Feudalism is Alive and Well

Unions represent resistance to the power of the owners of industries and other organizations.  I believe that owners pay the least amount possible to workers in order to keep the fruits of workers’ labor for themselves.  Democracy is a resistance to the feudalistic abuse of power that the founders of the United States had experienced in Europe.

Resistance

The disempowered resist.  The citizens of the United States elected Barack Obama, a representative of the peasant class.  He followed George W. Bush, a representative of the aristocrats.  U.S. citizens had had enough of the elitist policies of the Bush years. They had the help of a constitutional system that worked in their favor, at least in terms of the 2008 election.

Successful resisters have the help of others, often others from the powerful class.  The civil rights movement in the United States in the second half of the twentieth century, led by Martin Luther King and others, represented a collective resistance that had the help of powerful people such as Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson, who passed and enforced laws that eroded the power of other aristocrats. 

Barack Obama would not have been elected president of the United States in the first decade of the twentieth-first century without the organized resistance of African-Americans and the aid of powerful people who were members of the power elite.  President Obama also has some badges of the powerful elite himself, with his Ivy League education, editorship of the Harvard Law Review, and his graceful eloquence.  In many ways, President Obama is a hybrid, not just in terms of his biological heritage, but socially, with links to the aristocracy and to the peasant class.

Other examples of the help that successful resistors have are multiple. Marcelina, an aristocrat, helped Susanna and Figaro, who were peasants.  U.S. President Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. The American colonists had the aid of the French in the American Revolution. The Irish may not have been able to resist the rule of the English without the aid of Irish people living the United States and elsewhere.

The Peasant-Aristocrat Dynamic is Everywhere

Today and historically, the slave-master or peasant-aristocrat drama plays itself out. The colonization of Mexico, Puerto Rico, Brazil, India, Australia, and Africa are examples among many. Again and again, the issue is the abuse of power, sometimes in subtle and paternalistic ways and sometimes brutally.  Brutality and even genocide are the core issues of the illegitimate power of the power elite.  The rhetoric of paternalism, denigration, and blame are at the core of the defense of the power elite. 

In universities, market value is the rationale for why university presidents may make ten times more money than the faculty. Even with faculty ranks, members of some disciplines earn more money that others for the same work. Even within disciplines, men typically make more money than women for the same work, again based upon the rationale of market value.

What to Do?

Resist. Successful resistance requires understanding  the issue and the help of others who are members of the class of people who abuse their power. 

The first step is identifying the issue.  The next is to mobilize enough people to create an organized resistance.  This involves recruiting members of the power elite who want to undermine inequitable systems.

Organize Resistance

Although many resistors advocate violence, we have many examples of non-violent resistance that is successful. Gandhi’s leadership in India and Martin Luther King’s in the United States is another.  The feudal system is on-going and world-wide. Resistance is paramount. The key strategies of resistance are

·         amass the evidence of an inequitable system;

·         understand the system; 

·         publicize the inequities of these systems;

·         organize resistance; 

·         enlist the aid of powerful elite;

·         propose solutions

·         enact solutions.