I’ve never seen the point of wasting my nice fresh morning mind listening to people tell lies on Radio Four, so I try to keep a worthwhile book for waking up to. At the moment, It’s Natasha’s Dance. From this I learnt the economics of serfdom in Russia. Because slave labour is almost always inefficient, by 1862, when the serfs were emancipated, then banks owned (or held mortgages on) 60% of the serf-owning estates, and 30% of the serfs. So they were freed on terms that meant they had to compensate their former owners, over a fifty-year period, for the loss of the land they were given. This money, of course, went to pay off all the mortgages. The newly emancipated peasants could then be hired,very cheaply, for much more profitable enterprises, by the richer landowners.
It’s very tempting to suppose that mankind has never lived in a more disgusting or expoloitative era than our own. But it’s not true.