[claytonwramsey]

This is covered in a previous article: https://acoup.blog/2025/09/12/collections-life-work-death-an...

In short, most peasant farmers must sharecrop at least some of their land, and on sharecropped land, extraction rates are on the order of 50% (for basically nothing in return).

[lm28469]

> extraction rates are on the order of 50% (for basically nothing in return).

Hey that's pretty much what we have in Germany, probably even higher thanks to vat, capital gains, &c.

[multjoy]

You have roads, infrastructure, a social security system, hospitals, schools…

The peasant got nothing.

[jalapenos]

Not quite, there was social spending on things like (simple) roads and temples (which could double as schools), but obviously nothing close to today's (wealthy) standards.

[lm28469]

Yet I have to wait 2 months (literally) to have an orthopedic doctor look at my broken foot, by that time whatever could have been improved will be long fucked, or I have to go private and pay 100% out of my pocket. I don't own a car, can't afford kids, can't move out of my old contract: it would triple my rent to get an extra room, as for the pension I'll see when I'm 75 or whatever age they decide to make us slave until.

There are lots of countries with roads and hospitals that don't take that much, when I go to poland or other central european countries it feels like a upgrade, most people own their place, working pays in a way that your encouraged to work more, not less, hospitals are fine and much more accessible than in germany or france

[nosianu]

> for basically nothing in return

Basix protection and basic law? Sure, far from an ideal model we would have in mind today, the comparison is against a completely "free" society as in much much longer ago.

> must sharecrop at least some of their land, and on sharecropped land, extraction rates are on the order of 50% (for basically nothing in return).

Uhm... so half of an unknown number? That's also an unknown number then, and the very concrete "50%" means nothing.

I'm only complaining about the TL;DR, the original article is great. After reading it, I think there is no good TL;DR possible. There is too much to consider, actually reading that link seems and unavoidable if one actually wants to know. Would someone in two hundred years looking at average income in the US today as the one or two sentence TL;DR have a useful picture of what life is like in the US today?

[jalapenos]

The rate floated around a lot by time period and domain, but 50% is a good approx figure.

[nosianu]

Reminder what the OP wrote, split into the two statements for more clarity:

> must sharecrop at least some of their land, and

> on sharecropped land, extraction rates are on the order of 50

That's not 50%. That's 50% of an unknown number.

[jalapenos]

And certainly that this statement about a 50% figure on the internet has not come with an absolute value is very important.