This is a great series and I’d love to see an addendum covering different staples like rice, alternative social structures like tribal systems, and the impacts of different forms of irrigation.
From memory - Prof. Devereaux has briefly touched on those a few times. But with heavy disclaimers that all are outside his own areas of historical expertise - so anyone who cares should go read accounts by subject-matter experts.
I'd say that since today, modern western government spending floats around 50% of the total, and that's widely believed roughly the average tax rate of feudal times (with big variance by place and time), they're about the same proportion wise.
The difference of course being, in our wealthy age, the communal benefits nowadays are similarly greater.
I think certain comparisons regarding social spending now are just cultural self-congratulation.
For instance, yes a politician can't just pocket any takings directly. Instead, it has to be indirect - post-office speaking fees, consulting, etc, that can easily render them far richer than any manor lord of old.
Also in such undeveloped, poor, and violent times, the value of law, military power, as well as what communal spending did happen - a granary, a road, a temple - would have similar value parity to them then as to us for what we get in the modern era.
My own interpretation is that it's difficult to precisely compare how peasants were exploited to modern taxation regimes in the developed world. Perhaps more as an unfavorable relationship with the only employer in town?
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).
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.
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?
This is a great series and I’d love to see an addendum covering different staples like rice, alternative social structures like tribal systems, and the impacts of different forms of irrigation.
From memory - Prof. Devereaux has briefly touched on those a few times. But with heavy disclaimers that all are outside his own areas of historical expertise - so anyone who cares should go read accounts by subject-matter experts.
> the heavy extraction regime they operate under
It might be interesting to quantify this. How does it compare to typical tax rates today?
I'd say that since today, modern western government spending floats around 50% of the total, and that's widely believed roughly the average tax rate of feudal times (with big variance by place and time), they're about the same proportion wise.
The difference of course being, in our wealthy age, the communal benefits nowadays are similarly greater.
I think certain comparisons regarding social spending now are just cultural self-congratulation.
For instance, yes a politician can't just pocket any takings directly. Instead, it has to be indirect - post-office speaking fees, consulting, etc, that can easily render them far richer than any manor lord of old.
Also in such undeveloped, poor, and violent times, the value of law, military power, as well as what communal spending did happen - a granary, a road, a temple - would have similar value parity to them then as to us for what we get in the modern era.
Part 4c (this is quite a long series) goes into some detail here. https://acoup.blog/2025/09/12/collections-life-work-death-an...
My own interpretation is that it's difficult to precisely compare how peasants were exploited to modern taxation regimes in the developed world. Perhaps more as an unfavorable relationship with the only employer in town?
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).
> 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.
You have roads, infrastructure, a social security system, hospitals, schools…
The peasant got nothing.
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.
> 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?
The rate floated around a lot by time period and domain, but 50% is a good approx figure.
(Numerical) tax rates seem a very poor way to describe the reality of peasant life.
Generally, it was closer to "extract until the rate of malnutrition deaths and desperate uprising makes it not worth trying to extract yet more".