A new paper by Guido Alfani on economic inequality in Europe showed that Florence and Naples had such a high level of wealth inequality in 1750, that with the exception of a few ruling families everyone else had only just enough to not starve to death. How could anyone have possibly justified this? What role did the Church play in keeping the peace?>The key intuition here is that, instead of simply considering the level of inequality measured for a given society, we should be interested in how much inequality is ‘extracted’ by such a society relative to the maximum feasible inequality, which can be derived by taking into account that everybody needs to receive subsistence. Thus, for each society at a given moment in time the ‘inequality extraction ratio’ can be simply calculated as the ratio (in percentage) between the estimated Gini index of income inequality, and the Gini index corresponding to the theoretical situation in which that same society, given its level of economic prosperity (as proxied by per-capita GDP), ‘extracted’ as much inequality as possible by assigning to all its members just enough to survive, and redirecting all the surplus above mere subsistence to a single super-rich individual or household.>If we place the current estimate of income inequality in Apulia around 1750 (Gini index of 0.699) in relation to the inequality possibility frontier (figure 3), and consider that this part of Italy (and the Kingdom of Naples more generally) was, at that time, a relatively poor region of Europe, we can observe that Apulia suffered from exceptionally high levels of inequality extraction. In fact, it appears to be situated right at the boundary of the maximum conceivable inequality, with an estimated extraction ratio of 99.6 per cent.Citation: Alfani, Guido, 2026. "Economic Inequality and Social Mobility in Preindustrial Societies: What We Know, What We Don't (But Should) Know"
Your excerpt only seems to talk about Apulia. But yes, this has been the common understanding of premodern living conditions for centuries now.
>>18490699If you'd read the paper, which you won't because no one on this God damned board reads anything, you'd see that not every society in Europe had these extreme conditions.>Indeed, Apulia (and probably all or most of the rest of southern Italy, as seems confirmed by ongoing research on Sicily) in the mid-eighteenth century was considerably more extractive than northern European areas such as England or Holland in the Dutch Republic, where inequality extraction ratios amounted to 64 per cent and 82 per cent, respectively. It was also more extractive than other Italian regions, with the only known exception of Tuscany (Florentine State) where the current estimate of the inequality extraction ratio c. 1750 is virtually identical to that of Apulia (98 per cent).So again, why was Italy so different in this respect compared to its northern neighbors such that most people were effectively slaves?
>>18490736That is chiefly because Northern Europe was more modernised in the 18th century. If you go further back, the difference will be less significant.
>>18490696the Jews did this. they were in control.
>>18490751South Italians and Jews are nearly identical, so I actually agree here.
>>18490752>t.
>>18490696>Marxist schizobabbleIf you can't personally explain how he got to the "extraction frontier" mathematically you're literally just sniffing your own intellectual farts
>>18490696>What role did the Church play in keeping the peace?The church had a hand in keeping these people in power, in exchange for regular donations.
Their economic model at the time was pretty much proto-commie.
>high level of wealth inequalitywho cares?
>>18490918Decent human beings...?
>>18490745But overall all studies seem to indicate that wealth inequality ( historical incomes are harder to measure) was growing from 1400s to 1800s all around the Europe.
>>18490696>How could anyone have possibly justified this?probably because things were always like this, the Medici for example, probably invented the modern banking system while they were well known for their generocity, sponsoring artists and inventors so while a few families hoarded all the wealth, there was like a complex system of clientelism under them>What role did the Church play in keeping the peace?not much in a direct way, the Church tried to keep out of Rome any bishops from outside the Latium in the Cardinal college, keep in mind that during the middle ages and into the rennaisance, piety and a pure soul were more important for the common people instead of material wealth, it may sound weird to us in the modern era but people cared more for their immortal souls rather than their physical bodies. The very concept of "gold" and "money" were seeing as impure tentations by the nobility and the lower classes, that's why money lending was forbidden and the nobility in particular often dealt with tributes in kind instead of currency. Going back to your question about the role of the Church, it was an indirect effect of the rigid roles of society imprinted in the feudal system: someone had to fight and protect the peasant, someone had to be a peasant and feed the lord, etc
>>18490955That is only because it was briefly lower just before then as a result of the Black Death, which improved conditions for survivors
>>18490696>99% wealth extractionI understand that's how you get folks to write about how the Malthusian trap is inevitable and about how eating babies should be decriminalized for everybody.
>>18490967take your meds
That's how it managed to produce all that art.
They kicked out Medici because he was feeding the poor.
>>18490922as long as the system provide the same utility, wealth distribution does not matter
>>18490918You need to elaborate more because there is also very high levels of human inequality. That is to say some people are innately far better than others
>>18491305Meant for>>18490922
>>18491299Too bad such inequality itself causes a deficiency in utility. You can't say "If feudalism wasn't inferior in utility, it would be just as good as democracy!" because the fact that it IS inferior in utility is the reason why it is "bad" in the first place.
>>18490918>who cares how a society is structuredif you don't, why study history at all?
>>18490696This actually sounds very equal. You're essentially saying 99% of the population have the exact same status, no wonder society was so stable and healthy back then.
>>18491305>>18491308Low IQ mong who can’t even quote properly, thinking himself part of the group of the blessed few. Humans are, on average, actually extremely similar. Even intelligence. It’s an extremely polygenic trait, which makes even slight outliers increasingly statistically unlikely (just like, for example, height). The only reason why it might seem otherwise is because over generations we have built more and more systems that can leverage even small intelligence differences>>18491583Why do you yearn so badly to be slave cattle? Pathetic faggot behaviour
>>18491659No, I want to be a member of one of the rich families. But if basically everyone is equal and only a few people have different status and live in castles away somewhere where they don't matter to everyone else, the level of equality is very high in practical terms. It's the same as in communism.
>>18490736Protestantism vs Catholicism. Simple as.
