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I think he's right that we're headed to neo-feudalism. Already in Canada the price of housing has spiked so high and so fast that regular people pretty much hav

I think he's right that we're headed to neo-feudalism. Already in Canada the price of housing has spiked so high and so fast that regular people pretty much have no hope in hell of buying anything without parent help (ie. dynastic wealth). Wasn't even 20 years ago that housing was affordable by working class people. We seem very far away from any sort of political shift that would change this.

panick21_ 5y ago
The term neo-feutalsim for me as a somebody interest in history is just so incredibly dumb. It plays on the absolute non-understanding of what feudalism was just to play on the association 'feudalism' bad therefore 'Neo-feudalism' bad. There are plenty of places where you could get a cheap house, that's just not where people would want to live most of the time. And we know pretty well what mechanism drive the insane prices in city properties. Its not that big a mystery and certainty not to the point where we should claim our modern economy is 'neo-feudalsim'.
- Tiktaalik 5y ago
  > There are plenty of places where you could get a cheap house, that's just not where people would want to live most of the time. We are at the point in British Columbia where this no longer the case. Doesn't matter if it's a quasi-ghost town in the deep interior of this province with zero economy. It's still priced beyond a working class salary.
  - panick21_ 5y ago
    Then you need to be willing to rezone and create higher density. This is often massively restricted and that is the primary issue. These areas don't WANT to create cheaper housing.
- GLGirty 5y ago
  "Neo Feudalism" is a dumb term... but people say "hold down the fort" O_o I'd love a more nuanced term, but I don't think 'minimal social mobility' is snappy enough to catch on. What's a better label? Asking sincerely as a person with only a passing familiarity of historic economies. > we know pretty well what mechanism drive the insane prices Asking four people here would yield five different answers. And they'd all be somewhat correct and correlated!
  - panick21_ 5y ago
    I think reducing complex economic problems to snappy 1 word reduction is generally not a very good idea. It just leads politicization of the issue making almost all discussion of the topic impossible. Terms such a 'Neo-liberalism' is a become meaningless term that has been project into every possible direction by ever possible social scientist and amateur and have become so broad that it basically means 'it exists in the world currently'. The same fate would happen to uses like 'Neo-feudalism'. At some point one just has to spell out what the actual problem is. > Asking four people here would yield five different answers. And they'd all be somewhat correct and correlated! I think we can argue about some of the drivers, but the fundamental reason is a simple supply and demand. One can argue why there is so much demand, or not enough supply. I think we have a pretty clear understanding why in most western cities supply failing to grow as fast as demand.
    - GLGirty 5y ago
      > snappy 1 word reduction is generally not a very good idea. It just leads politicization 'Sound byte' reductive labels seem to be a symptom, not a cause, of political tribalism. Or they are both side effects of attention driven add-supported platforms, where the degenerate strategy for attention is outrage. Or they're all mutually reinforcing. I want to live in the world where labels still have value. But that will require a cultural shift back to people listening to each other. "Supply and demand" is a simple label, but we can still say it and unpack all the ways it's manipulated. We just need to let words be stepping stones and not lines in the sand. Anyway, that's getting very meta and further from a chat on feudalism. Insights I'd love to hear from a historian include: How much worse was serfdom than current wage slavery? How much of that was a function of technology? What alternative (better?) systems existed at the same technology level? What forces led to feudalism being replaced? Do they have contemporary analogues that can now help us reduce wealth inequality and protect the middle class? Asking just because it sounds interesting. Not trying to pigeon hole your politics OR have you write my undergrad history paper. Cheers.

panick21_ 5y ago

The term neo-feutalsim for me as a somebody interest in history is just so incredibly dumb. It plays on the absolute non-understanding of what feudalism was just to play on the association 'feudalism' bad therefore 'Neo-feudalism' bad. There are plenty of places where you could get a cheap house, that's just not where people would want to live most of the time. And we know pretty well what mechanism drive the insane prices in city properties. Its not that big a mystery and certainty not to the point where we should claim our modern economy is 'neo-feudalsim'.

Tiktaalik 5y ago
> There are plenty of places where you could get a cheap house, that's just not where people would want to live most of the time. We are at the point in British Columbia where this no longer the case. Doesn't matter if it's a quasi-ghost town in the deep interior of this province with zero economy. It's still priced beyond a working class salary.
- panick21_ 5y ago
  Then you need to be willing to rezone and create higher density. This is often massively restricted and that is the primary issue. These areas don't WANT to create cheaper housing.
GLGirty 5y ago
"Neo Feudalism" is a dumb term... but people say "hold down the fort" O_o I'd love a more nuanced term, but I don't think 'minimal social mobility' is snappy enough to catch on. What's a better label? Asking sincerely as a person with only a passing familiarity of historic economies. > we know pretty well what mechanism drive the insane prices Asking four people here would yield five different answers. And they'd all be somewhat correct and correlated!
- panick21_ 5y ago
  I think reducing complex economic problems to snappy 1 word reduction is generally not a very good idea. It just leads politicization of the issue making almost all discussion of the topic impossible. Terms such a 'Neo-liberalism' is a become meaningless term that has been project into every possible direction by ever possible social scientist and amateur and have become so broad that it basically means 'it exists in the world currently'. The same fate would happen to uses like 'Neo-feudalism'. At some point one just has to spell out what the actual problem is. > Asking four people here would yield five different answers. And they'd all be somewhat correct and correlated! I think we can argue about some of the drivers, but the fundamental reason is a simple supply and demand. One can argue why there is so much demand, or not enough supply. I think we have a pretty clear understanding why in most western cities supply failing to grow as fast as demand.
  - GLGirty 5y ago
    > snappy 1 word reduction is generally not a very good idea. It just leads politicization 'Sound byte' reductive labels seem to be a symptom, not a cause, of political tribalism. Or they are both side effects of attention driven add-supported platforms, where the degenerate strategy for attention is outrage. Or they're all mutually reinforcing. I want to live in the world where labels still have value. But that will require a cultural shift back to people listening to each other. "Supply and demand" is a simple label, but we can still say it and unpack all the ways it's manipulated. We just need to let words be stepping stones and not lines in the sand. Anyway, that's getting very meta and further from a chat on feudalism. Insights I'd love to hear from a historian include: How much worse was serfdom than current wage slavery? How much of that was a function of technology? What alternative (better?) systems existed at the same technology level? What forces led to feudalism being replaced? Do they have contemporary analogues that can now help us reduce wealth inequality and protect the middle class? Asking just because it sounds interesting. Not trying to pigeon hole your politics OR have you write my undergrad history paper. Cheers.