Feudalism is Alive and Well
by Feudalism is a state of affairs where groups of persons have power over other groups of persons, such as aristocrats who have power over peasants. This article shows how wide-spread feudalistic systems are and how to resist them.
Variations on feudalistic systems are everywhere, whenever one group has power over another and exploits that power for their own gain. Feudal systems include aristocracy and peasants, landlords and tenet farmers, and masters and slaves.
Fairness
The central issues in fedual systems is equity or fairness. Those in power typically believe they have a right to have power over others. Some go so far as to tell themselves and others that they have a divine right to rule others. In some cases, those in power practice paternalism when it suits them while also degrading those over whom they have power. In paternalism, aristocrats take care of those over whom they have power. They claim that the peasants are not able to take care of themselves. Peasants require the benevolence of the aristocrats for their very existence.
Peasants who accommodate to paternalism get their rewards in that the aristocrats do not harass them and may provide them with material goods, although there are no guarantees.
On the other hand, aristocrats degrade peasants in order to maintain their own supremacy, to continue to enrich themselves, and in so doing to keep the peasants in their places. The degradation can take many forms such as threats to cut off all means of support if peasants rebel, of paying peasants so little or forcing peasants to pay such a large part of their own produce so that peasants feel dependent, and of actually calling peasants names such as “dirty,” “stupid,” “lazy,” “nigger,” “spic,” “Chink,” “wop,” “boy,” and “aunty.”
Typically in feudal systems, those who are peasants feel as if there is something wrong with them, that they are somehow defective and unworthy. Resistance to these systems of power can result in death, prison, destitution, and any number of other punishments.
Slavery as Extreme Feudalism
Slavery is the extreme end of a feudal system. Slave masters create and enforce laws that say they own other people. Through the power of these laws, masters have the power to exact free labor, to buy and sell the slaves and the slaves’ children, while at the same time enriching themselves and basking in the glory that comes with being wealthy. Slave masters cannot enforce these laws without confederates. Confederates have a lower station in life than the masters, but the masters give some of their own bounty to confederates in order to maintain their own power. Some confederates who enforce unjust laws and practices are members of the very class of persons they help to oppress.
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