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Antiwork

The More things change ……work after the plague.

There is a great piece in the NY Times about work after the Black Plague during the middle ages. Apparently, the elite landowners used laws and threats of death to force workers back to the farm. “In the years after the plague, all across Europe, landowners and noblemen watched, first in outrage, then in fury, as people walked away from their jobs and went in search of a better life. What followed was a hysterical wave of legislation that tried to return the economy to where it had been before the plague. Statutes and ordinances froze wages at pre-plague levels; they made it illegal to leave a master's land, illegal to flee; they, in effect, made unemployment itself illegal.” Note: The NYT is paywalled for most.


There is a great piece in the NY Times about work after the Black Plague during the middle ages.

Apparently, the elite landowners used laws and threats of death to force workers back to the farm.

“In the years after the plague, all across Europe, landowners and

noblemen watched, first in outrage, then in fury, as people walked

away from their jobs and went in search of a better life. What

followed was a hysterical wave of legislation that tried to return the

economy to where it had been before the plague. Statutes and

ordinances froze wages at pre-plague levels; they made it illegal to

leave a master's land, illegal to flee; they, in effect, made

unemployment itself illegal.”

Note: The NYT is paywalled for most.

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