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Emphasis on NEO-feudalism. What this article fails to acknowledge or discuss, is that feudalism was actually BETTER for workers than the current arrangement. Wo

Emphasis on NEO-feudalism. What this article fails to acknowledge or discuss, is that feudalism was actually BETTER for workers than the current arrangement. Workers were entitled to earn a living from the land they lived on, their lords had obligations to them to provide for their welfare. There was a hierarchy, but the workers themselves were empowered by the value they added to their lord's land. Serfs were only serfs of they lacked the skills to be free men or craftsmen. The craft and trade economy was far more self regulating and less exploitive. What we have now is a Servile State, not a feudal one.

x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
With few modifications, your praise of serfdom/feudalism could also be applied to the chattel slave system. I don't think anyone in today's world would trade their lot for that of a slave or serf.
p2t2p 6y ago
You very conveniently forget about corvée. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corv%C3%A9e https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corv%C3%A9e
ashtonkem 6y ago
There’s 2 parts here that I think you’re tying together. They happened together, I don’t believe they’re causally linked. First: feudalism was a system that came into existence in response to circumstances after the Roman Empire fell. In exchange for binding themselves to lords, serfs were promised physical protection in a world that was getting more dangerous. The negative sides of this arrangement became intolerable once serfs no longer needed to depend on lords for physical safety. The other half is that serfs worked less than modern workers. But that’s not because they’re serfs, it’s because that in a world without refrigeration, you have a limited ability to over work, since your primary product (food) will spoil if you over produce it. Serfs didn’t work less because they were serfs, they worked less because once enough food had been collected then there was no more work to be done.
toasterlovin 6y ago
FWIW, your take on whether feudalism was a good arrangement for serfs goes counter to basically every historian I've ever come across. The second sentence of the Wikipedia page on Serfdom describes it as "a condition of debt bondage or indentured servitude". Then it goes on to describe that serfs "could be bought, sold, or traded", but mostly only along with the land they were tied to. Further on, it describes that a free person become a serf "usually through force or necessity".
bad_user 6y ago
In addition to what others are saying, I'll point out that up until the 20th century most of the people lived in extreme poverty. We are talking 90% of the population living in extreme poverty and suffering from malnutrition. A number that plummeted in the 20th century, especially since 1960, being less than 10% in 2015. This was due to technology and the industrial revolution of course, but those went hand in hand with capitalism. So from what perspective was it better?
- Thorentis 6y ago
  Like you said, technology and the industrial revolution improved the "extreme poverty" of the situation. Just because capitalism helped in bring those things about, doesn't mean that capitalism is itself a better alternative. In fact, I don't even think that capitalism was a necessary condition for those things. It just happened that capitalism came along around the same time. Would the loom have not been invented without capitalism? Or the steam engine? People were already innovating in the middle ages (the printing press, etc.) without modern capitalism. People continue to innovate today without a large profit incentive. Look at the open source movement, the creative commons movement, the content producers all over the Internet that accept donations in exchange for sometimes large amounts of their time. People will innovate because they enjoy innovating. I don't think we can say that capitalism as we know it was necessary for the living conditions of the 15th - 19th centuries to improve.
  - bad_user 6y ago
    Many technological innovations would have been discovered without capitalism, but it would've taken longer, arguably. This is clear to anybody that lived, even for a short time, in Eastern Europe before the fall of USSR. Innovation requires competition, access to capital and freedom of speech, all of them enabled by capitalism. --- > "People continue to innovate today without a large profit incentive. Look at the open source movement" I'm a part of the Open Source "movement", I've contributed significantly to a couple of high profile open source libraries. Everything is driven by profit, either directly or indirectly. OSS contributions are apprenticeships for beginners and a great addition to any resume. Improving one's reputation by OSS is no small thing. Granted some OSS developers are exploited, but that's because they haven't learned to say no yet, or to ask for money. But that's just temporary, a part of the growing up process. Companies contributing to OSS? That's just complementary to their cash cows. There's no company on this earth contributing to OSS without a profit motive. Also, even in capitalism we need access to "the commons". In order to continue to innovate, the price of foundations needs to drop and in capitalism this is a natural phenomenon. Everybody needs roads and at some point roads become subsidized. --- > "People will innovate because they enjoy innovating." You have a romantic view of the world. My view is that everything is about sex and power.
trianglem 6y ago
Serfs were bound to the land they were born on. They couldn’t leave that land. The land was freely bought and sold and the bound serfs came with the land. It was almost literal slavery.

x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago

With few modifications, your praise of serfdom/feudalism could also be applied to the chattel slave system. I don't think anyone in today's world would trade their lot for that of a slave or serf.

p2t2p 6y ago

You very conveniently forget about corvée. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corv%C3%A9e https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corv%C3%A9e

ashtonkem 6y ago

There’s 2 parts here that I think you’re tying together. They happened together, I don’t believe they’re causally linked. First: feudalism was a system that came into existence in response to circumstances after the Roman Empire fell. In exchange for binding themselves to lords, serfs were promised physical protection in a world that was getting more dangerous. The negative sides of this arrangement became intolerable once serfs no longer needed to depend on lords for physical safety. The other half is that serfs worked less than modern workers. But that’s not because they’re serfs, it’s because that in a world without refrigeration, you have a limited ability to over work, since your primary product (food) will spoil if you over produce it. Serfs didn’t work less because they were serfs, they worked less because once enough food had been collected then there was no more work to be done.

toasterlovin 6y ago

FWIW, your take on whether feudalism was a good arrangement for serfs goes counter to basically every historian I've ever come across. The second sentence of the Wikipedia page on Serfdom describes it as "a condition of debt bondage or indentured servitude". Then it goes on to describe that serfs "could be bought, sold, or traded", but mostly only along with the land they were tied to. Further on, it describes that a free person become a serf "usually through force or necessity".

bad_user 6y ago

In addition to what others are saying, I'll point out that up until the 20th century most of the people lived in extreme poverty. We are talking 90% of the population living in extreme poverty and suffering from malnutrition. A number that plummeted in the 20th century, especially since 1960, being less than 10% in 2015. This was due to technology and the industrial revolution of course, but those went hand in hand with capitalism. So from what perspective was it better?

Thorentis 6y ago
Like you said, technology and the industrial revolution improved the "extreme poverty" of the situation. Just because capitalism helped in bring those things about, doesn't mean that capitalism is itself a better alternative. In fact, I don't even think that capitalism was a necessary condition for those things. It just happened that capitalism came along around the same time. Would the loom have not been invented without capitalism? Or the steam engine? People were already innovating in the middle ages (the printing press, etc.) without modern capitalism. People continue to innovate today without a large profit incentive. Look at the open source movement, the creative commons movement, the content producers all over the Internet that accept donations in exchange for sometimes large amounts of their time. People will innovate because they enjoy innovating. I don't think we can say that capitalism as we know it was necessary for the living conditions of the 15th - 19th centuries to improve.
- bad_user 6y ago
  Many technological innovations would have been discovered without capitalism, but it would've taken longer, arguably. This is clear to anybody that lived, even for a short time, in Eastern Europe before the fall of USSR. Innovation requires competition, access to capital and freedom of speech, all of them enabled by capitalism. --- > "People continue to innovate today without a large profit incentive. Look at the open source movement" I'm a part of the Open Source "movement", I've contributed significantly to a couple of high profile open source libraries. Everything is driven by profit, either directly or indirectly. OSS contributions are apprenticeships for beginners and a great addition to any resume. Improving one's reputation by OSS is no small thing. Granted some OSS developers are exploited, but that's because they haven't learned to say no yet, or to ask for money. But that's just temporary, a part of the growing up process. Companies contributing to OSS? That's just complementary to their cash cows. There's no company on this earth contributing to OSS without a profit motive. Also, even in capitalism we need access to "the commons". In order to continue to innovate, the price of foundations needs to drop and in capitalism this is a natural phenomenon. Everybody needs roads and at some point roads become subsidized. --- > "People will innovate because they enjoy innovating." You have a romantic view of the world. My view is that everything is about sex and power.

trianglem 6y ago

Serfs were bound to the land they were born on. They couldn’t leave that land. The land was freely bought and sold and the bound serfs came with the land. It was almost literal slavery.