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Black_Rose
Guest
Big deal! Isn’t that what most of the people on CAF prefer? Most people on CAF find “big government” more scarier than “big business”, which is an implicit endorsement of neofeudalism by many members of CAF.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=482788&highlight=big+government
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CatholicGerman
Guest
Yes it is. No one said that serfs necessarily mind being serfs, or that they are even aware of being serfs.
Look at the way that our health care and retirement programs are tied to our employers. Serfdom extraordinaire.
And some banks and corporations have now been officially declared “too big to fail”. Common sense would dictate that they then be broken up, but that was not done. Instead they became hereditary rulers. They can never fail. No matter how corrupt they are, they cannot be overthrown. The new financial services bill is annoying to them, but crippling to their nimbler upstarts. Big corporations love regulation, because it kills their smaller competition.
Big corporations and big government work together to keep us all in our proper place. Underneath them.
Look at the way that our health care and retirement programs are tied to our employers. Serfdom extraordinaire.
And some banks and corporations have now been officially declared “too big to fail”. Common sense would dictate that they then be broken up, but that was not done. Instead they became hereditary rulers. They can never fail. No matter how corrupt they are, they cannot be overthrown. The new financial services bill is annoying to them, but crippling to their nimbler upstarts. Big corporations love regulation, because it kills their smaller competition.
Big corporations and big government work together to keep us all in our proper place. Underneath them.
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stinkcat_14
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This is to some extent true, but of course, it was the households themselves who made themselves serfs. People just took on way too much debt and now they are paying the price.
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CatholicGerman
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Yes, it is our own fault. Serfdom is generally voluntary. Whenever someone offers us a deal that sounds too good to be true, we should assume that it comes with strings attached.
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manualman
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The best lies are mostly true. This one being no less.
The author makes enormously good points on the timeless ways in which the rich and powerful bend the weak to do their bidding then goes on an unwarranted rant against christianity being simply a tool to this end. There goes the big lie. It is a big lie because the principles underpinning christianity are the only way to eventually get OUT of this cycle. To repudiate and demonize it dooms the revolutionary to merely embrace a new tyrannical master, a lesson that such people SHOULD have learned from the debacle of communism.
He fails to see that the only way out of the vicious cycle is to find way to empower the masses to acquire and operate reasonable amounts of productive assets themselves. This is the situation in which America thrived and can do so again. The opposite traps of governmental power and tyranny versus a private oligarchy of power and tyranny is just a losing cycle.
The author makes enormously good points on the timeless ways in which the rich and powerful bend the weak to do their bidding then goes on an unwarranted rant against christianity being simply a tool to this end. There goes the big lie. It is a big lie because the principles underpinning christianity are the only way to eventually get OUT of this cycle. To repudiate and demonize it dooms the revolutionary to merely embrace a new tyrannical master, a lesson that such people SHOULD have learned from the debacle of communism.
He fails to see that the only way out of the vicious cycle is to find way to empower the masses to acquire and operate reasonable amounts of productive assets themselves. This is the situation in which America thrived and can do so again. The opposite traps of governmental power and tyranny versus a private oligarchy of power and tyranny is just a losing cycle.
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Ridgerunner
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Agreed. You must have been reading some of the Social Encyclicals.
My only quibble would be that private oligarchies and governmental tyrannies are often allied.
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CatholicGerman
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The anti-Christian bent was the author’s, and I don’t agree with it, of course. But the article is still very interesting.
I think America was the country of the “small guy”. That’s what the American dream is all about. One man, working hard, applying his God-given talents and abilities, and improving his standing and comfort in life. Neo-feudalism is the opposite. It separates the “haves” from the “have nots”, and strives to keep each in their proper place. It has facist undertones, but it’s less organized and deliberate than that.
Here’s what I see that strikes me as neo-feudal:
I think America was the country of the “small guy”. That’s what the American dream is all about. One man, working hard, applying his God-given talents and abilities, and improving his standing and comfort in life. Neo-feudalism is the opposite. It separates the “haves” from the “have nots”, and strives to keep each in their proper place. It has facist undertones, but it’s less organized and deliberate than that.
Here’s what I see that strikes me as neo-feudal:
- 30-year mortgages. Also available as 40-year mortgages!
- Property taxes (renting your own property from the state).
- The explosion in cheap consumer credit, which the government encourages through low interest rates.
- Credentialism that acts as a barrier to entry for professions. More and more education is expected for the same jobs.
- College “financial aid” that has made college costs skyrocket and has put millions of Americans in debt while they are still young.
- Delivering social programs through employers or schools.
- Chaotic and insanely expensive health systems (both public and private).
- Culture wars, legalization of porn, and decadent forms of entertainment (circuses).
- Welfare systems, income transfers, and child support agencies (bread).
- Corporatism and subsidies.
- Inefficient and low-quality schools.
- Rapid growth of regulation and beauracracy, to benefit large corporations at the expense of small ones.
- Exploding prison populations and erosion of personal freedoms.
- Increased legalization and militarization within the country.
- Asset bubbles (which results in a massive wealth transfer from the serfs to the elite).
- Government systems that foster the breakdown of families (removing men from the home makes women dependent upon the state).
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manualman
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Shhh! When I steal from the minds of the great, I get to look smart!Agreed. You must have been reading some of the Social Encyclicals.
Everybody should read Rerum Novarum. Almost as prophetic as Humanae Vitae. (Fear not non-latin speakers like me, translations are easy to find on the Vatican website and elsewhere).
I think America rose fastest during the age of “accidental distributism” in which our population and geography expanded so far, so fast that the exploitive oligrachies and government could hardly keep up! In fairness, there were some truly brilliant government policies such as the land grants that created enormous opportunity for ordinary Americans to procure a means of wealth production.
But then, as today nothing was free or easy. There still are some vestiges of this such as policies for small business loans, TIF districts to encourage renovations of blighted areas, some kinds of enterprise grants. But they always go to those who clamor loudest for them and increasingly the regulations are so Byzantine that only insiders can get them.
I disagree with GC that property taxes are repressive. Quite the opposite, a reasonable property tax level is an excellent safeguard against the rich and powerfull amassing massive property holdings and being able to choke off the supply of productive land uses artificially. By introducing a COST of doing nothing productive with land the government incentivizes land owners to dispose of unused holdings to someone who IS able and willing to make productive use of it. James Michener makes this argument better than I do in his novel Hawaii.
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didymus
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What the article describes is not feudalism.
Under feudalism everyone had rights and obligations to those above and below. Kings, lords, serfs, guilds, the Church (at every level), all had personal obligations to others up, down and sideways in a social web.
Then along comes capitalism creating wealth but destroying social bonds like a universal solvent. Now we’re seeing the end-game where everyone is reduced to a consuming-producing unit, there are no more universal values and the family & marriage are pretty much destroyed.
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Ridgerunner
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Perhaps interestingly, a lot of “accidental distributism” was due to a government/business deal. The government gave millions of acres of land to railroad companies to induce them to build railroads into the American hinterlands. Typically, it was every other section (one mile x one mile square) on both sides of the proposed track, for its full length. A lot of land. The government wanted the hinterlands populated and settled and productive. The railroads wanted to make money. Some of the railroad companies went broke trying to do it. Some succeeded in selling bonds to finance the construction, secured by the land, and actually got it done.Shhh! When I steal from the minds of the great, I get to look smart!
Everybody should read Rerum Novarum. Almost as prophetic as Humanae Vitae. (Fear not non-latin speakers like me, translations are easy to find on the Vatican website and elsewhere).
I think America rose fastest during the age of “accidental distributism” in which our population and geography expanded so far, so fast that the exploitive oligrachies and government could hardly keep up! In fairness, there were some truly brilliant government policies such as the land grants that created enormous opportunity for ordinary Americans to procure a means of wealth production.
But then, as today nothing was free or easy. There still are some vestiges of this such as policies for small business loans, TIF districts to encourage renovations of blighted areas, some kinds of enterprise grants. But they always go to those who clamor loudest for them and increasingly the regulations are so Byzantine that only insiders can get them.
I disagree with GC that property taxes are repressive. Quite the opposite, a reasonable property tax level is an excellent safeguard against the rich and powerfull amassing massive property holdings and being able to choke off the supply of productive land uses artificially. By introducing a COST of doing nothing productive with land the government incentivizes land owners to dispose of unused holdings to someone who IS able and willing to make productive use of it. James Michener makes this argument better than I do in his novel Hawaii.
Immediately, and throughout the construction process, railroad companies advertised all over the U.S. and in Europe, extolling the virtues of cheap land in the west. And it was cheap land. In some ways it was better than some homestead land because it was along the railroad line; never more than a mile away. Many, many, many people took the deal. The railroads made some money in selling the land to settlers, but the big payoff for the railroads was in carrying cargo to and from the hinterlands. That was the real objective. The crops grown by the settlers, the machinery ordered by them. Livestock going to stockyards. Mineral resources of all kinds. And it worked exceedingly well, even though the railroad land was typically “hyped” to be more than it really was. But if you got a flyer in, say, Germany and talked to the railroad agents there, and came over with your family, you would live with it if it was even close to what it was said to be.
I acquired one of those old flyers for this part of the country and it’s really a hoot! Basically true, but full of hyperbolic, flowery descriptions.
The early schools were financed in exactly the same way. The government gave land to the states to finance the establishment of schools of all kinds, and it worked.
But one thing that has to be thought of is this. In a way, the government was asset-rich and could afford to give away land in order to develop the country. It is no longer asset-rich in that way, and the assets it has are often not well utilized. (e.g., ANWR) It’s horribly in debt, and no longer has assets to give to the populace to encourage productive enterprise. It’s more inclined to give cash assets to unproductive uses.
Still, there were times when the Roman Empire was on the skids, financially and in other ways, and pulled itself from the brink. Typically, when it rescued itself, it reformed the coinage, cut the bloated and unproductive dependencies, forced land distribution, encouraged industries and built infrastructure that served production. (irrigation projects, waterways, roads, docks)
So, while we’re more like the Roman Empire in its troubled times than we are like the U.S. in the 19th Century economically, there’s hope. Not with this government, of course, but it’s still possible to pull out of what presently seems like an economic swan dive.
Distributism is a tougher deal now than it once was; something Pope JPII acknowledged. Land and farming are no longer the primary productive assets. Still, it isn’t impossible to imagine ways in which the government (and business) could encourage the private acquisition of productive assets. They would just be different kinds of assets, and would require different policies. (and sometimes the lack thereof)
Of course, it is in the interests of both government and business (or seems so, oftentimes) to encourage dependency. A dependent person does what the government (or business) wants him to do, and often comes to think the way the government or business wants. Presently, we’re in one of those periods in which dependency is being very much promoted.
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CatholicGerman
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Rerum Novarum is great.
There is that. But property taxes have become so high in many areas (because of severe house-price inflation) that the elderly are struggling to pay them.
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CatholicGerman
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No one said it was true feudalism. This is neofeudalism, which is something slightly different.
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curlycool89
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There’s just a couple things in the list I want to comment on:
The stupidest idea ever. In Canada, most mortgages are underwritten by the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (a crown corp), and a couple years ago they pulled the plug on 40 year mortgages. As far as I know, the highest is now 35 years, which is still incredibly excessive, and they also require a 5% downpayment.
I agree on some jobs (there are way too many jobs that require a degree that shouldn’t), but for some it is required. Medicine and engineering are two big ones that must have restricted entries for public safety reasons. An undertrained doctor could kill someone, and a bad engineer can do far greater damage (think bridge or building collapses). Those 2 are monopolistic for a reason.
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tjm190
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Since the author clearly feels Keynesian economics is a neo-feudalist propaganda piece (since the policies designed to increase aggregate demand raise such ire), I assume he proposes an alternate system somewhere?
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Black_Rose
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Please elaborate on the policy of the Roman Empire during periods of crisis. I have Peter Heather’s The Fall of the Roman Empire in my vicinity, which I read at Barnes & Noble, then bought to keep as a reference since I figured out that I do not read books I bought at home. I do not recall any of these reforms being enacted in any of the histories I have read, except the reform of the coinage, where Constantine converted the empire to the “gold standard” replacing the based silver denarii with the gold solidus (and replacing gold aureus). The mid Third Century crisis and the incursion of the Visigoths, Vandals, Alans, and Huns did not seem to be dealt with by your listed measures.
The Third Century crisis was “solved” by Diocletian by deferring his administrative responsibilities, increasing bureaucracy. He formed the Tetrarchy where the Empire was divided into two administrative halves, eastern and western regions, each with an Augustus and Caesar. Diocletian increased taxes and the size of the military to defend the frontier from barbarian and Sassanid invasion. This and other reforms solved the internal problems of the Third Century Crisis where based coinage and interrupted trade routes increased prices within the Empire and a string of usurps claimed the throne, each having a time in the purple before being killed. Needless to say, the Tetrarchy dissolved after the resignation of Diocletian, eventually leading to the consolidation of power by Constantine I to be the sole Augusti of the Empire.
The Roman generals Stilicho and Constantius held off the invading Visigoths, led by Alaric, who wanted recognition and respected status from the Empire, and the Rhine invasion of 406. In early 400, the capital Rome, was moved to Ravenna which was surrounded by a swamp providing an obstacle for invasion. In 409, Alaric had Ravenna under seige and Honorius was ready to flee, but a relief force of 4,000 from the Byzantine Empire arrived right on time. Alaric was unable to successfully negotiate with the Emperor Honorus and Senate, and proceeded to order the Sack of Rome in 410. The sack was not a victory or an accomplishment for the Goths, but an admission of failure; Alaric ordered to sack to appease his followers who wanted material gain from following him as sort of a consolation prize. Eventually, in 418, an agreement was reached with the Empire that ceded land Gallia Aquitania, in southern France, to the Goths.
Flavius Aetius repelled two Hunnic invasions in 451 and 452. Ironically, like Stilicho, he was killed in 454 by the Emperor Valentinian III and his eunuch after he outlived his usefulness.
As one could see the Diocletian reforms, and competent military commanders prevented the Empire from disintegrating until it didn’t.
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CatholicGerman
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Yeah, but even there they often overdo it.
For instance, my husband went straight from high school to a master’s program, to become an electrical engineer. The German system skips straight over any equivalent of our (aptly named) B.S. degree, and goes straight into professional training. Of course, their high schools are much better than ours.
Prospective medical students are allowed to go straight to the MCAT, or lawyers to the LSAT. But both are strongly discouraged by the professional colleges, and some states forbid it. Most professional colleges won’t accept you without a Bachelor’s, no matter how high your test score was.
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Black_Rose
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Conscientiousness and general intelligence, both highly heritable traits, are not identical, and, unfortunately, cannot be augmented by current pedagogical methodology. A Bachelor’s is the signal for conscientiousness.
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CatholicGerman
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Yeah, but why? Shouldn’t a high school diploma signal conscientiousness? High school is just too easy. I slept through most of my classes, and flirted through the rest, and passed with a 4.0 GPA. That shouldn’t even be possible. High school should require intense and concerted effort. You should need to study hard to pass your classes. In Germany only about 1/4 of students pass the high school exam. The rest take lower-qualifications instead.
Keeping people stuck in school for as long as possible, so that they run up enormous amounts of student debt, seems like a qualifier for neofeudalism, right? Especially as student loan debt cannot be written off in a bankruptcy (although I just saw that they have introduced legislation to change that, as student debt has now surpassed credit card debt).
Remember, intent is unimportant in judging if something is a sign of increasing neofeudalism. It might be that a rule, law, or regulation is made with good intentions, but that it has negative consequences in practice. Neofeudalism doesn’t require that people are acting in a consciously destructive manner, merely that the combined impact of many people’s actions and decisions leads to a societal structure that reduces social mobility and personal freedom.
The problem is that once such a society-structure is created, it is hard to get rid of it. Short of revolution, civil war, conquest, or currency reform.
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Black_Rose
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Do you mean high school is too easy? Perhaps for you since you seem to be highly intelligent, but what about the others who are to your left on the normal distribution?
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