although economics of hobbiton doesn’t make goddamn sense anyway, samwise is hereditary gardener/butler
We weren’t shown really much, but it does make sense, Bilbo and Frodo are local gentry kulaks that did not worked a day in their lives, but we weren’t show people who labour for them, except Sam who is literally a house slave. Merry and Pippin were failsons of the kulak clans who each fatten up on a good portion of Shire. Between the names of Baggins, Took and Brandybuck they had so much power in Shire that they did whatever they wanted there.
but kulaks imply they produce something with local impoverished peasantry, they don’t even do that? they sit pretty in their home and buy food on local market (presumably, garden seems decorative), don’t collect rent, don’t do import export business on local psychoactive substances so ??
The shire is a confusing place where the logic makes no sense bc most of its lore was established before tolkien knew his satire of modern rural english polite society would be going into his fairy tale.
In lotr he tries to salvage it a bit with the chapters showing the shire outside of hobbiton, and the whole very clearly premodern social systems, but that just makes the rural victorian aesthetics (rsvp letters! umbrellas!) stand out more and beg for explanation.
We don’t see them doing so in books, but to live like that someone must have laboured for them. Also kulaks were diverse groups, there were small time tyrants making life miserable for few agri labourers and there were landlords who did nothing except buying land and collecting rent (and all between). Not to mention books, especially adventure ones do seem to skim on mundane everyday lives of characters.
We weren’t shown really much, but it does make sense, Bilbo and Frodo are local gentry kulaks that did not worked a day in their lives, but we weren’t show people who labour for them, except Sam who is literally a house slave. Merry and Pippin were failsons of the kulak clans who each fatten up on a good portion of Shire. Between the names of Baggins, Took and Brandybuck they had so much power in Shire that they did whatever they wanted there.
but kulaks imply they produce something with local impoverished peasantry, they don’t even do that? they sit pretty in their home and buy food on local market (presumably, garden seems decorative), don’t collect rent, don’t do import export business on local psychoactive substances so ??
The shire is a confusing place where the logic makes no sense bc most of its lore was established before tolkien knew his satire of modern rural english polite society would be going into his fairy tale.
In lotr he tries to salvage it a bit with the chapters showing the shire outside of hobbiton, and the whole very clearly premodern social systems, but that just makes the rural victorian aesthetics (rsvp letters! umbrellas!) stand out more and beg for explanation.
We don’t see them doing so in books, but to live like that someone must have laboured for them. Also kulaks were diverse groups, there were small time tyrants making life miserable for few agri labourers and there were landlords who did nothing except buying land and collecting rent (and all between). Not to mention books, especially adventure ones do seem to skim on mundane everyday lives of characters.