[vintermann]

Of course there are degrees of servitude, from light or well-regulated wage payment to outright slavery. (But actual slaves were also often paid wages, something I found pretty surprising and counterintuitive). And if you were a paid servant of someone powerful, that could still carry its own prestige to make up somewhat for the dependence.

To take some examples from genealogy, I had trouble identifying a guy described merely as "servant" in a census as the father of some quite powerful and wealthy people. But it turned out, he was a bailiff, a servant of a fief holder.

I also found out there were laws against not going into servitude in my country. Many, especially young unmarried men, would prefer to work and especially to fish on their own, rather than to work for wages. So the authorities had to resort to actually make it illegal. This wasn't just to be nice to big owners, it was because economies of scale meant lower tax revenues if everyone went fishing on their own little boat.

In general, governments did quite a lot of deliberate effort like that pushing people away from a sustenance economy and into a cash economy where they could produce things rich people (e.g. kings) wanted rather than things they needed themselves.