> Mass market handicrafts have never been a viable means of subsistence anywhere, ever, if we benchmark against what I think a reasonable lifestyle looks like.
There were plenty of craftsmen who lived lifestyles that were acceptable for the time periods they were living in. From around 1400, to around the early 1900s, European settlements consisting of more than a few hundred people would have had blacksmiths, cobblers, tailors, furniture makers, and various other craftsmen. It wasn’t until the late 19th century that this arrangement started to be replaced by the economies of scale made possible by the factory system.
> A weaver in the 1700s would weep tears of joy at the opportunity to weave things by hand today at market rates.
The idea that a medieval peasant would be envious of our standard of living is doing nothing to further the point you are trying to make.
> The idea that a medieval peasant would be envious of our standard of living is doing nothing to further the point you are trying to make.
It is a fair chunk of the point I'm making - you still have the option of living like a medieval peasant if that is important to you. The option never went away. It is still on the table. People could have kept doing what they did before and maintained the lifestyle that they were used to. It is more that people choose not to do that and I've been saying a variant of that in every comment in this thread so far. The only people who chose to do it that way wouldn't have if they'd had any alternatives because the lifestyle it enabled was terrible.
Having better options available doesn't mean the old option isn't available, more that someone'd need to be either a bit stupid or very motivated to live a particular lifestyle to choose it. it has been a lousy option that led to a mean existence for all of human history. It still does. But in absolute terms, it would be a better option in the modern economy than the ancient one.
There were plenty of craftsmen who lived lifestyles that were acceptable for the time periods they were living in. From around 1400, to around the early 1900s, European settlements consisting of more than a few hundred people would have had blacksmiths, cobblers, tailors, furniture makers, and various other craftsmen. It wasn’t until the late 19th century that this arrangement started to be replaced by the economies of scale made possible by the factory system.
> A weaver in the 1700s would weep tears of joy at the opportunity to weave things by hand today at market rates.
The idea that a medieval peasant would be envious of our standard of living is doing nothing to further the point you are trying to make.