German Peasants' War
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
On one hand wealth is being pooled into a smaller number of people, on the other it's becoming difficult to have anyone invested in working harder - and for good reason, as there's little payoff in that.
And even the wealthiest families would still lose kids. In 1924 the 16 year old son of the President of the United States, Calvin Coolidge Jr, went out to play tennis against his brother. But he forgot to put on his socks. He got a blister, it popped, got infected, and he died. That was the world that humans lived in just a century ago, even the most powerful could expect to lose children before adulthood. And so they needed large families to ensure that some of them made it.
With their reproductive organs more likely.
There isn't really a final word on the topic I'm aware of, but it looks like all the options available are out-competing having children rather than that people are avoiding families as some sort of revolt. People aren't generally willing to have kids if it means abandoning their efforts to achieve the most comfortable modern lifestyle that they can.
That's mostly because for most of history, they didn't have much control over it.
Contraception and basic sexual education changed all that, as evidenced by the sharp decrease in teen pregnancies.
> People aren't generally willing to have kids if it means abandoning their efforts to achieve the most comfortable modern lifestyle that they can.
That's a minority opinion.
Around 12% of the (US) population actually pursues this, in their view, comfortable lifestyle. The rest consistently indicates either same or a larger number of desired children than they have:
https://populationconnection.org/blog/survey-americans-want-...
This is basic economic revealed preferences. These people have all achieved the best living standard (and for the least effort) of anyone in the history of their genetic lineage measuring from before humans were a species.
They may say they want more children, but they are not willing to compromise away any of their comforts to actually have more children. Nothing is stopping them except their own preferences. Literally all their ancestors managed to have children in much worse conditions.
The highest estimate of jobs long term removed by automation that I've seen is around 200 million.
The current labour shortage just in China is already around half of that.
Layoffs in tech notwithstanding, we're still in a period of labour shortages and increased efforts at automation are a reaction to it.
And then the elite says, well lets import excess population from the third world. An idea unthinkable in the past, but now we are modern and not racist.
The core question seems to be whether the economic systems and fiat currencies can survive the next century. Population decline and a shrinking economy should go hand in hand... but planning contractions does not seem to be priority...
Usually, it was a tiny elite, but nowadays, in the time of heavy pension systems, we might actually have succeeded in building an untenable system for a massive part of the population.
As someone who reads a lot about the early history of religion, the most interesting part of this for me was the role of Martin Luther, the founder of Protestantism: "In Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants, Luther condemned the violence as the devil's work and called for the aristocrats to put down the rebels like mad dogs". My study of history of Christianity had left Protestantism relatively unscathed up to now. Well, no longer.
With Jan Žižka they also had arguably one of the best commanders in history, up there with Alexander and Hanibal
Whether the town or term came first...
https://www.contretemps.eu/geneve-temps-calvin-theocratie-di...
Romans 13. Is it any surprise that such a religion has consistently, throughout the centuries, been on the side of the rich and powerful, of the lords and emperors, the reactionaries of all stripes?
Various books of the Bible were written to very specific peoples at specific times, but at the same time, to all Christians everywhere. It takes wisdom to discern to which group does an instruction apply, and when?
This isn't to say that under no circumstances can you break the law; consider Christians in countries where Christianity is unlawful, they consistently break the law and defy the government because submission to God supersedes submission to government.
This passage specifically establishes that building a "Christian Caliphate" is not a goal of Christianity nor should it be a goal of any individual Christian. In general, the government is an institution put in place by God. The general principle is that God is sovereign, so by resorting to violence to assert yourself and your rights you are in no small way asserting your own will over His.
Books have been written on this, so I'll stop here. If you're interested, you can to much deeper on this.
I just wanted to clarify the drive-by theology indicating Christians are somehow "siding" with the "elite" is a very poor understanding of the scripture and ignores basically all of history.
This is a factually incorrect statement. There have been many times where Christianity and the State have aligned for mutual benefit. Ignoring that would be ignoring history!
Just a few examples:
- The Constantinian Shift (4th Century AD): When Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity (313 AD) and Emperor Theodosius I made it the official Roman state religion (380 AD), the Church transformed from a persecuted minority into an institutional ally of imperial power (Source: Eusebius, "Life of Constantine"; Peter Brown, "Through the Eye of a Needle").
- The Divine Right of Kings & Feudalism: Throughout the Middle Ages and Early Modern period, Christian theology was used to legitimize monarchical power and feudal class structures. Rulers were viewed as ordained directly by God, making rebellion against political elites a sin (Source: Ernst Kantorowicz, "The King's Two Bodies").
- Martin Luther & The German Peasants' War (1524–1525): When German peasants revolted against feudal oppression using Protestant ideas, Martin Luther explicitly sided with the aristocracy, writing Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants, urging nobles to suppress the uprising forcefully.
- Pro-Slavery Theology in the Antebellum South: Major American denominations split over slavery in the 1840s (e.g., the founding of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845), with prominent theologians using Biblical texts to justify chattel slavery and protect the economic interests of the plantation elite (Source: Mark Noll, "The Civil War as a Theological Crisis").
- Currently in the US, the Federal Government and Christianity have strong alignment, to the point where pastors in churches advocate for politicians openly now. https://abcnews.com/Politics/meet-pastors-support-donald-tru...
Edit: Why TF was this flagged??
However, the argument here is not that Christians side with the elite, but that the Church does. The Church has sided with the powerful again and again over the centuries, to great effect for its own wealth, going against what was objectively (ie not only by today's standards) morally right, and very much against scripture.
Your own argument that submission to God supersedes submission to government is one that the Church, as an institution, rarely abides by. By any reasonable reading of his sayings, Jesus would have preached against oppression of the poor, slavery, war, politically-convenient massacres, even the selling of indulgences. From the 4th century on, the Church has been part and parcel of oppression in all its forms, at enormous benefit to itself, and often against what the oppressed wished.
The changes that the Church made to early Christianity (centralisation, violent standardisation of beliefs, empowerment of the clergy) might have been sincere, but the continuing plight of the poor while the Church became one of the richest and most powerful institution in this part of the world is difficult to see as an an unfortunate coincidence.
If the Church is happy to call for the killing of peasants while at the same time initiating and celebrating massacres during the Crusades (a period of a Christian caliphate), among many many examples, it's only right that the institution be seen as an oppressor that has not much in common with Jesus or Christians.
Again, I'm not talking about Christians, or even individual priests, but the institution itself. I think Jesus had beautiful ideas, but it's difficult to know anything about history and not despise the Church.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_(novel)
https://www.alibris.com/Q-Luther-Blissett-pse/book/5481947
Bonus fact: some believe that the ‘Q’ of ‘Q’ is the inspiration for the naming of the pseudonymous ‘Q’ of Q-Anon fame :-| Don’t let that put you off the book though; its politics are not the same!
Proving again that a harmony of interests is better than domination.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasant_republic
Notably Handeln and the communes of the Swiss Cantons are considered to have "survived" into 19th C.
Quite a slaughter. Today we also have indirect slaughter - billionaires versus the rest of the world.
The medieval days, though, were quite tragic because those peons and farmers were factually slaves, depending on the area (there were a few with less restrictions for a while, but ultimately it was slavery). Some of those wars were briefly won by the peons, but in just about any case where they had some victory, lateron they had a huge defeat. Even those who survived were either later executed, or lost their wealth because those who fought for the aristocrats were often rewarded with possessions of others here. In some european countries there is still "nobility". They still have unfair wealth. They should give that to the people.
I grew up in Germany but I don’t think we covered this in history class - maybe I forgot about it, the whole medieval period is mostly a blur for me now
I find history fascinating, especially the history of religion, and my views on it are in line with my contributions and discussions on HN about authoritarianism, surveillance, oppression, etc.. It's unfortunate that wanting to give some visibility to a little known episode of history and then engaging in debate about a passion of mine is seen by you as disingenuous.