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What is feudalism?

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iflyboats

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How would feudalism be defined from an Objectivist perspective? During my battles for capitalism across the internet, I often encounter the objection that capitalism will produce feudal-like results consisting of "lords" (corporate CEOs) and "serfs" (everyone else). What is the proper response to this? How do I draw conceptual distinction between feudalism and capitalism? What is feudalism exactly and how did it result int the reduction of the common man to serfdom?

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How would feudalism be defined from an Objectivist perspective? During my battles for capitalism across the internet, I often encounter the objection that capitalism will produce feudal-like results consisting of "lords" (corporate CEOs) and "serfs" (everyone else). What is the proper response to this? How do I draw conceptual distinction between feudalism and capitalism? What is feudalism exactly and how did it result int the reduction of the common man to serfdom?

Compulsion is the primary difference.

Serfs did not have any choice in life. Generally they had their profession chosen for them and were not allowed to move. They and all they possessed were the property of their lords.

Capitalism creates the exact opposite- a man may starve to death due to lack of motivation, lack of skill or even bad luck. But he'll die free.

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A feudalist society is controlled by thugs and mystics. Our system right now run by plain conmen. To recreate a feudalist society you would have to get rid of industialization, make people take religion serously again, and establish a militant society which sees itself fit to rule a populace. All of these things are absent.

Religion is a joke. The military is dreadfully humble, and wouldn't be interested in ruling others even if it weren't. And fedualism just doesn't make sense in the context of factories. Serfdom isn't flexible enough to account for the flexibility in labor that an industiral society needs. It can't happen.

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Assuming the unlikely case that your opponents correctly understand what you mean by "capitalism", it is likely that they are reaching their conclusion through an equivocation (either explicitly or implicitly) of two different conceptions of "power" - political power, and economic power. There is no doubt that corporations have a lot of economic power, but only in a mixed/statist society (like ours) can those same corporations also have any political power - i.e., the power to threaten/force individuals to do anything. In a free society, a corporation can never have any political power - there would in fact be no reason for lobbyists to exist.

Edited by brian0918
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Compulsion is the primary difference.

A common fallacy/manipulation tactic anti-capitalists make is blurring out the difference between compulsion and desperate, extreme (yet somehow universal) circumstances that bind workers to their jobs out of fear of starvation or homelessness (hence, laying off someone is equivalent to an execution). They seem to have a cynical and nightmarish perspective of the universe where disaster and exploitation are primary forces and positive values are irrelevant.

Edited by Mister A
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A common fallacy/manipulation tactic anti-capitalists make is blurring out the difference between compulsion and desperate, extreme (yet somehow universal) circumstances that bind workers to their jobs out of fear of starvation or homelessness (hence, laying off someone is equivalent to an execution). They seem to have a cynical and nightmarish perspective of the universe where disaster and exploitation are primary forces and positive values are irrelevant.

Progressivism has done a very good job of selling this idea.

Alinsky tactics are at play in a very real way in the politics of America today. Changing and blurring definitions to create the desired outcome are just par for the course in the politics of the left.

Now, back to what feudalism is/was you seem to be asking in broad terms so I will answer in same. Feel free to ask to further narrow down the points.

In feudalism you have lords, vassals and serfs. The word serf has its origin in the latin word for slave. Most often serfdom was a hereditary state- if your parents were owned as serfs, then so were you.

Lords rule. The land and all on the land is the property of the lord.

Vassals are the underlings of the lords. Lets call them the early form of middle management. A lord parcels out pieces of land & influence amongst his vassals. What the vassal is given to control is called a fief. The vassal in return is required to manage the area and provide services to the lord. Usually this took the form of supplying soldiers. everything is still owned by the lord. The vassal collects what the serfs produce (leaving them enough to live off of assuming he wants them to continue living to continue working) takes his cut then sends the rest off to the lord.

Serfs do the work. While the image usually presented are that of the peasant farmer serfs were workers of all sorts. Of note, Europe had serfs in the mining trade long after serfdom was otherwise not applied. The serf is part of the fief. He cannot leave or look to work elsewhere without permission- because he is part of the property which the vassal has been given to administer by the lord.

When progressivists note that society seems to be heading back to an era of vassals and serfs they are indeed correct (see Hayek's The Road to Serfdom) Where they are wrong is that they have been fooled into believing that what little semblance of capitalism is left is to blame when in fact only statism, socialism, collectivism can create such a power structure.

Edit to add Speaking of The Road to Serfdom... an online search brought this up:

http://mises.org/books/TRTS/

In very simple terms (as in comic book form) it explains how quickly a free capitalist society turns to feudalism when infected with increasingly mixed economic aspects.

Edited by SapereAude
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