“Peasant” was basically a farmer. Some peasants had land, many didn’t. If you were a tenant farmer not only did you not own the land, in many cases the land owned you. In many cases you were born on the land and you “rented” it from the manor lord. That meant that you were allowed to grow crops on that land, but you owed the lord for letting you use his land. You’d pay that back with shares of your crop and/or labour on his crops. In return, he was responsible for defending you… but that meant he’d conscript you into his army and you’d fight the invaders.
If you didn’t like that deal, too bad, if you were a villein you couldn’t leave the land without the lord’s permission. You weren’t a slave exactly, but you weren’t free to go find work elsewhere.
There were peasants who did own land, but it wasn’t common. The equivalent today would be if you rented from a landlord, but you had to use a uber-jobs app that required you to do odd jobs for your landlord for free for 1-2 days a week.
Yeah, there was nothing good about it. My great great grandfather was a serf as a kid until it ended at the end of the 1840s. Almost all of the food they produced was taken by their lord. The little bit his family was allowed to keep wasn’t enough to stop them from being sickly from hunger. They lived in a tiny cabin, and slept on what effectively were picnic table benches - two people per bench with their arms and legs hanging down to the floor from each side. There were just a couple differences between that and being slaves. Slaves were legally considered dead, serfs were not. Serfs were bound to the land, slaves were not. That meant a serf could only be bought and sold with the land, and serf families could not be split apart. It also meant they could not legally be murdered or raped. But they were expected to work for and give almost everything they produced to the lord, and they were not paid. They could not leave because they were bound to the land.
A lot of rich capitalist billionaires really would like to bring that back.
There’s nuance here: a peasant may have owned some land, but often not enough to live off of, which made them dependent on additional labour on the land of some landlord to supplement their own land’s harvest.
As I understand the term, it generally refers to the agricultural class in pre-industrial societies. I thought it obvious that this was the comparison made by the post. I’m not aware of any more modern application of the term aside from using it as an insult.
Okay, fair point, my use of the term is very eurocentric. I’ll concede my ignorance on the social structures in other parts of the world where the term may still apply.
As I read this:
First, those agrarian movements which
are done by the poor agriculture labourers and
marginal farmers, and these kinds of movements
are known as peasants movement.
That seems to include marrginal farmers, i.e. those with barely enough land to sustain their family, if that much. We’re back to my point: Peasants may have land, but not enough to qualify as landholders. The criterion is not whether they have any, but whether they have too little, which includes having none at all.
That’s a silly thing to say.
Peasants have land.
Pretty sure they usually worked/lived on the land owned by lords, no?
That would be serf, right?
Serfs were a subset of peasants from what i understand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasant
and those are a type of government surveillance drone if i understand ornithology correctly, which i don’t
But they’d work a couple days out of the year and their lord was expected to fight to protect his people and land
“Peasant” was basically a farmer. Some peasants had land, many didn’t. If you were a tenant farmer not only did you not own the land, in many cases the land owned you. In many cases you were born on the land and you “rented” it from the manor lord. That meant that you were allowed to grow crops on that land, but you owed the lord for letting you use his land. You’d pay that back with shares of your crop and/or labour on his crops. In return, he was responsible for defending you… but that meant he’d conscript you into his army and you’d fight the invaders.
If you didn’t like that deal, too bad, if you were a villein you couldn’t leave the land without the lord’s permission. You weren’t a slave exactly, but you weren’t free to go find work elsewhere.
There were peasants who did own land, but it wasn’t common. The equivalent today would be if you rented from a landlord, but you had to use a uber-jobs app that required you to do odd jobs for your landlord for free for 1-2 days a week.
Yeah, there was nothing good about it. My great great grandfather was a serf as a kid until it ended at the end of the 1840s. Almost all of the food they produced was taken by their lord. The little bit his family was allowed to keep wasn’t enough to stop them from being sickly from hunger. They lived in a tiny cabin, and slept on what effectively were picnic table benches - two people per bench with their arms and legs hanging down to the floor from each side. There were just a couple differences between that and being slaves. Slaves were legally considered dead, serfs were not. Serfs were bound to the land, slaves were not. That meant a serf could only be bought and sold with the land, and serf families could not be split apart. It also meant they could not legally be murdered or raped. But they were expected to work for and give almost everything they produced to the lord, and they were not paid. They could not leave because they were bound to the land.
A lot of rich capitalist billionaires really would like to bring that back.
No they don’t. They’re landless labourers.
There’s nuance here: a peasant may have owned some land, but often not enough to live off of, which made them dependent on additional labour on the land of some landlord to supplement their own land’s harvest.
I recommend reading this historian’s analysis of life as a peasant.
Thanks for the recommendation but I’m pretty sure peasants still exist.
As I understand the term, it generally refers to the agricultural class in pre-industrial societies. I thought it obvious that this was the comparison made by the post. I’m not aware of any more modern application of the term aside from using it as an insult.
https://magazines.odisha.gov.in/Orissareview/2021/August/engpdf/page-56-60.pdf
Okay, fair point, my use of the term is very eurocentric. I’ll concede my ignorance on the social structures in other parts of the world where the term may still apply.
As I read this:
That seems to include marrginal farmers, i.e. those with barely enough land to sustain their family, if that much. We’re back to my point: Peasants may have land, but not enough to qualify as landholders. The criterion is not whether they have any, but whether they have too little, which includes having none at all.
Fair. In India, peasant usually refers to a farmer or agricultural labourer from the SC/ST communities.