Comment Re: I never thought I'd say this... (Score 1) 353
Did serfs live in houses with 30+ others? Migrant workers do. Did serfs' diets consist of beans, rice, and water? Migrant workers' do. Regarding the hours-per-week claims, they seem totally disconnected from the realities I've seen. I've never seen a migrant worker that worked nice short days or took weekends off, but without reliable statistics, we'll just have to agree to disagree here.
You might want to get your facts straight. This was from 2002-2003 so the number may not be a perfect illustration of today but it's fairly obvious that migrant workers don't have it as bad as serfs by a large margine
Hours and pay
"In 2001-2002, the average was 42 hours, compared to 38 in 1993-1994. In 2001-2002, approximately one quarter each worked less than 35 hours, between 35 and 40, 41 and 49, and 50 hours or more."
Housing
Only 5% were in a dormitory, barracks, or multi-family structure.
80% live off farm.
That they are doing the farming for a larger population does not follow from the fact that there are fewer people farming than there were 600 years ago. Non sequitur.
So are you disagreeing that there are fewer farmers or that the population has not grown in 600 years. The were 40 million farmers in Europe in the middle ages with a population of 50 million. Today there are 13 million farmers and a population of 740 million.
I specifically stated that if these jobs had an equal requirement for labor as the jobs they replaced, the logical conclusion would be that there was no net gain in productivity. Since there was in fact dramatic gains in productivity, the claim that these new jobs simply replaced the old jobs is demonstrated false. This is what's called a proof by contradiction.
People no longer have to farm for a living they do one of a million other things because of technology. If technology was not there they would have to farm. I'd like to see your proof that those other jobs did not replace farming jobs, you are missing a few rungs in your logic chain.
Specifically, do you have any evidence that they would have to work less hard to fix broken technology if they do more than "just enough to get by"?
They would have to work harder to fix broken technology. They would need to continue their current effort PLUS fix the technology. I don't know where you are getting this. If you use technology to do the bare minimum you will run into an issue when it breaks. You won't have any money to get replacement parts and fix it yourself or pay someone to fix it. You will need to do more then just meet your current needs.
To avoid death at the hands of an angry mob. I can't believe you've never heard of the French revolution. Amazing.
This I do agree with, that the French Revolution was just a 20 year riot. Your point pretty well illustrates that migrant workers have it better, they are not rioting and killing innocent people so they must be receiving better treatment then farmers 200 years ago. Over half of the migrant workers in the US are committing a crime just to work there.