A person, an employee who is subject to a Corporate-owned life insurance that benefits the corporation in case of death of such person.
The term was unknown to general public until it came to light in Michael Moore's film "Capitalism: A Love Story". It may have originated as a reference to profitiring scheme described in Russian 19th century novel "Dead Souls" by Nikolai Gogol.
Altough originally a joke paired with "pc masterrace"(A meme about how better PC gaming is than console gaming is, although not everyone agrees.) used for someone who plays console. It is now more often used for someone who is a fanboy/girl of Consoles and hates PC gaming and will defend it at any cost and would rather have an argument about console vs PC instead of a friendly debate/discussion. Often stereotyped by making dumb arguments with no evidence. Although many PC gamers don't believe all console gamers are like this, just the fanboys/girls. (sorry for possible bad grammar.)
pc gamer- "I prefer PC because of it perfoms better, more fps ETC."
Typical console peasent- "Well actually the human eye cant see more than 0.69 frames a second! Get out you basement dwelling enlist pc mustard race!"
PC gamer- "I was just trying to discuss gaming platforms.. calm down.. Are you a console peasant mate?"
Dead Peasant Policy: a life insurance policy that employers can own as the beneficiary in case their employee dies.
This immoral and unethical practice by many large corporations was unknown to the average American worker until the film maker Michael Moore popularly exposed its existence and wide spread abuse at the turn of the 21st century.
Hey my fields will not get plowed if my peasants suddenly die and my crops rot. I need insurance on my dead peasants. Hey, then I can make even more money if I deny my peasants health care and work them to death.