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Indeed. The world needs to return to feudalism (EDIT: it looks like I said "feudalism" and meant "the current economic model of Europe"...), with elites -- who

Indeed. The world needs to return to feudalism (EDIT: it looks like I said "feudalism" and meant "the current economic model of Europe"...), with elites -- who are more or less permanent and hereditary even in capitalism -- having, and believing and accepting that they do have, clearly-defined obligations towards the common people and towards the collective defense of the realm. Of course, there'll always be room for islands of capitalism (imagine New York or San Francisco as a free city), and a modern neo-feudal system will allow social mobility more readily than the original; but still. I'm not trolling, by the way. The usual assumption is "if not capitalism then communism," but there are older, more interesting systems out there. (There are also younger, scarier systems out there. The far right is getting disconcertingly strong in Europe, and indeed in the US; I think that if we don't explicitly choose some sort of neo-feudalism, we're going to get neo-fascism instead, or possibly just the original kind of fascism.) (Disclaimer: neo-feudalism does not mean the revival of torture and oppression. One, "revival" implies that they aren't currently with us. Two, I think that a king, who answers only to God, assassins, his own conscience, and his hopes for his heirs, is less likely to turn lawless or pander to bloodthirsty mobs than a president is.)

mac01021 10y ago
> The world needs to return to feudalism Traditionally feudal lords have aimed mostly spend the minimal amount possible on welfare for their serfs - staving off social unrest but keeping for themselves as much as possible of the GDP subject to that constraint. Are you suggesting that neofeudalism will somehow do better in this respect? Or simply that that would be better than what we have now? > is less likely to turn lawless What's meant by this? It might true in the tautological sense that the despot acts within the law by definition, whatever he does. But I sense that's not what you mean.
- clock_tower 10y ago
  > Will some sort of neo-feudalism do better than historical feudalism? I think that what I'm groping towards by saying "neo-feudalism" is the existing European social model with the optional addition of ermine capes, as someone else commented below... This discussion has actually taught me a few things, and I don't have a pre-existing opinion here. > Kings and lawlessness A president's timeframe is likely to be "until the end of my term in office," at least if the behaviors of the last few presidents are any indication; a king's timeframe is, at least, "until the end of my life", more likely "forever" since he's handing off the kingdom to his children. (Or she to her children in a queen's case.) This should make it easier to resist panic and opinion polls, and make decisions that pay off in the long term -- like remaining a good country to surrender to. On the other hand, when a king goes wrong it's hard to stop him -- especially in a context where the king has most of the country's military power. (And decentralized military power creates its own problems; the French religious wars, for example, lasted 80 years and ended in autocracy.) A tyrannical elected leader (like Hitler) could secure power just as solidly as a tyrannical king could, so elections are no protection there, but what about an incompetent king versus an incompetent elected leader? Get a president with bad judgement, it'll be over in four or eight years; get a king with bad judgement and your country might be permanently wrecked. So, I'll revise my previous statement: the world needs the European social model, but should probably stay about as democratic as Europe probably is now. But I stand my position that "capitalism is the problem" means that there are multiple other choices that can be looked at, not just communism. Problems with communism don't mean that capitalism is flawless; and problems with capitalism don't mean that we should abolish private property. Or maybe what I'm groping towards is this: if people behave responsibly, things will probably be all right, but if they don't, things will go badly. But that's what Confucius said, and his system ended up as a cloak for autocracy...
  - TheCoelacanth 10y ago
    Hitler wasn't actually elected. He was appointed by the elected leader.
  - prawn 10y ago
    I'm trying to imagine a system whereby as much power is removed from a corruptible entity as possible. Could the king in your scenario be a set of algorithms? Someone on HN previously pointed me towards this: https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/futarchy.html https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/futarchy.html "Elected representatives would formally define and manage an after-the-fact measurement of national welfare, while market speculators would say which policies they expect to raise national welfare."
    - clock_tower 10y ago
      At least in the Middle Ages, there were algorithms that reigned over the king. A king had an executive role (comparable to a US president, greater than a parliamentary prime minister), but was constrained by customary law -- which is fancy-speak for "the way we've always done things," but even so, it meant there were things a king couldn't do. One of the issues Barbara Tuchman mentions in _A Distant Mirror_ is the way in which the French king could only levy a tax on the whole realm when at war, and even then couldn't continue it after the war ended -- the expectation being that "the king will live of his own," i.e. support himself from his personal estates, at peace. Going forward in history, that's why the Carlists in 19th-century Spain were both pro-autocracy and fighting for their liberties: they preferred a king who was the absolute monarch of a half-dozen countries (Castile, Leon, Navarre, Galicia, Aragon, and Andalusia), instead of a centralized federal government in which none of the kingdoms had special privileges (note that Carlism was strongest in the northern parts of Spain) and all kingdoms' subjects were administered impartially from Madrid.
tunesmith 10y ago
That's neoreactionary moldbuggery. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater - we can't figure out how to help people in the midwest, so let's make them serfs.
- clock_tower 10y ago
  Just don't accuse me of being racist or fascist, and you can call me what you like. But note my point about having more social mobility than feudalism 1.0. (Even back in the Middle Ages, though, serfs had property rights; they were sharecroppers, legally bound to their land but entitled to keep a proportion of their harvests. In the late Middle Ages, the obligation to give their lords a portion of their harvests was turned into the obligation to pay a certain amount of money -- which was not indexed for inflation, with interesting long-term consequences.)
rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
That largely resembles the contemporary European social contract, where there are elites and commoners and in exchange for the elites not having their boat rocked too hard the commoners are guaranteed health care and general welfare, but not necessarily prosperity.
- clock_tower 10y ago
  I honestly hadn't thought about Europe that way, but I always did know that I liked the cut of their jib. Hearing this is both heartening and depressing: heartening because a neo-feudal system already exists; depressing because it's precisely the neo-feudal part of the world that has a neo-fascism problem...
  - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
    India and China aren't too far behind. The former enables religious extremism and the latter hammers public opinion into a blind acceptance of the solitary ruling party. Here's what should concern you more: the 20th century was the age of strong states, from the active citizenry of the imperial United States, to the Communist dominance of society in the equally imperial Soviet Union. The 21st century is the age of the corporation. This forum salivates at a man whose goal in life is to retire on Mars, presumably in a society of his own creation and ownership. Everything in this age is available at a price, even control of society.
    - clock_tower 10y ago
      Very good points. My instinctive rejoinder to "the age of the corporation" is to ask how many bayonets the corporation has, but the answer is increasingly "not zero." This also causes me to notice something else: what if neo-fascism and its Asian counterparts are becoming popular precisely as a way to coerce corporations -- because nothing less than that can bring them under control? This sounds very plausible, and it's not a pleasant thought. You'd think that the international business class would know what _noblesse oblige_ means, and would realize that they need to not antagonize the planet, but that would be giving them more credit than they deserve; I've read books that casually, in passing, praise the merits of tax havens and condemn all social-welfare programs...
marcoperaza 10y ago
>Indeed. The world needs to return to feudalism, with elites -- who are more or less permanent and hereditary even in capitalism -- having, and believing and accepting that they do have, clearly-defined obligations towards the common people and towards the collective defense of the realm. This post is a good reminder that capitalists are the radical liberal utopians of an earlier age, and what the realistic alternative is: social engineering and control of ordinary people by elites who think they know better, in the best case. Count me out. I'll die fighting before I become a serf. (edit: Also, it's just not true that the elite in capitalism are mostly permanent and hereditary. There are over two million Cuban-Americans who either came to this country with nothing to their name, or are the descendants of those who did. Today, they've found their way to the middle and upper classes in about the same proportions as non-hispanic white people who have been here for much longer.)
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  Then again, the prevailing opinion of the 19th century was that "inalienable rights" are so last century and the only true rights that exist are those that can be won from a free market.
  - deciplex 10y ago
    That's pretty much the prevailing opinion now, and probably moreso than even during the Gilded Age.
  - marcoperaza 10y ago
    I don't see a conflict there, between inalienable rights and free market. It seems to me like the right to sell your labor and property is an inalienable right. What exactly do you mean?
- clock_tower 10y ago
  I think that what I really want is the current European social-welfare model, rather than anything as world-shakingly different as feudalism. As for semi-permanent elites, I think I've been reading too many books on old money lately. You're right: people who start poor easily become rich, and people who start rich easily become poor. "Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations" is a human universal... And, now that I think of it, "shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations" was just as true under feudalism as in any other system: the average noble house was extinct in three generations. Shrugs. So much for that...
unimpressive 10y ago
Serfdom was an economic system that was predicated on the economic value of peasants. The entire problem is that the peasants are no longer valuable, they drain wealth rather than generate it.

mac01021 10y ago

> The world needs to return to feudalism Traditionally feudal lords have aimed mostly spend the minimal amount possible on welfare for their serfs - staving off social unrest but keeping for themselves as much as possible of the GDP subject to that constraint. Are you suggesting that neofeudalism will somehow do better in this respect? Or simply that that would be better than what we have now? > is less likely to turn lawless What's meant by this? It might true in the tautological sense that the despot acts within the law by definition, whatever he does. But I sense that's not what you mean.

clock_tower 10y ago
> Will some sort of neo-feudalism do better than historical feudalism? I think that what I'm groping towards by saying "neo-feudalism" is the existing European social model with the optional addition of ermine capes, as someone else commented below... This discussion has actually taught me a few things, and I don't have a pre-existing opinion here. > Kings and lawlessness A president's timeframe is likely to be "until the end of my term in office," at least if the behaviors of the last few presidents are any indication; a king's timeframe is, at least, "until the end of my life", more likely "forever" since he's handing off the kingdom to his children. (Or she to her children in a queen's case.) This should make it easier to resist panic and opinion polls, and make decisions that pay off in the long term -- like remaining a good country to surrender to. On the other hand, when a king goes wrong it's hard to stop him -- especially in a context where the king has most of the country's military power. (And decentralized military power creates its own problems; the French religious wars, for example, lasted 80 years and ended in autocracy.) A tyrannical elected leader (like Hitler) could secure power just as solidly as a tyrannical king could, so elections are no protection there, but what about an incompetent king versus an incompetent elected leader? Get a president with bad judgement, it'll be over in four or eight years; get a king with bad judgement and your country might be permanently wrecked. So, I'll revise my previous statement: the world needs the European social model, but should probably stay about as democratic as Europe probably is now. But I stand my position that "capitalism is the problem" means that there are multiple other choices that can be looked at, not just communism. Problems with communism don't mean that capitalism is flawless; and problems with capitalism don't mean that we should abolish private property. Or maybe what I'm groping towards is this: if people behave responsibly, things will probably be all right, but if they don't, things will go badly. But that's what Confucius said, and his system ended up as a cloak for autocracy...
- TheCoelacanth 10y ago
  Hitler wasn't actually elected. He was appointed by the elected leader.
- prawn 10y ago
  I'm trying to imagine a system whereby as much power is removed from a corruptible entity as possible. Could the king in your scenario be a set of algorithms? Someone on HN previously pointed me towards this: https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/futarchy.html https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/futarchy.html "Elected representatives would formally define and manage an after-the-fact measurement of national welfare, while market speculators would say which policies they expect to raise national welfare."
  - clock_tower 10y ago
    At least in the Middle Ages, there were algorithms that reigned over the king. A king had an executive role (comparable to a US president, greater than a parliamentary prime minister), but was constrained by customary law -- which is fancy-speak for "the way we've always done things," but even so, it meant there were things a king couldn't do. One of the issues Barbara Tuchman mentions in _A Distant Mirror_ is the way in which the French king could only levy a tax on the whole realm when at war, and even then couldn't continue it after the war ended -- the expectation being that "the king will live of his own," i.e. support himself from his personal estates, at peace. Going forward in history, that's why the Carlists in 19th-century Spain were both pro-autocracy and fighting for their liberties: they preferred a king who was the absolute monarch of a half-dozen countries (Castile, Leon, Navarre, Galicia, Aragon, and Andalusia), instead of a centralized federal government in which none of the kingdoms had special privileges (note that Carlism was strongest in the northern parts of Spain) and all kingdoms' subjects were administered impartially from Madrid.

tunesmith 10y ago

That's neoreactionary moldbuggery. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater - we can't figure out how to help people in the midwest, so let's make them serfs.

clock_tower 10y ago
Just don't accuse me of being racist or fascist, and you can call me what you like. But note my point about having more social mobility than feudalism 1.0. (Even back in the Middle Ages, though, serfs had property rights; they were sharecroppers, legally bound to their land but entitled to keep a proportion of their harvests. In the late Middle Ages, the obligation to give their lords a portion of their harvests was turned into the obligation to pay a certain amount of money -- which was not indexed for inflation, with interesting long-term consequences.)

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago

That largely resembles the contemporary European social contract, where there are elites and commoners and in exchange for the elites not having their boat rocked too hard the commoners are guaranteed health care and general welfare, but not necessarily prosperity.

clock_tower 10y ago
I honestly hadn't thought about Europe that way, but I always did know that I liked the cut of their jib. Hearing this is both heartening and depressing: heartening because a neo-feudal system already exists; depressing because it's precisely the neo-feudal part of the world that has a neo-fascism problem...
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  India and China aren't too far behind. The former enables religious extremism and the latter hammers public opinion into a blind acceptance of the solitary ruling party. Here's what should concern you more: the 20th century was the age of strong states, from the active citizenry of the imperial United States, to the Communist dominance of society in the equally imperial Soviet Union. The 21st century is the age of the corporation. This forum salivates at a man whose goal in life is to retire on Mars, presumably in a society of his own creation and ownership. Everything in this age is available at a price, even control of society.
  - clock_tower 10y ago
    Very good points. My instinctive rejoinder to "the age of the corporation" is to ask how many bayonets the corporation has, but the answer is increasingly "not zero." This also causes me to notice something else: what if neo-fascism and its Asian counterparts are becoming popular precisely as a way to coerce corporations -- because nothing less than that can bring them under control? This sounds very plausible, and it's not a pleasant thought. You'd think that the international business class would know what _noblesse oblige_ means, and would realize that they need to not antagonize the planet, but that would be giving them more credit than they deserve; I've read books that casually, in passing, praise the merits of tax havens and condemn all social-welfare programs...

marcoperaza 10y ago

>Indeed. The world needs to return to feudalism, with elites -- who are more or less permanent and hereditary even in capitalism -- having, and believing and accepting that they do have, clearly-defined obligations towards the common people and towards the collective defense of the realm. This post is a good reminder that capitalists are the radical liberal utopians of an earlier age, and what the realistic alternative is: social engineering and control of ordinary people by elites who think they know better, in the best case. Count me out. I'll die fighting before I become a serf. (edit: Also, it's just not true that the elite in capitalism are mostly permanent and hereditary. There are over two million Cuban-Americans who either came to this country with nothing to their name, or are the descendants of those who did. Today, they've found their way to the middle and upper classes in about the same proportions as non-hispanic white people who have been here for much longer.)

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
Then again, the prevailing opinion of the 19th century was that "inalienable rights" are so last century and the only true rights that exist are those that can be won from a free market.
- deciplex 10y ago
  That's pretty much the prevailing opinion now, and probably moreso than even during the Gilded Age.
- marcoperaza 10y ago
  I don't see a conflict there, between inalienable rights and free market. It seems to me like the right to sell your labor and property is an inalienable right. What exactly do you mean?
clock_tower 10y ago
I think that what I really want is the current European social-welfare model, rather than anything as world-shakingly different as feudalism. As for semi-permanent elites, I think I've been reading too many books on old money lately. You're right: people who start poor easily become rich, and people who start rich easily become poor. "Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations" is a human universal... And, now that I think of it, "shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations" was just as true under feudalism as in any other system: the average noble house was extinct in three generations. Shrugs. So much for that...

unimpressive 10y ago

Serfdom was an economic system that was predicated on the economic value of peasants. The entire problem is that the peasants are no longer valuable, they drain wealth rather than generate it.