There are certain words and
phrases that have no fixed definition, so the use of them usually says more
about the person using them, than the object they are being used to describe.
Like “fascism” in modern times, the term “feudalism” was mostly a term of
disparagement in the 18th and 19th century. According to scholars of the
subject, the word “feudal” was first used in the 17th century, as in feudal
order. It later came into more common usage in Marxist political propaganda
in the 18th and 19th century.
Just because feudalism was largely used as a meaningless
epithet, it does not mean it did not exist. Scholars generally agree that
feudalism was “a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations among
the warrior nobility, revolving around the three key concepts of lords, vassals
and fiefs.” The lord owned the land, the vassal was granted use of it by the
lord. The land was the fief. In exchange for legal and physical protection, the
lord expected service, usually military service, but also food rents and labor
from the peasants.
Marxists later pointed out that the codes and customs that we
associate with this period relied on the lord owning the one thing of value,
the land. The person at the top of the feudal order had a monopoly on the one
store of value and that gave him a monopoly on the law. The old saying about
the golden rule is true. The man with the gold makes the rules. This is why as
coinage made a comeback in the medieval period, kings took control of the
mints. It was both a source a wealth, seigniorage, and a source of power.
A useful example of this is the decision by Henry VIII to
dissolve the monasteries of the Catholic Church. By seizing church lands, which
constituted about a quarter of the national wealth, and redistributing them to
favored aristocrats, Henry fundamentally altered English society. He weakened
the power of the old nobles, by filling their ranks with new members loyal to
Henry. He also eliminated an alternative source of economic power in English
society. Henry was supreme power because he controlled the land.
Feudalism only works when a small elite controls the source of
wealth. Then they can control the exploitation of it. In Europe, as
Christianity spread, the Church required lands, becoming one of the most
powerful forces in society. The warrior elite was exclusively Catholic, thus
they had a loyalty to the Pope, as God’s representative on earth. Therefore,
the system of controlling wealth not only had a direct financial benefit to the
people at the top, it had the blessing of God’s representative, who sat atop
the whole system.
That’s something to keep
in mind as we see technology evolve into a feudal system, where a small elite
controls the resources and grants permission to users. The software oligopolies
are now shifting all of their licencing to
a subscription model. It’s not just the mobile platforms. Developers
of enterprise software for business are adopting the same model. The users have
no ownership rights. Instead they are renters, subject to terms and conditions
imposed by the developer or platform holder. The users is literally a tenant.
The main reason developers are shifting to this model is that they
cannot charge high fees for their software, due to the mass of software on the
market. Competition has to drive down prices. Further, customers are not
inclined to pay high maintenance fees, when they can buy new systems at
competitive rates. The solution is stop selling the stuff and start renting it.
This fits the oligopoly scheme as it ultimately puts them in control of the
developers. Apple and Google are now running protection rackets for developers.
It also means the end of any useful development. Take a look at
the situation Stefan Molyneux faces. A band of religious fanatics has declared
him a heretic and wants him burned. The Great Church of Technology is now in
the process of having him expelled from the internet. As he wrote in a post, he
invests 12 years building his business on-line, only to find out he owns none
of it. He was always just a tenant farmer, who foolishly invested millions in
YouTube. Like a peasant, he is now about to be evicted.
How long before someone like this monster discovers
that Google and Apple will no longer allow him to use any apps on his phone? Or
maybe he is denied access to his accounting system? How long before his insurer
cuts off his business insurance, claiming the threat from homosexual terrorists
poses too high of a risk? Federal law prevents the electric company from
shutting off his power due to politics, but Federal law used to prevent secret
courts and secret warrants. Things change as the people in charge change.
The power of the church in medieval Europe was not just
spiritual. They owned vast amounts of land and could marshal tremendous
resources in support of or in defiance of the secular rulers. In fact, the
reason the Church acquired lands was for exactly that reason. What drives the
tech overlords of today is exactly the same thing. Their desire to impose their
moral order on the rest of us is driving them to monopolize the source of power
in the information age. They are imposing a new form of feudalism on us.
The difference today is that this new religion is ill-defined and
lacking in the outward symbols to distinguish it from the rest of society. The
rules of the new religion are always changing, making it impossible to
predict. No one in the 12th century was unclear about who set the moral
order. The local bishop may have been nuts, but he was predictably nuts. The
new religion is formless, with moral codes springing from the mob, as the mood
of the mob changes. It’s an anarcho-tyranny, because it is an anarcho-religion.
The solution to this will not be the
same as last time. There is no secular authority willing to challenge the power
of the new theogarchs. Mark Zuckerberg went to Congress and lied his face off,
knowing they were afraid to lay a hand on him. By the 2020 election, social
media will have banned Trump and all Trump supporters. The solution, in time,
is the people in these oligopolies will have to fear the peasantry in real
space. The same civil authorities that are too weak to oppose the theogarchs
will be too weak to protect them.