Are We Entering A New Age Of Feudalism?

To quote: “There’s nothing new under the sun.” Welcome to the Human Socio-economic food chain. Those with the most rule, and those with nothing are ruled.

The problem was that there used to be a fear of a peasant uprising. Now the peasants are too stupified by their fake reality, and have no say(and care not to say) on real events that effect them, that the “knights, barons and kings” an just run amok. Even on the few occasions where the peasants get angry and try to do something (usually peacefully) we get military tactics putting them down:

http://www.disinfo.com/2011/05/mass-arrests-tear-gas-sound-weapons-used-against-western-illinois-university-students-video/

I disagree: Peasants were always stupified with their own reality. Revolts happened few and far between. Back then they believed their place was to be peasants, and to be poor, and the big guys make the rules. When conditions became really unliveable and deaths were assured, then revolts became a necessity – die for sure or die maybe doing the revolt.

Also it’s partially because of support: Back then because failed revolts (and even successful ones) meant deaths, possibly yours, now it’s more likely loss of time, and possibly money if they turn around and sue. If you don’t feel any support, then you won’t do anything. This is why Facebook and the like are so good for starting movements.

The comparison comes into the picture. The relations, however, are dull. Feudalismlegalized on the inheritance by blood ties. The new feudalism solely by money andinheritance.

things don’t line up perfectly now but it’s quite easy to see them coming.

1. we have government being fused with corporate wealth leading to popular democracy becoming nothing more than a circus act.

2. we see conservatives and “libertarians” seeking to destroy the social safety net which will lead to the lower and portions of the middle class living as the new serfs without the means to live outside the controll of the new nobility of corporate masters. the increasing costs of higher education is re-instituting a class system in which you will only see the “right people” will have access. the increasing cost of medical care alone is driving people into a place that the only way to afford care is to be controlled by a corporation, ask any small business owner about trying to get insurance.

3. privatization of many areas of that were regulated give corporate interests vastly increased power. corporate powers are gaining control of ports, prisons, even the military and espionage communities are being corporatized.

4. when wealth becomes the only power what difference does it make if there isn’t a officially recognized noble class if the lions share of wealth is controlled by a shrinking group of people, they become de facto nobles.

it is coming.

What has errected the revolution against feudalism were the inheridited claims to obedience or attention. Claims for which not inputs have to be made. Based alone on heritage and bloodline. Same now with money, outgoing of the winner of this system.

Actually, most millionaires are self-made. There are barriers such as education and social networks (not in the Facebook sense but in the social circle sense), but they are surmountable. It is not a level playing field, but class stratification is not feudalism.

Yes and if you look at what happened in Egypt, there hasn’t been the wide sweeping changes they thought they were getting. There are a lot of things that just got a face-change but not much literal change (some things didn’t even get that much – check out the Antiquities department). If the people can keep up the pressure, maybe they’ll succeed but look where it is today: Everyone uses it as an example because it makes a good sound bite, but very few people are paying attention anymore, which has radically reduced the pressure on the “new” government to change from the old. The people in power threw a couple of their own under the bus in the interests of keeping their own power. That makes it in many senses a counter-argument to what you were trying to use it as an example of.

I can hardly wait for the internecine warfar BETWEEN corps to accelerate when it becomes clearer that the tax base t they’ve been butt raping for the last 30 years is totally depleated–meaning that they’ll have to abuse each other for a change.

No doubt there are similarities, but the root technical difference is economic: how wealth is accumulated and whether or not it generates new wealth. Under feudalism, landlords allowed the landless to live on their property in exchange for services or a portion of crops. This is wealth going in one direction, for the personal use of the landlord. What distinguishes capitalism from that, is that the owners of the means of production allow the dispossessed to work for them in exchange for a wage. This allows the owner to make a profit when he sells the product of their labor, a portion of which he consumes directly, and a portion of which he re-invests into the productive process in order to expand. Money makes commodities make more money. This is why capitalism is inherently competitive and expansionist to a higher degree than feudalism (which expands more slowly, when new lands are required because of depletion of the old, rather than through its economic mechanism).

Inheritance doesn’t define the difference. In fact the vast majority of wealth held in this capitalist system is also not earned but inherited.

We may, in fact, be headed into a period of neo-feudalism (feudalism tends to happen when empires collapse). Perhaps we are there already — with the ruling class accumulating without re-investing. Does capitalism in decline (negative growth) turn it into feudalism? That’s an interesting question.