It appears that at the beginning of the 14th century Europe was overpopulated (i.e., overconsuming). The collapse after the overshoot came in the form of (mainly, but not only) the Black Death, which wiped out a substantial fraction of the population.
Economically, what happened after the Black Death (at least in England) was that a smaller amount of peasants were available to work the land for the nobles and pay taxes to the King. The powerful did all in their power to contain wage increases resulting from shortage of labour. Apparently (in modern terms) the GDP dropped but the GDP per capita increased. A couple of decades after the Black Death fewer people were living in better conditions than a couple of decades before it.
But the State still had essentially the same expenses as before. The subjects might have been decimated but there was still one Kingdom and one King with the same need for revenue (to finance, for instance, the 100 Years' War). So Richard II levied three poll taxes in the 1370's, each more... er... taxing (no pun intended) than the previous one.
So if our global economy does collapse this century (it has been argued it's already overshot as it exceeded sustainable consumption in the 1980's) we might see that the powerful will find ways of extracting the same aggregate level of resources from te powerless to allow their activities to continue at the same pace as before, but with fewer people to "tax" something will have to give. Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
Um, that was confusingly worded. What I mean to say is that a couple of decades after the Black Death living conditions had improved for individual peasants but there were fewer of them. Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
In eastern europe the peasants got a worse deal after the Black Death. Similar conditions as in the west, but here the nobility succeeded in enforcing a harsher serfdom, tying the peasants to the land and denying them the freedom to move about. Thus robbing them of their negotiating power.
Changing the material base of the society changes the society, but in what direction depends on what people do about it. And I have a nagging feeling that todays version of nobility is already acting. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
