ASOIAF/GOT ASOIAF Ideas, Recs, and Discussion thread

[CarlManvers2019]

Braavos has more advanced ship building, and they are generally at a Renaissance level of tech.

What’s kept Westeros from advancing to that level of tech?

I’d think even Tywin would think that stuff would be useful to make things cheaper

 

[liberty90]

It can't.

Slavery is, historically, the norm for "civilized" humanity. It's not until you get to a proper industrial revolution that slavery ceases to be economically viable.

Westeros is also a slave based economy; what do you think the smallfolk are?

Hell, even in modern life; wage slave is a term for a reason. Someone working at McDonalds would actually cost the company less than a plantation slave when you adjust for inflation.

I mean iPhones are made with what is effectively slave labor, as are quite a lot of modern conveniences.

So first, define slavery.

"Wage slaves"? Ugh.

The above words can make sense only to a pretty rich person with not enough perspective (or, ironically, to a radical leftist).

Actual poor people could easily see difference between slavery and low-paid free work.

Factory workers in sweatshops are much above true subsistence-level.

Here you can observe how people live:

Dollar Street - photos as data to kill country stereotypes

Imagine the world as a street. Everyone lives on Dollar Street. The poorest to the left and the richest on the right. Every else live somewhere in between. Where would you live? Visit Dollar Street and see homes from hundreds of homes from all over the World.

www.gapminder.org

400$ income per month is a level of wealth with electricity, clean water, cheap used smartphone, a motorcycle or very old car and the 'net. Historically speaking, that's wealth.

Comparision to extreme African poverty (the only modern poverty comparable to medieval poverty), to 30-40$ per month, is inane.

And free people that earn equivalent of 30$ per month, while they lack electricity, drink mostly dirty water and are hungry (and may die at 45-50, if they survive childhood), are still much better off than slaves. Slaves are property. Property can be killed or abused by their owner, and cannot choose between subsistence agriculture, trade and various forms of employment. Slaves lack autonomy of choice. An extremely poor free worker may decide to become a farm hand, or street cleaner, or some day in the future may be able to find work that pay 50$ per month instead of 40$. There is autonomy of choice.

And "Someone working at McDonalds would actually cost the company less than a plantation slave when you adjust for inflation" is simply untrue! Historically slaves employed in agriculture lived at subsistence. In modern dollars, closer to 40$ per month than to 400$. Slaves used in mining operations were often expendable and destined to die faster instead of living to be 50, so these were even below.

Of course at pre-industrial level of technological knowledge luxury like 400$ purchasing-power-parity income of workers is simply impossible. In the medieval setting electrification is unknown to everyone, bicycles are unknown, motorcycles doubly so, antibiotics are also unknown, obviously. Regardless of income. But as I said, difference in autonomy of choice between a slave at subsistence and poor mud-hut dweller at subsistence is significant.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

@liberty90


I think you may have pissed on some extremely smart people’s logic

 

[liberty90]

@liberty90


I think you may have pissed on some extremely smart people’s logic

XIX century classical liberals would say pretty much the same things that I said, so maybe read Bastiat (he would say nothing about motorcycles or electricity obviously, but my point about individual choice is not about these XX century luxuries).

 

[CarlManvers2019]

XIX century classical liberals would say pretty much the same things that I said, so maybe read Bastiat.

Who? Also, busy watching Samurai Jack and Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane atm, so may take awhile

There’s something about “Badass Normals” who wander the land and are proficient both in fighting skills and using their heads, that just really clicks for me and makes me go “How will he get through this one?”

 

[liberty90]

Frédéric Bastiat, laissez-faire proponent of the 1840' France. xd

My point is, historically many people recognized difference between free poor and slaves, though admittedly during early industrial revolution.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Frédéric Bastiat, laissez-faire proponent of the 1830' France. xd

My point is, historically many people recognized difference between free poor and slaves, though admittedly during early industrial revolution.

Okay, I’ll check, hopefully his explanation isn’t too long

 

[liberty90]

Okay, I’ll check, hopefully his explanation isn’t too long

I think then that Adam Smith is better.

In the ancient state of Europe, the occupiers of land were all tenants at will. They were all or almost all slaves; but their slavery was of a milder kind than that known among the ancient Greeks and Romans, or even in our West Indian colonies.

They were supposed to belong more directly to the land than to their master. They could, therefore, be sold with it, but not separately. They could marry, provided it was with the consent of their master; and he could not afterwards dissolve the marriage by selling the man and wife to different persons. If he maimed or murdered any of them, he was liable to some penalty, though generally but to a small one.

They were not, however, capable of acquiring property. Whatever they acquired was acquired to their master, and he could take it from them at pleasure. Whatever cultivation and improvement could be carried on by means of such slaves was properly carried on by their master.

It was at his expense. The seed, the cattle, and the instruments of husbandry were all his. It was for his benefit. Such slaves could acquire nothing but their daily maintenance.

It was properly the proprietor himself, therefore, that, in this case, occupied his own lands, and cultivated them by his own bondmen.

This species of slavery still subsists in Russia, Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, and other parts of Germany. It is only in the western and southwestern provinces of Europe that it has gradually been abolished altogether.

But if great improvements are seldom to be expected from great proprietors, they are least of all to be expected when they employ slaves for their workmen.

The experience of all ages and nations, I believe, demonstrates that the work done by slaves, though it appears to cost only their maintenance, is in the end the dearest of any.

A person who can acquire no property, can have no other interest but to eat as much, and to labour as little as possible.

Whatever work he does beyond what is sufficient to purchase his own maintenance can be squeezed out of him by violence only, and not by any interest of his own.

In ancient Italy, how much the cultivation of corn degenerated, how unprofitable it became to the master when it fell under the management of slaves, is remarked by both Pliny and Columella. In the time of Aristotle it had not been much better in ancient Greece.

"A person who can acquire no property, can have no other interest but to eat as much, and to labour as little as possible."

A free subsistence farmer, even at income equivalent to our 40$ per month at rough purchasing power parity, had entirely different and much better incentives. He was extremely poor, but not a slave, so when by some luck there was occasion to improve house or land, or work harder, he would do that.

Also, while Adam Smith recognize serfdom as a form of slavery, he also say that even serfdom was a milder form of slavery than ancient Roman ways.

Obviously free worker or yeoman (free subsistence farmer) is not a slave, even when on the brink of starvation during worse years. That much was obvious to XVIII and early XIX century economists.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

I think then that Adam Smith is better.



"A person who can acquire no property, can have no other interest but to eat as much, and to labour as little as possible."

A free subsistence farmer, even at income equivalent to our 40$ per month at rough purchasing power parity, had entirely different and much better incentives. He was extremely poor, but not a slave, so when by some luck there was occasion to improve house or land, or work harder, he would do that.

Also, while Adam Smith recognize serfdom as a form of slavery, he also say that even serfdom was a milder form of slavery than ancient Roman ways.

Obviously free worker or yeoman (free subsistence farmer) is not a slave, even when on the brink of starvation during worse years. That much was obvious to XVIII and early XIX century economists.

Capitalism is an improvement over Feudalism, but because it isn't perfect, people prefer Socialism/Communism which ironically sorta makes society more Feudal over time

 

[Ganurath]

So, what's this have to do with A Song of Ice and Fire?

 

[CarlManvers2019]

So, what's this have to do with A Song of Ice and Fire?

In-Part regarding how to stop slavery in Essos

Then there was a talk going back to how Tyrion once thought that Slaves and Smallfolk aren’t so different

 

[liberty90]

Back to the matter, serfdom (so, the status of smallfolk) can be understood as a form of slavery, certainly it was institution criticised by early classical liberals as such (...do not confuse with modern US "liberalism" - from modern point of view early classical liberalism is pretty conservative) but it's a very different and pretty mild form.

Serfs have rights that go beyond status of property. Serfs are recognized as humans with fewer rights, not as, humph... talking things.

I would say that Braavos is the closest thing to early capitalism, though I'm pretty sure that they have influential and market-constraining guilds, as pre-industrial society. No slaves or even serfs, though, as far as I understand things. Free urban poor.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Back to the matter, serfdom (so, the status of smallfolk) can be understood as a form of slavery, certainly it was institution criticised by early classical liberals as such (...do not confuse with modern US "liberalism" - from modern point of view early classical liberalism is pretty conservative) but it's a very different and pretty mild form.

Serfs have rights that go beyond status of property. Serfs are recognized as humans with fewer rights, not as, humph... talking things.

Say, don’t recall the term “serfs” in Westeros

Just smallfolk and even they seem to appear to move around to other lords’ lands

 

[liberty90]

Just smallfolk and even they seem to appear to move around to other lords’ lands

If that's the case, then it can be said that smallfolk are free, even if extremely poor, I suppose.

 

[Deleted member 88]

So, what's this have to do with A Song of Ice and Fire?

Next to nothing, such is the nature of forum discussions.

Thread Tax:

What if Aerys ran off with Joanna and married her sometime in the 250s AC.

Thus angering both Tywin and Tytos, as well as his father Jaeharys II.

The marriage is consummated and Jaeharys II can't revoke it, at least not without angering the faith and setting a very bad precedent.

No Jaimie, Cersei or Tyrion, Jaeharys must find another husband for Rhaella, presumably outside of the Targaryen family(or a cousin maybe). The woodswitch is ignored.

No Tywin as hand, however Aerys remains as heir with Joanna as the first queen consort.

Or is this too implausible?

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Next to nothing, such is the nature of forum discussions.

Thread Tax:

What if Aerys ran off with Joanna and married her sometime in the 250s AC.

Thus angering both Tywin and Tytos, as well as his father Jaeharys II.

The marriage is consummated and Jaeharys II can't revoke it, at least not without angering the faith and setting a very bad precedent.

No Jaimie, Cersei or Tyrion, Jaeharys must find another husband for Rhaella, presumably outside of the Targaryen family(or a cousin maybe). The woodswitch is ignored.

I think there was once a snip in which Tywin married Rhaella, wonder how they’d be as a couple

Tywin compared to Aerys may at the very least be more discrete or secretive about whoring with girls young enough to be his granddaughters

 

[Deleted member 88]

Rhaella wouldn't marry Tywin, and I perceive Aerys would still be king.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Rhaella as the lady of Casterly Rock would probably be seen as too much power for House Lannister admittedly

 

[Deleted member 88]

Joanna as queen is great prestige enough for House Lannister.

Rhaella would not be married to House Lannister-that would be worthless, if a Lioness is queen.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Joanna as queen is great prestige enough for House Lannister.

Rhaella would not be married to House Lannister-that would be worthless, if a Lioness is queen.

So Rhaella gets married to who?

Also, man, prophecies are getting messed up