Time to bring back the term “feudalism”

[phantom power]

I mean, if the CEO is the only "productive" person at Verizon, then all of the "non-productive" people can go on strike and business should carry on without a blip, right? You can't really have it both ways, believing that working people are leeches who contribute nothing, and then throwing yourself on the ground kicking and screaming when the non-productive leeches of the world stop contributing. That literally makes no sense at all. That's like being mad that a complete stranger who has never spoken to you tries to file for divorce against you. You might be a little perturbed, but you're not like, "How dare they want to divorce me?!" They can't divorce you. You weren't married.

Seriously, wingnuts, choose. Either the workers contribute nothing to the company and therefore don't deserve compensation, or strikes are bad. You can't have it both ways.

Since their argument contradicts itself, I think it's time to consider the possibility that all this blather about "production" is just a cover story. We need to start judging them by their actions instead of their illogical rhetoric. And their actions suggest one very solid theme: a belief that this country shouldn't have a middle class. That's what drove so much anger at Sarah, was her assumption that people who work for a living should get middle class wages. The notion that someone, somewhere might work a full-time job for more money than what it keeps to barely keep them alive so they can work more sends these people around the bend.

Which is why I propose dusting off an old term and bringing it back in fashion to describe their ideology. The current ones are insufficient. "Libertarian" makes no sense, because they oppose the rights of workers to collectively demand better wages, a fairly basic liberty. Instead, they expect these people to work hard and slobber gratefully that their masters tolerate paying them at all. Nor are they really "conservative" in any meaningful sense. I don't like conservatives, but conservatives are people who object to social progress. But the existence of an American middle class has been around for a century now, and conservatives in the past were far less likely to object to its existence on the ideological grounds that no one but the rich deserve to have squat.

There's really only one term for people who believe, as a matter of ideology, that a handful of people deserve to own everything and the rest of us should living lives of endless work and squalor, with perhaps a slender class of people who get paid pretty handsomely to protect the interests of those who own everything: feudalists. That's the system that they're clearly advocating for, albeit in modern terms, where the billionaires and company owners are our kings, top executives are the knight class, and everyone else is a peasant who works to death, gets four hours off for church on Sunday, and needs to be grateful that his masters allow him that.

http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/time_to_bring_back_the_term_feudalism

[qb]

1. Feudalism is the logical consequence of shrinking government.

If government is not there or is not funded sufficiently to provide infrastructure & regulations that protect we the people, our nation will be reduced to a collection of corporate "kingdoms" with their own infrastructure, housing & services for their employees. They will have their own security forces to guard the walls against the peasants who are not fortunate enough to be employed in any of the kingdoms. Welcome to the dark ages.

[CrispyQ]

2. Thom Hartmann calls it 21st Century Feudalism.

"...when the wealthiest in a society take over government and then weaken it so it no longer can represent the interests of the people, the transition has begun into a new era of feudalism." ~Thom Hartmann, "We the People: A Call to Take Back America"

[phantom power]

3. I actually think security/mercenary corps like Xe would be the "knight class"

[jwirr]

4. If so, God help us.

[Lance_Boyle]

5. I think the more appropriate term for these times would be

futile-ism.

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. The people at Pandagon don't know fuck-all about feudal social formations

I'm so tired of these attempts to absolve capitalism of its destructive tendencies. This isn't feudalism. This isn't "neo-feudalism." This is advanced capitalism. This is what it looks like, and this is what every critical description of it from Marx on said it would look like. It's high time that leftists and "progressives" who continue to view the post-war settlement with ridiculous nostalgia understand that. The social catastrophe of the present is the social catastrophe wrought by capitalism. End of story. If the so-called "regulated" capitalism of the post-war settlement - really just a hybrid form of capitalism and socialism - appears preferable, it is because it produced the appearance (the mere appearance) of keeping the structural tendencies of capitalism in check. This was a lie. The "middle class' in the advanced countries could only emerge because of rapacious robbery of the "Third World," and because the war economy sloughed off the surplus and thereby slowed down the tendency toward accumulation. There was no golden age of the mixed economy. There was only the pathetic show of it in the advanced capitalist countries, and that show was only enabled by the unsustainable exploitation of the so-called developing world.

But b y all means, continue to invent these preposterous alibis for capitalism. Feudalism. Sure, whatever. Why not the asiatic despotic state? Invent new names for it.

It's capitalism. This is what capitalism looks like.

[bemildred]

7. Caste systems always have certain traits in common.

That is why the caste-ridden English found it so easy to take over the caste-ridden Indian sub-continent, for so long.

The USA has been struggling with the question whether we really mean it when we say "all mean are created equal", or not, since its inception.

[PVnRT]

8. A new oath of fidelity

By the Lord before whom this sanctuary is holy, I will to my corporate master be true and faithful, and love all which he loves and shun all which he shuns, according to the laws of God and the order of the world. Nor will I ever with will or action, through word or deed, do anything which is unpleasing to him, on condition that he will hold to me as I shall deserve it, and that he will perform everything as it was in our agreement when I submitted myself to him and chose his will.

(note: only one change needed to be made)