American Neofeudalism: Old World Order or New World Order?

Maybe that is just the way that things inevitably work out for human cultures? I have been thinking about the parallels myself but many people are happy to be peasents/serfs. They just want a house to live in and a job that gives them a decent lifestyle and thats it.

MEH
Wow social stratification with certain dominate parties over the rest of society? That's like ALWAYS been the way things have been....since caveman times. Seriously name one society, one period of time in human history where there hasn't been exploitation and domination by a smaller elite over the majority of the population (please please don't say native societies because then you're just idiot that needs to stop getting his history lessons from Dances with Wolves). There is always going to be exploitation, and stratification of society (if you think of it the planet is just like one giant high school).
Also when people say "god we need a revolution" I think you're full of crap. 95% of the time you're either a old 60s hangover longing for the idealized good ol' days or a high school student who just listened to The Battle of Los Angeles and spent $9.95 for a Che poster at Spencer's Gifts. You're the worst kind of activists who think that raising awareness on you're blog of how "unfair" society is that you're freaking insurgent.
I guess my question to you since society is so "unfair" what are you actually gonna do about it? Are you gonna whine on some website or are you gonna go out and volunteer to change it? Get an education, get the money, get the power and go and change what you precieve as unfair.

Complete rubbish. Feudalism was a very charitable, egalitarian, and progressive ideology. Al least more so than the amalgamation, of chicken hawk hypocrisy, yuppie privilege, and religious well-wishing, that characterizes this emerging new world order.

Berman, in talking about the critiques of modernists such as Marx, Engles, Baudelaire, Weber, Nietzsche, Rousseau, Whitman, Ibsen, Melville, Carlyle, Stirner, Rimbaud, Strindberg, Dostoevsky and others, says:

"If we can make their visions our own, and use their perspectives to look at our own environments with fresh eyes, we will see that there is more dept in our lives than we thought. We will feel our community with people all over the world who have been struggling with the same dilemmas as our own. And we will get back in touch with a remarkably rich and vibrant modernist culture that has grown out of these struggles: a culture that contains vast resources of strength and health, if only we com to know it as our own...This act of remembering can help us bring modernism back to its roots, so that it can be nourished and renew itself, to confront the adventures and dangers that lie ahead...going back can be a way of going forward" (Berman 36)

Our modern neofeudalims continues to nurture itself by disconnecting us in the present from our history. The key to our future lies in understanding our past thoroughly.

I am reading this article called "All that is solid melts into air: the experience of modernity" by Marshall Berman.

Check out this quote in the article from Max Weber's book entitled "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" written in 1904:

the whole "mighty cosmos of the modern economic order" is seen as "an iron cage!" This inexorable order, capitalistic, legalistic, and bureaucratic, "determines the lives of all individuals who are born in this mechanism...with irresistible force." It is bound to "determine man's fate until the last ton of fossilized coal is burnt out."

It seems that Weber is planting the idea, in 1904...that humanity is going to be enslaved in an iron cage of fossilized fuels as the economic order until all the fuel is spent.

It seems that great minds were thinking things that we today are still struggling with...they had the foresight to write about, in a sort of prophetic way, what we are now facing.

sounds like a perfect explanation to me... and it takes into account that legal pressures by the elite can be used by grossly under taxed and under regulated donations from the wealthy to all political players no conspiracy theories needed its right in your face very nice article thanks for the link! Jubal!We are agreed , although I think its further along than we would like to believe for the sake of comfort evident in the stories we see hourly on the corrupt and greedy international power players. The use of private armies , the forclosure-gate cover-ups at all levels and the systematic destruction of the middle class , and blatant disregard for public opinion , & public health by these international entities of conglomerates and such. Very hard to pin any blame crime or agenda on a brainless emotionless corp, with no head ...

Americans have no real say in this country...its already a dictatorship. No amount of screaming, petitioning and hand wringing is going to have an effect. We need to have massive movement of people in the streets with metaphoric pitchforks and torches. Its time to storm the castle...metaphorically speaking.

kinda sad.... america is no different than ancient rome..... didnt that empire fall? america aint to far behind and its all because of this chain of command

We, In Amerca, have the Best Government that Money can buy. They are using this to enslave everyone. Unfortunately, Most Americans are Sheep, being led to the slaughter house, by the Mind-Numbing drivel coming from those in Power.

Great Post jubal,
I especially liked the 3 links provided, i am not a political wonk like many here at Current and i really appreciate members like you who take the time to go over the basics.
Two things i learned today
1 - my vague understanding of Neofeudalism could become crystal clear with a click of my mouse
2 - Instead of just voting up the comments & posts i happened to come across,
i should have been following jubal for the last year to make sure i didn't miss any.
(i could have been a real Wonk by now)

How can anyone buy into this in a country where a poor, black kid can become president?

EXCELLENT POST!!! This hits something dead on the head, that it's a systematic corruption, those groups that may hold more influence then most are not the "architects" of the over all station. It has been generations of personal agendas over societal welfare and this is an unacceptable behavior.

The "rethuglicans" are just that, agenda pushing thugs... but don't think that they are the only party suffering from corruption for personal gain. This is part of the human condition and we must make it part of the human condition to battle it.

We need a revolution.... when we do start?

This is why people ran away from Europe to begin with to escape this exact chart. This is why our founding fathers were adamant about the separation of church and state(i.e. Terry Jones, burning a Qu'ran), this is why our constitution is more important now than ever.
This push towards Neofeudalism began with St. Ronnie Raygun and his push for busting unions and bullshit Starwars program, that NEVER worked. The military industrial complex got far like a leech and the people lost wages, benefits and savings. The war against working American has not let up since then, it has now just come to a horrible head, like zit, a really fat ugly nasty whitehead. Wanna vomit now? I sure do, I have for decades.

WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This has been the REPTHUGLICAN agenda for 35 years. Dwight D. Eisenhower told us FLAT FUCKING out they were going to bleed us DRY. And he was a Republican, possibly the last real republican that ever lived. He couldn't even get elected as a GOPer today.

Get ready to loose your cell phone, iPads, iMacs, electricity, indoor plumbing, we are nothing to the KOCK Bros. we are the peasants. Welcome to the new?World Order. Those god damn founding father fucked everything up for a few centuries but now things are back the way THEY want them.

ARE YOU AWAKE YET??????????????????

This is the new reality, will voting even change anything?

Excellent Article jubal! Sure leaves one with much to think about... +^d!!!

Extremely interesting. Thanks for sharing! I think you're onto something here...

We are now in a society where the rights of the few will take precidence over the rights of society in general. For a few peices of silver people in key areas that can affect the outcome of the running of the government in general are allowing power mad indiviguals to run our nation by subverting the way our founding fathers meant for the country to be governed. The incident in Wisconsin proves that the will of the people is being pretty much discounted to advance the will of the very powerfull.

Remember a book by Heinlein. " Farnhams Freehold" My father says that the law must be obeyed even at the expense of freedom for the good of all. In my opinion the laws are now being made for the good of the few and it is becoming time for some good old civil disobediance.

You are all right! It grows increasingly apparent that nothing will change for the positive until the people take it to the street, and force it to change. But look, 3,619 people have viewed this article so far, and only 40 have commented on it. Someone needs to lead these people to the watering hole. Remember May 5th, work stoppage and day of protest at the capitols and government buildings. Make your demands there and then.

From the Front Porch Republic article...

At this point, you have a quasi-feudal system with a series of mutual rights and obligations between varies interests and classes. There would be a relative abundance for all, wealth for a few, all directed by a combination of benevolent government and corporations with a broad social mandate, and subject to the influence of a variety of “owners.” But one by one, the “owners” were stripped off. It began in the Carter administration with deregulation of the airline and trucking industries, the prototype for further deregulation. It was continued under Reagan, who offered few institutional changes but made it clear that his administration would not enforce the anti-trust laws, and he made open war on the unions. But the so-called “Reagan Revolution” was actually consolidated under Bill Clinton with NAFTA and the deregulation of the financial industry. With the “democratization” of the stock market, the general public came to believe that equities were better than savings, and they began to view themselves as little moguls, their interests identified with the large investors. The senior managers saw more and more of their pay tied to stock options, which meant their interests were now also more aligned with the large investors. Outsourcing did for both the unions and the engineers. Only the large investors and their financial backers remained in effective control of the corporate structures, and only their interests would count.

The only thing that got rid of the old feudal system was the plague. "12 Monkeys," anyone? Or, combat Neofeudalism - stop reproducing in America. But then again, they will just outsource that to China as well.

I like your graphic. You know, when you use "multinational corporations" (or better, Post National Corporations) you eliminate the need for the concept of "Nation". You are describing an open ended and aggressive world empire. Really.

That graphic says it all. The new world order is really the old world order in a slightly different form. It is not really order but organized chaos from the top down.

If you knew your history you would know that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison knew what the world would evolve into. Alexander Hamilton was the traitor who gave way to the first Federal Reserve Bank, and Andrew Jackson was the one who threw them out and for that they tried to assasinate him. Everywar we have been engaged in since 1776 was propagated and financed by the same profiteering banking family, The Rothschilds of The Bank of England. Why do you think they had met in Secret in Jekyls Island to plot the take over of the American banking system. Why was Abraham Lincoln assasinated, not for the reason you are told, but because he had denied the private bankers the profits to be made from the civil War, instead Lincoln had minted his own American money and therefore denied the bankers their profit. For that he was assasinated. Why was John F. Kennedy assasinated? Because he had voided the banking charter of the Federal Reserve Bank under HR 11110. For that he was killed and how many others have been assasinated by the clandestine forces here in America and Israel. Why did Israel Netanyu say that he isn't worried about America. The Rothschilds are ZIonists and it is the Zionists at the head of Israel and also ruling here in America. President Wilson was right he did sell America out to the worlds wealthiest.

The people ruining America are not cowards or stupid. Don't try to give them cover! They are very rational people who are ruled by their own interests and greed. To call those who de-industr­­­­ialized and outsourced our jobs, manufactur­­­­ing, and industrial capital "stupid" is a misdirect­­­­ion. They knew and know what they did. The decades in which they slowly eroded and re-wrote OUR laws to give Multinatio­­­­nal (or better, Post National) corporatio­­­­ns power over the destiny of our nation was not cowardice or stupidity in action. It was deceit and subversion­­­­, but it was not cowardice or stupidity.
And although the Republican party was the champion for the Post Nationals in this, allowing lobbyists to buy their votes in a "Pay for Play" model resembling that of a brothel, BOTH major parties were involved. Neo Cons and Neo Liberals are opposite faces of the same bogus currency. Too many in congress are in the pay of non-nation­­­al interests intent upon changing our nation into a corporate directed colony. This is the threat, national or foreign, that these oath breakers swore to protect us from! Instead, they seize on wedge issues to keep us divided, and quietly push the Corporatis­­­t agenda. Once the word "Quisling" was used to describe this kind of collaborat­­­or.

That is a great graphic. Simple and to the point.

It's time to escape the USA if you can. There are many other places to live on this globe where your chances of getting ahead are MUCH better then here.
I honestly mean this and I hope as many young people heed this warning as possible.
ALL of our forefathers came here from someplace else. I don't see anything wrong with going back home if this country continues down the path it has gone since Reagan came along.

I like to have a more positive outlook on the future- while some aspects of our economy and culture point to this direction, the future is not based on isolated criteria; it's based on all of it.

For example, in the dark ages the nobility kept the peasants in control with two things- illiteracy and religion.

Now, thanks to the Internet, there is faster spread of information then ever before, a lot of it beyond the control of the media corporations. It's not some conspiracy nut printing flyers in his basement for a handful of subscribers like in the 1970's. Now "alternative news" is everywhere on the web, and reaches millions, and some of it is not easy to dismiss.

And religion is singing it's swan song in the industrialized world. No more divine right of kings. When members of the GOP state God ordained them to rule, we don't revere them, make fun of them. And when god is not behind the king, it is easier to question the rule of the king.

Heck, in the US we have not trusted our ruling class since King Nixon.

And big picture-

The Dark Ages ended, then we had the Renaissance, and the beginnings of Secular Humanism, then the enlightenment.

I think our new Renaissance is coming up soon; before the new dark ages gets that dark.

Trans-Humanists call the new Renaissance "the Singularity".

With rapid technological advancement, such as alternative forms of energy production, personal manufacturing, and genetically engineered crops, will result in our independence from corporate control.

Imagine being able to grow all of the food you need in a room the size of a walk-in closet. Imagine your home and vehicle getting all the power it needs from solar panels on the roof. Imagine communications systems, based on the Internet, being free and global with no dead spots. Imagine being able to design your own clothing, lamps, dishes, furniture, any items on the computer and then just click "print" and it's manufactured from simple and easily obtainable raw materials; like dirt.

People will be able to meet all of their needs, and many of their wants, with little or no money.

Exactly! Voted thread up for graphics and links.

There are several names for what is happening to the societal pecking order in the United States. Here's another one; Corporatocracy. There is only one way, that I know of, that will have a chance of stemming the tide against what is happening in the US. We must have a complete overhaul of the election/campaign financing laws, and a complete overhaul of our tax system. No one, should be able to buy their way into office, nor should anonymous "citizens" be allowed to pour unrestricted funds into campaign advertising. Our tax system has developed distinctions between income from "WORK" and income from "WEALTH". Income from wealth is taxed as a lower rate than income from work. This is wrong. I see the stories that our economy is getting better, but I don't see it in the real world. I see the banks, insurance companies, and commodities speculators getting richer and richer, while the middle class is sinking lower and lower. Was this not the tyrannical system of rule that caused our forefathers to leave Europe and come to America? Was this not the tyrannical system that caused the formation of America and led to the Revolutionary War? We had better wake up, and we had better do something before it is too late, if it's not too late already.

Sadly, this is happening 'in plain sight', while we 'move along' to the wrongs. This is one of the 'sad' facts of life. Unfortunately, our media has been taken over by those who are participating in this endeavor. People are willing to do almost anything for the want of a dollar, our future be damned.

Without independent media, I can't see a light at the end of the tunnel. The branch of government, which should protect us from political parties and their shenanigans are willing participants. Just look at the recent Supreme Court decision, giving corporations unlimited manipulation of our political process.

Money talks in America. The wealthy are capable of SCREAMING, with the use of large sums of cash. While the rest of us are left to struggle with higher gas prices, food prices, etc.. Our utilities are going through the roof. Our tax dollars were spent to build things, which are now going to be privatized, leading the way to pay higher prices for things we built in the first place. ie. highways, prisons, etc.

I have no quest to be rich, but I do want to survive. The American Dream is a thing of the past. Our future will be controlled by the wealthy, who now control government in America. Sad, sad, sad.

Thanks were do you live? I'm glad to hear some people are experiencing a measure of economic freedom.

You make some valid points. It would seem that we are indeed returning to the social stratification of the post industrial revolution where people moved to the cities to work as drones for the elite. Freedom may be a thing of the past. It's interesting though where I live we are enjoying our greatest economic boom since or inception in 1497!

This new system is why we are experiencing attacks on all fronts from our nutritional sovereignty to clean water rights to access to health care to education to public service unions to war on drugs. Its all working towards this backwards movement to a sort of 'dark age' where religious ideologues actively financially fornicate with the international banking cartels that control the economies of all the major countries and can move hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth around the globe at the push of a button on a computer terminal.

These are the real kings of the earth, today.

This is where our world is headed to...back to the dark ages.