Neo-Feudalism

"No one can be free who loves the memory of his chains."
Mark Pedelty, War Stories: the Culture of Foreign Correspondents (Routledge, 1995).

The Lef uses the term neo-feudalism to condemn the Right oligarchs for their typical behoviour, but the Left doesn't seem to see the irony of their choice of terms.

Tithes and rent provide nearly unlimited power and fabulous wealth for the privileged, and he has to do nothing to earn his power and wealth but be in a position to acquire it. We see the rise of the new feudal baroncies in the Left governance of Europe, and along with it the rise of dhimmitude. The feudal ties of obligation and obedience to the lairds rises as does superstiton, irrationality, and soil worship. It is the Left that reifies the neo-feudal.

Below is a short entry on neo-feudalism according to the Left. We will propose our own description afterward.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neofeudalism
Neofeudalism is a pejorative term used by some critics to describe the policies of various right-wing politicians, particularly those in the American Republican Party. The justification is that government policies are allegedly instituted with the specific intent, or at least the effect, of radically increasing the wealth gap between the rich and the poor while increasing the power of the rich and decreasing the power of the poor (also see wealth condensation). This effect is considered to be similar to classical feudalism.

Among the concerns of those who use the term are globalization, multinational corporations, and "corporatism".

Feudalism was a form of socioeconomic organization prevalent in medieval Europe and pre-industrial Asia, whereby political and economic control was maintained by a small group of feudal lords within a decentralized state. The vast majority of the population living in feudal Europe was legally bound to provide farming, husbandry and other agricultural services on land held by the nobility. In return, the lord offered protection and some measure of localized stability. One specific and alternative application of the term neofeudalism alleges that corporate and government policies make workers dependent on the corporations, as well as making the economic power of the corporations greater than the power of national governments. This, detractors say, leads to a situation where workers are dependent on private interests that are more powerful than government, resembling the situation that prevailed during historic feudalism. Some critics link these processes to neoliberalism.

The argument over neofeudalism is part of the controversy over income redistribution born out of massive societal shifts during the industrial revolution. At the time the issue was wealth disparity between classes, landholders, entrepreneurs, peasants, workers, and other economic and social groups. Neofeudalism encompasses the current debate over globalization to include entire societies, countries, regions ("North" versus "South", "Western" versus "non-Western"), and supra-national non-state actors. Unlike other geopolitical issues such as environmentalism and security, the charge of "neofeudalism" largely focuses on economics.

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The difference between the feudal rich and powerful and the capitalist today is that of privilege. Thr entitlements of the feudal rich give them wealth and power without them haviing to "dirty" their hands, as it were by making money. the idea of tithes is that the clergy recieves omey and other wealth without having to labour for it, and the same is true of the rentier feudalist who simply sits on land that almost magically provides wealth to him, such as the oil sheiks of Arabia or the tax farmers of European socialism. The capitalist on the other hand must actually make a profit by doing something, by dirtying himself in the marketplace, not significantly different from other unprivileged labourers, merely that the capitalist is far more successful at making a profit than is the average worker. And there is the class difference. The born feudalist, the new socialist school teacher or social worker turned to the religion of socialism and neo-feudalism need only rise in the estate of the state to attain his tithes. And the landed aristocrat rentier feudalist need do nothing at all but be part of the system of the highest levels of the tax farm, ie. a successful politician.

The growth of bureaucracy means the growth of a parasite estate, a controlling group who rule by virtue of something akin to divine right, by superiour morality, or at least superiour to anything shown by the capitalist who is really little different from the average labourer. In exchange for the obedience of the masses, the average welfare recipient neo-serf who labours and tithes and pays taxes to the lairds, receives the protection of the laird from the Americans and from his native capitalist class.

The average neo-serf is absolved from sins of greed, venality, racism and other moral sins by virtue of belonging to a superiour moral system of neo-feudalism, of philobarbarism, dhimitude, and passivity.

The neo-serf has his needs taken care of from the cradle to the grave by a paternalistic hierarchy to who he owes obedience and servitude. His membership in the feudal system is shared with the barbarians of the Muslim world slowly being incorporated into the tax farm.

The European neo-serf is bound by his history to sell himslef to a master. The French Revolution has receded into the mists of imagination, and it is replaced with a worse reality of the Middle Ages arising. The European peasant is sinking back into slavery, passively, and he cannot be free until he want to be free.

We'll continue this discussion when the computer works properly agian.