You should tell this to subsistence farmers living in Sub-saharan Africa that farm nearly every calorie they consume. It’s a negotiation between them, the earth, and the uncaring sky. Same as its been for millennia. No rich people necessarily involved.
Are they free because no rich people are involved?
We live in an economically connected world. An argument can be made that they’re forced to subsistence farm in a backbreaking and cruel way due to the natural resources of their country extracted by oligarchs that don’t even live in Africa.
Wherever poverty exists, rich people are involved by their sheer unwillness to share enough to meet everyone’s basic needs.
That really isn’t the case for large parts of rural Sub-Sahan Africa. For literally millions of people, they are growing crops basically about the same as their ancestors, in the same area. Maybe now they have mobile phones. It was ALWAYS hard labor.
Is everyone in this thread rich American college kids or something? Why do you all think the natural state of the world is Utopian paradise where leopards and impallas are best friends?
Because we had the technology and the money to create that world back in the 90’s. Now we’ve got twice as much money and twice as good tech in the world and yet 95% of people still have to fight for their survival. This could be a reality if it weren’t for hoarders.
The lack of rich people doesn’t imply freedom - people who are forced to hunt, gather, fish or farm for subsistence only with no reward beyond that are enslaved to the need to produce food and find shelter, but that differs from a society where there’s sufficient food and shelter, it’s just hoarded by those who have too much
Additionally the presence of rich people doesn’t imply a lack of freedom - you could have a “safety net” system where everyone is guaranteed housing and enough grains and beans/similar to survive, and if they want more they can work for it (some of the taxes from this go towards compensating farmers and builders), giving people the freedom to not have to worry about survival, while also allowing for people to earn lots of money and buy nice things if they want and/or can
Is every person in those communities required to work to eat and have shelter, or does the community take care of those that are unable to contribute labor due to health conditions/old age?
In the community where I lived, usually the guys did the farming, which was back-breaking work, leaning over hoeing land manually. Men would also raise livestock, be tailors, teachers, traders, barbers, and a few other jobs. Don’t get too wound up over “traders” - a guy would borrow money to walk to a large town and buy things he would sell to neighbors out of his home. He would do this until so many people said they would pay him back for the things from the “store” that he didn’t have any money to buy things in town anymore, so the town would be without things like salt or kerosene for lanterns for a couple weeks, and then people would get fed up, and one new guy would start the cycle over again.
Women pounded the millet and sorghum into flour to make food, did gardening, made every meal, raised the kids, pulled water from the well, and some other micro-level cottage industry-ish type things.
But people worked every day. Old people worked every day. Unless you got malaria or had a severe injury, every day was work until you died, and even then you tried to do something because there was always so much work to do.
Some people took care of meals and the household. That isn’t the kind of work to live that we are talking about because it isn’t directly paid.
Not to mention people with severe injuries or illnesses that can’t do hard labor. Someone with crippling arthritis will still be provided for by the community.
I can imagine by some stretch you can still blame the rich, maybe without the rich people they’d have more access to better farmland, cheap water, etc.
Lol, so desperate to be the victim of an imaginary rich person that you don’t even understand that it universally takes work to do things like eat food.
How do you think people got food 10,000 years ago? Or 30,000?
Do you think being a hunter-gatherer society is a vacation? Who were the rich people before money was invented that apparently caused things like drought?
You should tell this to subsistence farmers living in Sub-saharan Africa that farm nearly every calorie they consume. It’s a negotiation between them, the earth, and the uncaring sky. Same as its been for millennia. No rich people necessarily involved.
Are they free because no rich people are involved?
We live in an economically connected world. An argument can be made that they’re forced to subsistence farm in a backbreaking and cruel way due to the natural resources of their country extracted by oligarchs that don’t even live in Africa.
Wherever poverty exists, rich people are involved by their sheer unwillness to share enough to meet everyone’s basic needs.
That really isn’t the case for large parts of rural Sub-Sahan Africa. For literally millions of people, they are growing crops basically about the same as their ancestors, in the same area. Maybe now they have mobile phones. It was ALWAYS hard labor.
Is everyone in this thread rich American college kids or something? Why do you all think the natural state of the world is Utopian paradise where leopards and impallas are best friends?
Because we had the technology and the money to create that world back in the 90’s. Now we’ve got twice as much money and twice as good tech in the world and yet 95% of people still have to fight for their survival. This could be a reality if it weren’t for hoarders.
I thought bill gates cured poverty in Africa because he’s such a nice guy.
The lack of rich people doesn’t imply freedom - people who are forced to hunt, gather, fish or farm for subsistence only with no reward beyond that are enslaved to the need to produce food and find shelter, but that differs from a society where there’s sufficient food and shelter, it’s just hoarded by those who have too much
Additionally the presence of rich people doesn’t imply a lack of freedom - you could have a “safety net” system where everyone is guaranteed housing and enough grains and beans/similar to survive, and if they want more they can work for it (some of the taxes from this go towards compensating farmers and builders), giving people the freedom to not have to worry about survival, while also allowing for people to earn lots of money and buy nice things if they want and/or can
Is every person in those communities required to work to eat and have shelter, or does the community take care of those that are unable to contribute labor due to health conditions/old age?
Everyone works, it’s just a matter of on what.
In the community where I lived, usually the guys did the farming, which was back-breaking work, leaning over hoeing land manually. Men would also raise livestock, be tailors, teachers, traders, barbers, and a few other jobs. Don’t get too wound up over “traders” - a guy would borrow money to walk to a large town and buy things he would sell to neighbors out of his home. He would do this until so many people said they would pay him back for the things from the “store” that he didn’t have any money to buy things in town anymore, so the town would be without things like salt or kerosene for lanterns for a couple weeks, and then people would get fed up, and one new guy would start the cycle over again.
Women pounded the millet and sorghum into flour to make food, did gardening, made every meal, raised the kids, pulled water from the well, and some other micro-level cottage industry-ish type things.
But people worked every day. Old people worked every day. Unless you got malaria or had a severe injury, every day was work until you died, and even then you tried to do something because there was always so much work to do.
Some people took care of meals and the household. That isn’t the kind of work to live that we are talking about because it isn’t directly paid.
Not to mention people with severe injuries or illnesses that can’t do hard labor. Someone with crippling arthritis will still be provided for by the community.
I can imagine by some stretch you can still blame the rich, maybe without the rich people they’d have more access to better farmland, cheap water, etc.
Lol, so desperate to be the victim of an imaginary rich person that you don’t even understand that it universally takes work to do things like eat food.
How do you think people got food 10,000 years ago? Or 30,000?
Do you think being a hunter-gatherer society is a vacation? Who were the rich people before money was invented that apparently caused things like drought?
Rich people are very likely at fault, too, given that shitty countries are handy for cheap labour and materials, like coltan…
Explain how that works with a village of 350 people 4k from a paved road, where no one can or does work outside of the village doing farming work.