[PEN-L:27358] Re: LTV and income disparity

[joanna bujes <joanna.bujes@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 03:58 AM 06/28/2002 +0000, you wrote:
> Absolutely false. In England, for example, in the 14th and 15th centuries,
> vagabondage--landless migrant would-be workers--was a huge social problem.
> In ancient Rome, there was the proletariat--a term that meant "those whose
> only function is to breed."

England: Late 14th century there was actually a labor shortage due to
plague; 15th century is the birth of the enclosure movement, which enclosed
some of the commons, taking away people's means to live: they migrated to
the cities, where they were subject to increasingly harsh "poor laws." The
situation in Rome was also an outcome of Rome as empire. None of this is to
argue that Capitalism was responsible, but to argue that equally artificial
conditions of privilege and immiseration obtained.

Joanna