6 ms·

Being a farmer was worse!

grafmax 1y ago
Farming was bad, but before the labor movement, factories were generally worse. People chose to move to factories not because they were superior to farming but because their old livelihoods were taken from them.
- Jensson 1y ago
  Factories paid better. The working conditions might have been bad but factories paid so much more that people did it anyway, it isn't that you couldn't be a farmer but working in a factory made you richer.
achierius 1y ago
No, that's not true. We can tell because farmers, by and large, strongly resisted attempts to push them off of their land, and generally only moved into cities in large surges every time the economy slumped (Baumol's cost disease having lead to cost increases for the tools they needed to do their farming). Before the modern era, cities were actually net-negative growth rates due to disease, starvation, exposure, murder, etc. -- a fact which was certainly not true of the countryside. Even just operationally we can think -- how common was it for farmers to lose an arm to a threshing machine, to develop black lung from inhaling coal, to take orders from another man like he was their boss? People liked being farmers, people liked owning their own land, people liked being their own boss, people liked feeding themselves, people liked to be independent and self-reliant. All of that goes away when one moves to the city to work in a factory or mine. What you're saying is a common understanding, but it's a false one, rooted in Victorian-era attitudes towards medieval peasants that really have nothing to do with reality.
- jcranmer 1y ago
  I must disagree. The most important thing to understand about peasant farmers is that their economic prospects are tied to the availability of land, and land is a finite resource of which there is not enough and no more can be had. Most pre-modern societies are set up to extract every possible extra amount of food produced, which basically means that in times of plenty, you get more people who have no work available for them (which means they up and leave to the cities, the only places which have the sufficient labor pool). > People liked being farmers, people liked owning their own land, people liked being their own boss, people liked feeding themselves, people liked to be independent and self-reliant. Oooh boy. There's a vast array of different socioeconomic statuses varying through time and space, but broadly speaking, most peasants did not own their own land, and even the majority of people who did own their own land did not own enough to feed themselves from their own land. And even if you did own your land and enough of it to feed your family, you probably still need to borrow the plow and oxen teams, and other farming implements, from your local lord. And since you are perennially on borderline starvation, you're not independent and self-reliant, you're entirely reliant on the village communal support to help you get through those times when your fields were a little bare. Pretending that medieval peasantry was some sort of idyllic lifestyle is exactly the kind of Victorian-era fantasy you're decrying. What peasant life offered wasn't comfort but stability. Peasant life may suck, but at least you knew what you were in for. If you moved to a city (let alone further away), you left your support network, you left everybody you knew, maybe for a shot at a better life... but with essentially no recourse if anything failed. Or you could stay, where things wouldn't get better, but they also wouldn't get worse. Unless there were a major calamity and staying wasn't an option.
  - Balgair 1y ago
    Bret Devereaux is going through the 'peasant experience' right now here: https://acoup.blog/2025/07/11/collections-life-work-death-and-the-peasant-part-i-households/ https://acoup.blog/2025/07/11/collections-life-work-death-an... It's not done yet, and I am eagerly awaiting the end results. That said, from what I can tell from his writings, jcrammer is mostly correct. The peasant life - the modal life - was just awful hard work for many decades. It was not nice and it was not better than the factories most of the time. Yes there were bad factories, a lot of them, but they lasted a brief time. The Factory Act in Britian was in 1833, only a few decades after the factories were even a thing. Aside: We really need better education in labor laws overall.
    - achierius 1y ago
      I'm familiar with Bret Devereaux, but you're underestimating the state of industrial labor. It did not suddenly get happy-cheery in 1833; if anything I would say almost another century of intense political organization was necessary before people were "secure" in their lives and jobs again. C.f. the Coal Wars in Appalachia.
  - johnnyanmac 1y ago
    >land is a finite resource of which there is not enough and no more can be had. That's not as true in the US's development. There's such an abundance of land and rapid expansion made it easier and easier for new landowners to grab acres of land. American to this day is still very sparse as a country. US farmers had a bunch of land and possibly slave labor. They had little need to adapt to new tech. And yes, stability is key if you have it; it's a fleeting feeling (even to this day).
  - Nursie 1y ago
    > What peasant life offered wasn't comfort but stability. Until the local lord took a fancy to a different type of agriculture, drove you off and ploughed your village back into the soil! I've been watching time-team recently and this seems to come up semi-frequently. Your family could have been there for 200 years, no matter, bye now!
  - 1y ago
- jogjayr 1y ago
  > how common was it for farmers to take orders from another man like he was their boss? Historically most farmers were some form of serf. So I think it was common.
  - Jensson 1y ago
    Maybe he thinks about US farmers? But even there I am pretty sure most were not working their own lands, slaves and hired hands and so on seems to have been pretty common.
p4coder 1y ago
Only if you think living longer is bad. Till early 20th century, urban life expectancy was lower than rural life expectancy in Britain. It was dubbed urban penalty. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7186836/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7186836/

Farming was bad, but before the labor movement, factories were generally worse. People chose to move to factories not because they were superior to farming but because their old livelihoods were taken from them.

Jensson 1y ago
Factories paid better. The working conditions might have been bad but factories paid so much more that people did it anyway, it isn't that you couldn't be a farmer but working in a factory made you richer.

achierius 1y ago

No, that's not true. We can tell because farmers, by and large, strongly resisted attempts to push them off of their land, and generally only moved into cities in large surges every time the economy slumped (Baumol's cost disease having lead to cost increases for the tools they needed to do their farming). Before the modern era, cities were actually net-negative growth rates due to disease, starvation, exposure, murder, etc. -- a fact which was certainly not true of the countryside. Even just operationally we can think -- how common was it for farmers to lose an arm to a threshing machine, to develop black lung from inhaling coal, to take orders from another man like he was their boss? People liked being farmers, people liked owning their own land, people liked being their own boss, people liked feeding themselves, people liked to be independent and self-reliant. All of that goes away when one moves to the city to work in a factory or mine. What you're saying is a common understanding, but it's a false one, rooted in Victorian-era attitudes towards medieval peasants that really have nothing to do with reality.

jcranmer 1y ago
I must disagree. The most important thing to understand about peasant farmers is that their economic prospects are tied to the availability of land, and land is a finite resource of which there is not enough and no more can be had. Most pre-modern societies are set up to extract every possible extra amount of food produced, which basically means that in times of plenty, you get more people who have no work available for them (which means they up and leave to the cities, the only places which have the sufficient labor pool). > People liked being farmers, people liked owning their own land, people liked being their own boss, people liked feeding themselves, people liked to be independent and self-reliant. Oooh boy. There's a vast array of different socioeconomic statuses varying through time and space, but broadly speaking, most peasants did not own their own land, and even the majority of people who did own their own land did not own enough to feed themselves from their own land. And even if you did own your land and enough of it to feed your family, you probably still need to borrow the plow and oxen teams, and other farming implements, from your local lord. And since you are perennially on borderline starvation, you're not independent and self-reliant, you're entirely reliant on the village communal support to help you get through those times when your fields were a little bare. Pretending that medieval peasantry was some sort of idyllic lifestyle is exactly the kind of Victorian-era fantasy you're decrying. What peasant life offered wasn't comfort but stability. Peasant life may suck, but at least you knew what you were in for. If you moved to a city (let alone further away), you left your support network, you left everybody you knew, maybe for a shot at a better life... but with essentially no recourse if anything failed. Or you could stay, where things wouldn't get better, but they also wouldn't get worse. Unless there were a major calamity and staying wasn't an option.
- Balgair 1y ago
  Bret Devereaux is going through the 'peasant experience' right now here: https://acoup.blog/2025/07/11/collections-life-work-death-and-the-peasant-part-i-households/ https://acoup.blog/2025/07/11/collections-life-work-death-an... It's not done yet, and I am eagerly awaiting the end results. That said, from what I can tell from his writings, jcrammer is mostly correct. The peasant life - the modal life - was just awful hard work for many decades. It was not nice and it was not better than the factories most of the time. Yes there were bad factories, a lot of them, but they lasted a brief time. The Factory Act in Britian was in 1833, only a few decades after the factories were even a thing. Aside: We really need better education in labor laws overall.
  - achierius 1y ago
    I'm familiar with Bret Devereaux, but you're underestimating the state of industrial labor. It did not suddenly get happy-cheery in 1833; if anything I would say almost another century of intense political organization was necessary before people were "secure" in their lives and jobs again. C.f. the Coal Wars in Appalachia.
- johnnyanmac 1y ago
  >land is a finite resource of which there is not enough and no more can be had. That's not as true in the US's development. There's such an abundance of land and rapid expansion made it easier and easier for new landowners to grab acres of land. American to this day is still very sparse as a country. US farmers had a bunch of land and possibly slave labor. They had little need to adapt to new tech. And yes, stability is key if you have it; it's a fleeting feeling (even to this day).
- Nursie 1y ago
  > What peasant life offered wasn't comfort but stability. Until the local lord took a fancy to a different type of agriculture, drove you off and ploughed your village back into the soil! I've been watching time-team recently and this seems to come up semi-frequently. Your family could have been there for 200 years, no matter, bye now!
- 1y ago
jogjayr 1y ago
> how common was it for farmers to take orders from another man like he was their boss? Historically most farmers were some form of serf. So I think it was common.
- Jensson 1y ago
  Maybe he thinks about US farmers? But even there I am pretty sure most were not working their own lands, slaves and hired hands and so on seems to have been pretty common.

p4coder 1y ago

Only if you think living longer is bad. Till early 20th century, urban life expectancy was lower than rural life expectancy in Britain. It was dubbed urban penalty. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7186836/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7186836/