After the rule of the Mongol over Russia, many of the free peasants had fallen into debt and were forced to work as laborers on the large estates owned by nobles. The Russian serfdom system expanded as more land was added to the empire. This similarity exists between these two systems of forced labors because as both the Spanish and Russian empire expanded, forced labor became necessary to maintain the empires’ economic status. The best social classes to demand labor from are the poorer social classes, in this case, the Russian peasants and Native Americans of the new world. Another similarity between Russian serfdom and the Spanish encomienda system is that both the serfs and the natives were born into their social class, thus born into the system of forced labor, although
Explain why in the years 1906 to 1911, Stolypin attempted to reform agriculture. (12 marks) Stolypin attempted to reform agriculture for many reasons, one of the most important being to strengthen tsarist autocracy. He strongly believed that the future of Russia depended on building a prosperous peasantry. There was widespread rural poverty but an upper class of peasant that farmed efficiently and were wealthier, they were known as the Kulaks. Stolypin believed that the encouragement of a class such as the Kulaks would make them hostile to further change therefore more conservative and loyal to the Tsar as the Tsar had made them wealthy.
Critics say that pressure groups benefit the well organised but they disadvantage the weakly organised, subsequently working against the public interest. This is because the pressure groups run on donations for their funding. As a result, a pressure group with as little as two or three wealthy advocates may end up becoming influential and having its cause heard by the government. However, its members may not represent as much of the population as is suggested by the pressure group’s standing, thus creating inequality. This is amplified by the fact that the larger pressure groups can leave many smaller ones in their shadow.
During this time, feudalism prevailed and dictated how the different “classes” of people were treated. Although this system provided insurance against many of the social hazards of being poor, it solidified the notion that the rich were superior and that the poor were a necessary component of society. The poor provided a basis for which the rich could be measured. Throughout the years, the Feudal System, for which it became known as, eventually phased out due to various economic and environmental factors. Over the years,
Because of this reminder, the reader can empathize with these immigrants when they feel many of our financial problems are unjustly blamed on them. This empathy leads into a value proof; that is, it is wrong to demonize a group of people based on incomplete information. The article also seems to use the demonstrations as an example of another value proof: it is good for a mischaracterized segment of our society to demonstrate in the public forum so that their grievances can be heard. Quindlen points out that such demonstrations have a long history in our country and have been used in the past to bring attention to real or perceived injustices. In my opinion, the emotional component of this essay tugs at the readers’ heart but leaves too much room for disagreement.
At the top of the society there was a Monarch, and there were Nobles and Landowners, who controlled the land. There were peasants and farmers, as well as a very large population of serfs, who were commonly born into serfdom and had no way of escaping. (Cantor, pg 70) Since 90% of the wealth of Europe lay in the land at the time, it was common for Landowners to control peasants. Since they had all control of all raw materials and tools of production, it was becoming increasingly easier for the land owners to lower wages, creating a sharp division between the rich and poor; in wealth as well as power. (Tuchman, 38) The middle or working class was very small, so they did not have much influence on society.
An excerpt from the emancipation manifesto states that landed proprietors, while they shall retain all the rights of ownership over all the lands now belonging to them, shall transfer to the peasants, in return for a rent fixed by law. The nobility and landowners still had ownership of their land, but by law, had to by law distribute it to their ex-serfs, at a fixed, non-negotiable price. The problem was that the prices set for the land were way beyond the reach of the poor and now unemployed serfs. As a solution, the government would loan money to the serfs, who in return would pay back the money in small increments over an extremely long period of time. Despite their freedom, the serfs had it better off in bondage of nobility, than the bondage of government, and then, poverty.
When examining differences between any two groups of people, it is important to compare each party’s social structure. Social distinctions boil down to the very character and culture of a society (Pessen 1127). The historian, Edward Pessen, is in this assertion, but his argument that the actual social structures of the North and South should be seen as more similar than different, he is wrong. The Market Revolution brought about social changes in the North that further differed Northern culture from Southern. In the South, the majority of families lived the traditional southern lifestyle of subsistence farming and providing for themselves, giving them a weak link to the market (Holmes, Lecture 9)*.
People themselves have become their own threat to this needed connection of community. Due to the strategic efforts to privatize government entities have further weakened the core of democracy. Social programs that aid in learning to become affective and positive citizens of a community are limited. Due to the closure and the militarizing of public spaces has diversity in the community limited, locale and grouped. Loosing this vital tool of building citizenship within a community is jeopardized.
Enclosure Prior to the 18th century, agriculture had been much the same across Europe since the Middle Ages. The open field system was essentially feudal, with each farmer subsistence-cropping strips of land in one of three or four large fields held in common and splitting up the products likewise. Beginning as early as the 12th century, some of the common fields in Britain were enclosed into individually owned fields, and the process rapidly accelerated in the 15th and 16th centuries. This led to farmers losing their land and their grazing rights and left many unemployed. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the practice of enclosure was denounced by the Church, and legislation was drawn up against it; but the developments in agricultural mechanization during the 18th century required large, enclosed fields so as to be workable.