverty in their rich economies? Of course
it is hidden by welfare of all kinds, but it's still there. Yet it wasn't
during the Golden Age. Rogers found instances of laborers taking a couple of
months off.
You may recall the definition of poverty I use is my High
School senior economics course. Poverty means you cannot take a month off from
work without pay. This covers all the people who may apparently be doing well,
but who are on the edge.
The Golden Age never came
back.
Harry
_________________________________________________
Ed
wrote:
>The point is that a half
millennium ago, it was possible to have a pretty
good working life with
high wages, so why isn't it possible now?
>So, there's my question
for today.
>Harry
I agree, Harry, that time were good for workers in many parts of Europe
for more than a century after the Black Death. The plague had wiped
out a lot of people, one third or more of the population of Europe, and good
labour remained scarce until population rebuilt itself. Rounds of
plague recurred every so often, keeping population from rebounding
quickly. After it had done so, things began to worsen
again.
The following passage illustrates this for a region of
France at the turn of the 18th Century:
- "There was a family in Beauvais in the parish of Saint Etienne in the
year 1693 named Cocu: Jean Cocu, weaver of serges, and his wife with three
daughters, all four spinning wool for him, since the youngest daughter was
already nine years old. The family earned 108 sole a week, but they ate 70
pounds of bread between them. With bread up to � a sol a pound, their
livelihood was secure. With bread at 1 sol a pound, it began to get
difficult. With bread at 2 sols, then at 3.2, 3.3 and 3.4 -- as it was in
1649, in 1652, in 1662, in 1694, in 1710 -- it was misery.
- Crisis in agriculture was nearly always intensified by crisis in
manufacturing: it certainly was in 1698, so work began to fall off, then
income. They went without; perhaps they were able to lay their hands on a
coin or two saved for a rainy day; they pawned their things; they began to
eat unwholesome food, bran bread, cooked nettles, mouldy cereals, entrails
of animals picked up outside the slaughterhouses. The 'contagion
manifested itself in various ways; after hunger came lassitude,
starvation, 'pernicious and mortifying fevers. The family was registered
at the Office of the Poor in December, 1698. In March, 1694, the youngest
daughter died; in May the eldest daughter and the father. All that
remained of a particularly fortunate family, fortunate because everyone in
it worked, was a widow and an orphan. Because of the price of bread."
(Goubert, Pierre (1960), Beauvais et les Beauvaisis de 1600 � 1730, Paris,
quoted in Laslett, Peter, The World we have Lost, Charles Scribner's Sons,
New York, 1984, pp. 127-8)
Before the last two centuries
or so, ever so much depended on weather and climate, the incidence of
diseases of various kinds, whether or not there were wars among princes or
Viking (or Tatar or whatever) raids, and other such factors. The
European world was not really very stable. This is off the top of my
head, but I recall that conditions in the 12th Century were highly
favourable, but things then turned miserable late in the 13th and very, very
miserable in the 14th and then less miserable again and then quite
favourable. Apart from people being miserable toward each other
(always the case), they had no control over their natural
circumstances. Nor did they have the technology that permitted them to
store food from good to bad years or the distribution systems to move food
to those in need.
All of which suggests that we should be very
grateful to live in societies that do have the technology to smooth out food
surpluses and shortages, that have learned to control major diseases, that,
via fiscal and monetary policy, are able to exercise some control over the
trade cycle, and that care enough about their citizens to initiate publicly
funded programs in health, education, and
welfare.
Regards,
Ed W.
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Harry Pollard
Henry George School of LA
Box 655
Tujunga CA 91042
Tel: (818) 352-4141
Fax: (818) 353-2242
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