Position in The Hierarchy
Peasants typically make up the majority of the agricultural labour-force in a pre-industrial society. The majority of the people in the Middle Ages were peasants. (Pre-industrial societies have diminished with the advent of industrialization.)
Though "peasant" is a word of loose application, once a market economy has taken root the term peasant proprietors is frequently used to describe the traditional rural population in countries where smallholders farm much of the land. It is sometimes used by people who consider themselves of higher class, more precisely the second and first Estate - these were the Nobility and the Clergy and right at the top was the monarch - as slang to refer pejoratively to those of poorer education who come from a lower income background.
Read more about this topic: Peasant
Famous quotes containing the words position in the, position and/or hierarchy:
“The first full-fledged generation of women in the professions did not talk about their overbooked agenda or the toll it took on them and their families. They knew that their position in the office was shaky at best. . . . If they suffered self-doubt or frustration . . . they blamed themselves—either for expecting too much or for doing too little.”
—Deborah J. Swiss (20th century)
“The essence of spirit, he thought to himself, was to choose the thing which did not better one’s position but made it more perilous. That was why the world he knew was poor, for it insisted morality and caution were identical.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.”
—Laurence J. Peter (1919–1990)