What was life like for most people before the Magna Charta?
Before the Magna Charta, most people outside the elite ruling class experienced mere existence, marked by abject poverty, slavery, and oppression. There were no recognized human rights; only after the Magna Charta in England delineated some rights did Western civilizations gain a semblance of them.
Les explains that all the way up through human history, unless a person was fortunate enough to live among the very elite in the ruling class, life for everyone else was just existence. Most people lived under abject poverty, slavery, and oppression. He notes it was not until the Magna Charta came out of England, around the 14th century, that some human rights were delineated. Before that, there was no such thing as human rights. Since then, Western civilizations have had at least a semblance of human rights, though many people still live in a downtrodden state, groveling in poverty, so it is not a utopia.