Echoes of Feudalism, America's Economic Reality; Middle Ages, Rigid Hierarchies, Peasants in Debt, Powerful Lords

[appalachiablue]

'Echoes of Feudalism, America's Economic Reality,' Daily Kos, Jan. 9, 2025.
- Lack of social mobility, property ownership, large class of bound tenant-renters in debt, few artisans, merchants, very small middle class.
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To grasp the stark realities of income inequality in the United States, let’s step back into the Middle Ages—a time of rigid hierarchies, bound peasants, and the unchecked power of lords.
Strange as it may seem, the social and economic structure of feudalism offers a compelling metaphor for today’s America. While we pride ourselves on progress and mobility, the parallels are unsettling.

Consider this: what if the “poor” and “working poor” of modern discourse were instead labeled as “serfs,” tied to their debts and dependent on the wealth of others? Such terminology is provocative, but it strips away the veneer of polite euphemisms to reveal the harsh inequities of our economic model. After all, Jesus himself said, “The poor you will always have with you” (Matthew 26:11)—a phrase often used to excuse systemic inequality as inevitable, even natural.

But is it really? Or have we allowed a modern form of feudalism to emerge, where wealth and power are concentrated at the top, leaving the majority with limited mobility and little say over their economic destiny?

In her book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, Isabel Wilkerson describes the entrenched hierarchies that shape American society, particularly in racial terms. This essay broadens that lens to examine how class divides mimic the economic disparities of the medieval era. The similarities are chilling. Then, as now, the elite owned vast resources while those at the bottom toiled to survive. Nobles held the land; today, landlords and corporate elites control housing and employment. Social mobility was rare, and for many in the United States, it remains a mirage...
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/1/9/2296005/-Echoes-of-Feudalism-America-s-Economic-Reality

- Debt Bondage, also known as debt slavery, bonded labour, or peonage, is the pledge of a person's services as security for the repayment for a debt or other obligation...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_bondage

- Enclosure Acts. The inclosure acts created legal property rights to land previously held in common in England and Wales, particularly open fields and common land. Between 1604 and 1914 over 5,200 individual acts enclosing public land were passed...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclosure_acts

- Medieval West Virginia.. The coal operators’ system usually kept the miners in debt to the company store, so they could never get ahead and there was no where else to work.“..“To keep the miners’ union out of the fields…the operators employed 6 principal methods of defense and attack: (a) injunctions; (b) martial law; (c) suzerainty over county government; (d) elaborate espionage and spy systems; (e) coercion and intimidation of workers by the use of mine guards; and (f) blacklisting all miners who favored the union... The miners asserted that they sought only to maintain their legal right to join their trade union...
http://www.wvgw.net/wvcoal/essays/med3.htm

[dalton99a]

1. Kick

[UniqueUserName]

2. I've wanted to start this conversation for a long time. We are basically experiencing feudalism 2.0

When capital can flow freely between different political governments, but people cannot, how is this different from serfs being bound to the land?

If people cannot move / (or cannot easily move) to areas where they can get the most value from their skills/resources, but the governments can move the resources to wherever the government wants, how is that freedom?

As in original Feudalism, the landed gentry are allowed to roam free ---to an extent.

[appalachiablue]

3. Freedom for people to work and survive is being challeged

for the reasons you mention. Many people here can't move out of the US or within it to work. Other factors limiting freedom are continued climate disruption, and the growth of AI and displacement of human labor. When I saw mention of a rising feudal society several years ago I couldn't believe it.

[appalachiablue]

4. ENCLOSURE ACTS, MOVEMENT, The Commons, Great Britain

In medieval Europe, much of the land, known as the commons, was a vital resource accessible to everyone for shared use.

Peasants relied on the commons to graze livestock, collect firewood, forage for food such as nuts, berries, and medicinal herbs, gather water, and plant small crops on marginal or less fertile land.

These shared resources were essential for sustaining their families and communities, providing a safety net in times of hardship.

However, the enclosure movement gradually transformed these common lands into private property, typically granted to wealthy landowners. Initially, landowners charged fees for the use of what had been free communal resources.

Over time, they enclosed the land entirely, using it for their own purposes, such as grazing sheep for the lucrative wool trade or cultivating crops.

This privatization deprived peasants of their traditional rights and means of survival, leaving them unable to sustain livestock or grow enough food independently...

Destroying The Common Good. Enclosure Acts, Project 2025
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016393718

[alarimer]

5. Democrats have avoided dealing with these issues for decades.

I choose to blame money in politics. Too much corporate money essentially buys candidates.

[appalachiablue]

6. The negative influence of money in politics, esp since the Citizens United

Supreme Court ruling of 2010 is major and in need of reform somehow.
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Citizen United Explained, Brennan Center for Justice, 2019.

The 2010 Supreme Court decision further tilted political influence toward wealthy donors and corporations.

January 21, 2020 will mark a decade since the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a controversial decision that reversed century-old campaign finance restrictions and enabled corporations and other outside groups to spend unlimited funds on elections.

While wealthy donors, corporations, and special interest groups have long had an outsized influence in elections, that sway has dramatically expanded since the Citizens United decision, with negative repercussions for American democracy and the fight against political corruption...
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/citizens-united-explained

[Blue_Tires]

7. The difference is modern Americans actually voted for this shit

👎

[appalachiablue]

8. True, and even more disturbing. Poorly informed, duped and destructive people.