[Artemisia] Rising Prices was Membership Fees

[Susan E. Macnamara]

Quoting Allen Hall <dukealan at q.com>:

>
>> Consider this, as well.  The cost of our food will is going up as   
>> well as the price of everything else.

As I've read these posts I reflected on my period and place history.  
14th C (early) England. One of the big changes the plague created when  
it hit Europe mid-14th C was wage and price controls eventually  
disappeared.

It is my understanding that the notion of capitalism did not exist the  
way we have it now. Letting one person undercut the price of a product  
by creating it more cheaply and passing the savings on to the  
purchaser was viewed as un-Christian. Likewise, the notion of wages  
varying within a given social role because of competition was seen was  
an invitation to anarchy.

God had created society with the monarch at the top, with the  
nobility, church and peasantry each representing one of the three  
"estates". To aspire to a change in one's estate was generally viewed  
very poorly, because it would be questioning God's ordering of the  
world. The idea wasn't to accumulate more things as baldly as we do  
today, but rather to live the most Christian life possible in the  
context of the life you had been given.

This concept is really foreign to me and one I have struggled with in  
understanding medieval English history. Stability was the goal of  
government and society, not innovation. Inflation as we know it today  
didn't exist, would have been viewed as evil, and the system was set  
up to prevent it.

The plague made price and wage control impossible because of the huge  
change in the balance of supply and demand. Workers were scarce  
(because so many had died) therefore they could afford to demand more  
pay. More money was chasing fewer material goods, so prices rose. The  
government continued to struggle with this issue for several centuries  
by legislation but once the horse was out of the barn there was not  
getting it back inside.

When the economy is changing like it is today, we are facing the same  
challenges our ancestors did in the Middle Ages, however from a  
different perspective. We mostly hope "the Market" will re-balance the  
supply/demand issue, rather than expecting governmental regulation to  
be the primary solution to the problem.

Some times I have very mixed feelings about this! Can't say I'm very  
logical or consistent: I'd sure like more pay, and zero inflation!!

YIS, Luveday de Salford