What was serfdom?
>>790146
Feudal ownership of peasants as property.
The middle ground between slavery and wage slavery.
>>790146
The thing that kept peasants alive.
Many like to forget that self sufficient people (note, I did not say societies) are a relatively new concept.
Basically slavery but slightly more autonomous and tied to land rather than just the people themselves.
>>790243
>Were the serfs seen as a commodity?
No. Commodities only emerge in capitalism, and only fully emerge in productive capitalism.
>How does it compare to American slavery?
Both operated in the 17th century onwards as plantation systems feeding the Dutch and English hungers for goods.
>what were the living conditions like.
Depended entirely on the level of extraction. Under Prussian and Russian reinfeudation god awful. In sparsely settled areas prior to Russia's integration into the global luxury economy not that bad as long as the headman wasn't a cunt and you didn't get invaded.
>>790243
>Were the serfs seen as a commodity?
Yes but they were tied to the land.
You sell your land, you sell your serfs.
>Also, what were the living conditions like.
Ever seen those shitty eastern euro countryside shacks?
like that
You pretty much only had enough money to get drunk and if you escaped you could be punished however the fuck your landowner wanted.
http://blogs.bu.edu/guidedhistory/historians-craft/katherine-ruiz-diaz/
>>790146
>What was serfdom?
Boyar don't hurt me, don't hurt me...
>>792305
What is he wrong about?
>>792313
Apparently I'm wrong because I have a solid category of the commodity and my reading of serfdom is grounded in historically contingent social relations amongst people rather than a transhistorical naïve category of capitalism as a universal market.
>>792313
If I had to guess what he was on about, I'd wager it's due to him using Marx's Historical Materialism, which is pretty much a conspiracy theory when it comes down to it. Given that the entire thing is bogus and unscientific no one whose opinion is worth listening to actually uses it.
>>790146
You will never have the right to your female serf's maidenhead on their wedding night.
My life is suffering. I was born too late.
>>792467
You will never be forced to watch as an gouty 58 year old man in hose and curly shoes plows your 12 year old wife before you have seen her naked
>>790261
>No. Commodities only emerge in capitalism, and only fully emerge in productive capitalism.
Ehh, some of what was going on in 18th-19th century Russia would certainly seem to be a commodification of 'souls'. They were treated as essentially fungible goods between the nobility, and often used as collateral for loans.
Then again, you can't say the same for all of serfdom, which was a staggeringly varied practice depending on where and when you were.
>>792467
This was one of those things every country in Europe accused the other country over of doing, but nobody admitted to doing themselves.
There's no real evidence that it existed.
>>790146
De facto and de jure loss of traditional freedom of movement and property of Western European country folk to military aristocrats encroaching on or ignoring their legal rights under Classical Roman or Germanic laws.
>>790146
Slavery with the threat of poverty rather than whips, if they tried to run they'd just end up in another place full of impoverished peasants.
>>790243
>Were the serfs seen as a commodity?
They were part of the land.
Which led to some "funny" laws - for instance, in feudal England a lord could order his serfs to marry. Why would he do it? Married people tend to have children(no shit), and children=more workforce, more workforce=more wealth from the land. It shows the approach to serfs better than anything else.
>>790208
Actually, not. Semi-self sufficient farmers existed in Italy prior to Punic wars, which impoverished them and cumulated the land in the hands of few wealthy enough to pay for NOT serving in the army(as opposed to poorer and middle class people who simply had to go and their families were left with old people, children and women to work on fields, which obviously didn't work well).
Typical slavic peasants were also traditionally free, rather than serfs, serfdom was introduced as sort of a bribe/reward for ex-druzhinnics that became nobility thanks to it. Further reforms towards more and more rigorous serfdom in the region were caused by the kings and tzars(at this point we're talking mostly about King of Poland and Tzar of Russia) to build up their legitimacy.
>>792865
Russians did do that
>>792463
>Given that the entire thing is bogus and unscientific no one whose opinion is worth listening to actually uses it.
Strong words against EP Thompson mate.
>>792855
While souls were collatoralised they weren't liquidatable and estates passed intact at the village level. Moreover, village production wasn't oriented at producing C' but producing maximal output.
