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I was having a coffee with an Anglo-Italian friend of mine the other day, and he began telling me about his grand-parents. They were “contadini”, which translates literally as “peasants”, though the term peasant does not have such pejorative connotations in Italy as it does here. They called themselves “mezzadri” or “sharecroppers”. A landowner allowed them to work his land, in exchange for half of everything they produced on it. The other half they got to keep. Selling that half of the produce was how they got money. My friend’s family had been doing this for generations, never actually breaking above that status to become landowners themselves.

There are many parallels to the mediaeval serf, who had to work the land of his lord in exchange for his subsistence and protection. Just as the serf was the descendent of the Roman slave, so was the contadino the descendent of the serf, though contadini were not as subjugated, except by their circumstances.

It is not so different to the plight of the young western worker today, particularly at the lower end of the pay scale, who has, by the time you factor in inflation and other taxes, half of everything he earns taken from him by the state, and is unable to buy a place to live. 

In any case, in 1966 Grandad left Italy and the peasant existence, followed by Grandma in 1967, and they came to work in England. With union law quite protective at the time, most Italians in the UK found themselves either setting up small businesses or working for other small businesses belonging to friends or family, especially in the catering industry. (My grandad, who was also Italian, ran a sandwich shop in Victoria). They were paid in British pounds, and largely in cash, on which they are unlikely to have paid much Income Tax. 

While the British pound was not exactly a beacon of fiscal rectitude, it was a lot better than the Italian lira, which suffered numerous devaluations and became something of a laughing stock currency. This meant that the money Grandad and Grandma were paid in kept its value, at least on a relative basis.

Several years passed. My friends’ grandparents worked hard and saved. Then in 1970 they went back to Italy and bought themselves an apartment. It may only have been an apartment, but for the first time in the family’s history they owned property. They carried on working in the UK and by 1976 they were able to buy some of the land on which they had previously been contadini. Their social status had changed - from peasant to landowner.

It was a common thing among Italian emigrants throughout the 20th century. When they went back home, they had so much more money than those who had stayed.

They hadn’t had particularly good jobs in England. They were waiters. They were only able to do what they did for two reasons: one, the money they were paid in and saved in was so much stronger than the Italian lira; two, operating in the cash economy and receiving much of their income in tips, which were not taxed back then, they did not have 50% of the produce of their labour confiscated, whether by landowner, lord or state.

There is an important message to this story, both about how society works and about how you should position yourself.

The unspoken crime of the 20th and 21st centuries

Actually, there are many crimes, let’s just say this is a big one. Not only are workers fleeced by the amount of tax that they have to pay (most of which is then wasted on government incompetence or worse), they are fleeced because the money they are paid loses its value.  

Owning property has been one of the few ways by which ordinary people have been able to protect themselves against the extraordinary currency debasement of the 20th and 21st century. As I constantly