Coexistence of poverty and wealth within and between nations
To
understand why some people or nations are poor while others are rich, one has to
analyze first why and how the rich got rich. Everywhere you look in time and
space within and between nations, there are clusters of rich and poor people
and nations. The common thread is the exploitation of one group by another.
After
the fall of the western part of the
the weak in exchange for their land. Those who surrendered became serfs under a
feudal system of governance and were legally bound to their lords. Besides
working for free on the lords’ land, the serfs paid tribute to the landlords from
their harvests. They also paid for using the lords’ grinding mill, bakery and
brewery. They contributed one-tenth (tithe) of their harvest to the church
because priests prayed for the serfs souls. In the end the serfs retained less
than half of the harvest which was not enough to meet the nutritional
requirements of the family and a surplus for next planting and sale for cash to
purchase essential items such as salt. Therein lay the beginning of
impoverishment which became intergenerational.