Neo-feudalism is a term is a term that literally means new feudalism. It was introduced onto this blog, I think, by regular commentator Ivan Horrocks. It refers, in essence to the idea that a small elite in society are taking advantage of their situation to reintroduce the politics, economics and governance structures of feudal society in the 21 century.
Neo-feudalism requires the taking over of control of state functions by private companies.
It undermines the state.
It provides a return to those already in power.
It provides that return by reallocation from those already poor.
It seeks to diminish the perceived self worth of all but an elite.
It is sexist.
It ignores national boundaries.
It contest that law exists only to preserve private property.
Markets, of course, determine who has and has not. And there is no responsibility to those who have not.
Neo-feudalism consciously spreads myths: myths that justify the holding of wealth by a few to the many. These are powerfully reinforced by substantial investment in the purveyors of the story. That's much of the media. And the captured economics departments of so many universities.
And neo-feudalism is very real. The Daily Mail is a vehicle for the spread of neo-feudalism, just as it was once a vehicle for the spread of its near relative, fascism.
In the US the Tea Party is a perverse mechanism that has enlisted many of those oppressed by neo-feudalism to serve the interest of the few who benefit, funded by Fox News and a closely knot web of think tanks.
And what Ed Miliband has done is stand up to it. No one will dispute that ed Miliband has his weaknesses. but then, so have we all. But what he has done is something quite extraordinary. He has said no to Murdoch and now he has said no to Rothermere, both agents for the dissemination of the neo-feudal myth. That has taken courage not seen from people like him before. yes, Tom Watson did it, but he was not a party leader. Miliband is. His brother, I am quite sure would not have done it. Miliband's politics remain too neo-liberal, but his courage is real.
I hope Obama shows the same courage. He is facing the same enemy in the USA. The Republicans want to close down the state there. They've chosen Obamacare and debt as the issue, but it's just an excuse. The plan is to shut down the state, just as Osborne and Cameron want to slash its size so that more of the power, more of the wealth and more of the control can pass into the hands of an elite who can control societies, economies and global finance in ways beyond control.
Tax havens are, of course, agents of this process providing stateless anonymity for finance for the few as they do.
And the price is to all of us.
We literally pay. And we lose services, security, hope and freedom.
We become worse off. And that's why this is a theme for this blog. In a world where there is already too much poverty, too much despair, too much insecurity and far too little freedom neo-feudalism stands to make things much worse.
That's why it has to be named and opposed by those who believe that the interests of ordinary people matter. In neo-feudalism they don't.
Miliband's doing a brave and good job.
We have to hope Obama does not blink.
We cannot afford either to lose.
It's that important.
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Richard – thanks for this, something I too have made reference to more than once. However, I think there’s a need for greater specificity here, even though what you cite as the features or neo-feudalism are entirely correct.
What I mean by specificity is this: original feudalism was a system of wealth creation based entirely on land, in which your status, and wealth-producing capacity, depended on your relationship to land – it is not surprising that we still refer to “real estate”, where real originally meant it was a “res”, the Latin for a chattel or asset, but which soon came to have the meaning we normally give that word – that of “real” as opposed to “unreal”.
Now, all land ultimately belonged to the Crown, who leased it out to their tenants-in-chief, the great feudal barons, who then sub-let the land, and so on, right down to the landless serfs, with equivalent gradations of power and freedom all the way down that ladder of power.
Crucially, however, the system was at least directed at the production of real wealth, in the form of real goods, and most importantly of food, and did also involve some element of reciprocity, in that your Lord owed you a duty of protection in return for your allegiance. This may have been more honoured in the breach than in the observance the further down the social ladder you went, but there was some substance to the theory of protection in return for service.
Neo-feudalism, by contrast is based on two income streams: that from the creation of money through financial card-sharping, and, more recently, by the leech-like battening of these financial card-sharps onto revenue stream from general taxation.
It is important to note that two key elements of neo-feudal system are in direct opposition to its feudal original: first, neo-feudalism has nothing to do with the real economy, but only with the shadow economy of cartels, and price-fixing, and and tax havens/secrecy jurisdictions and Ponzi-inspired scams, and now with draining off real wealth from its intended beneficiaries. It could, therefore, be said that neo-feudalism is a sort of economic Onanism!
Secondly, the whole idea of mutuality and reciprocity, of protection in return for service, has been abandoned, and transformed into a naked power relationship of duty and obligation owed by the 99% to the neo-feudal 1%, who are to possess all the rights. All the duties on one side, all the rights on the other!
Our one real hope of confronting this situation is to adapt the mechanisms that destroyed feudalism, which was the rise of industry and trade in goods – not mercantilism, for that was a specific approach to money, but mercantile activity. The production of wealth and goods through trade eventually superseded (though did not, of course, abolish completely, far from it) the power of wealth derived from land.
Our modern equivalent of this has got to be the social interchange of goods and services via mutual arrangement and co-operation – LETS, TimeBanks, local money, Credit Unions, mutually-run banks and housing associations etc. (I’m sure fellow posters on this site can think of numerous other examples)- all to do with exchange that bypasses the 1%, and builds up social, and eventually political, networks of mutual reliance and obligation, until we can both a) capture the centres of power in society and politics and b) leave the 1% to their isolated misery in their plush, but marooned, gated estates.
I fear that even our children will not see this happen, for it is a generation-long plan, but we can be sure that if the Tories win in 2015, and the Tea-Publicans win the Presidency in 2016, then the poisonous Thatcher-Reagan hegemony will be locked in for another generation, and perhaps for ever, for all effective purposes, leaving us with a future of only “The Blade Runner” and “Soylent Green”
What’s its relation to neo liberalism by the way, Richard ? Would be interested in your comment.
I read a lot. Particularly I read old books concerning themselves in part with what was then contemporary economics. I’ve used the term neo-feudalism myself to describe what’s happening around us but the more old books I read, the more I come to realise this isn’t any new kind of feudalism at all. This feudalism has always been present. The difference now is that, whether through over-confidence or (my theory) desperation, it’s becoming overt.
Bill, I was concious when I posted my earlier comment that you too have often written on neo-liberalism here. I should have mentioned that.
But anyway, I remember that you’ve mentioned before that you’ve increasingly come to the conclusion that feudalism has never left us, but simply morphed into its current “neo” form. Was it you who once posted a link to an article which demonstrated that many of the families that were given (stolen) lands by William the Conquerer still tend to form the basis of the landed gentry of this country even to this day? Add to that the privileges and possessions of the monarchy – many of which are largely unrecognised and/or not transparent – something which I seem to remember you’ve also covered – and I think your argument pretty convincing.
Where I disagree with you is your last point. I don’t think that the form of neo-feudalism that we see fairly rapidly developing now is the result of desperation. If anything, it’s erring toward over-confidence, due in large part I think, to the extent to which little or nothing has happened to challenge what was already in play pre 2008 as a result of the financial and economic crisis. Indeed, if anything the post crisis hiatus ended up creating space for the impostions of variants of the tried and tested ‘shock doctrine’ approach (as in the UK), which then acted as a springboard to further (and make explicit) the advance of neo-feudalism, the core features of which Richard covers in this blog.
That sounds like me 🙂 I’m trying to make people aware even now of the absurdity and hypocrisy in Cameron, Osborne and Duncan-Smith’s suggesting that hardworking taxpayers can’t afford to pay to support people in spare bedroms they don’t need when those same hardworking taxpayers are paying a great deal more to support already wealthy people (Cameron, Osborne and Duncan-Smith come to mind here) on spare land they don’t need.
I think the neolibs are rattled. This is the information age and there’s never been one like it. Would the man in the street be prepared to listen to nonsense about bedroom taxes if the truth about land grants and subsidies could be communicated to them? Of course not, such overt hypocrisy simply wouldn’t be entertained and I’m sure our unelected Toff oppressors are acutely aware of that. I believe it’s very nearly game over for them and they know. No doubt there are elements of conceit mixed in there too though!
I’m not sure of the situation in the US Richard. You may of course be correct in stating that the impasse there is being deliberately encouraged by right wing libertarian extremists who are using the Tea Party idiots to try to destroy the power of government.
On the other hand, it may well be that the Republican party is now controlled by the Tea Party idiots who are simply so intransigent about Obamacare that they don’t care about the consequences of their actions. I have heard that some in the Republican party (i.e those capable of some kind of rational thought) are furious with them for being so dogmatic. In other words, this is happening not through some sinister grand plan but through stupidity, fanaticism and irrationality.
As ever with the political right these days, you wonder ‘are they mad, or bad?’
Very well said Richard.
Thanks for this excellent piece which I think hits the nail firmly on the head.
neo-feudalism is allied to what Michael Hudson calls ‘debt peonage’- which is how housing functions. The Tories’ hatred of social housing and the channelling of the anger of ‘hard working people’ towards it is based on the fact that social housing represents an island outside this system. People have not woken up to how and to whom their wealth is being vacuumed up.
It is worth noting that the critique of neo-feudalism is not limited to the left but is vigorously attacked by those (largely in America) who want less state but want a vigorously wealth spreading free enterprise that as non-oligarchical and a banking system that keeps money in communities.
I totally agree with this, but I am wondering if the term neofeudalism is useful. We do need to construct a dominant narrative and promote terms which people understand to be good or not good. As usual, the right have all the cards. They can ‘brand’ people on the left as Marxist or socialist which for many, particularly of the older generation, conjures up images of Stalinist Russia, gulags, tanks and basically oppressive, undemocratic illiberal regimes, the homophobic and racist legacy of which we see today.
The democratic Marxists, of which Ralph Miliband was one, and all those who on the left opposed the ‘tankies’ struggled to make their progressive voices heard above the deliberately fuelled misconception of what they stood for. The problem continues today as 1000s of placards carried on the TUC marchin Manchester with the word socialist emblazoned across them were quietly ignored by the BBC and mainstream press. Time will tell if the term socialist, which many on the left from Caroline Lucas to Ed Miliband are happy to use, can make a heroic comeback, as in the spirit of 45. I think it might, eventually. Before this we first need to deliberate what we stand for, but that’s another urgent discussion.
However, we also urgently need to coalesce around a grand narrative of what we vehemently oppose and which is destroying our society and literally ripping our communities apart (see yesterday’s NEF report on Islington for a real example). The above is a contribution to that narrative but we need to call it what it is: neoliberalism. We need to construct a ‘this is really bad’ narrative around this term. I think this is advantageous because:
>Neoliberals self identify with the term (cf socialists)
>Has a critical academic underpinning
>There is an easy recountable historical narrative — Hayek-Friedman-Thatcher/Reagan-Blair
>A unifying force for the left (which could help Labour rediscover itself).
The recent Mail escapade is a wakeup call’; as Owen Jones has written, it’s getting dirty. We need to get a bit dirty back, and we need to have a popular conception of who the enemy is. Soon it’ll be almost too late and we will be reduced to aping Michael Moore, shouting “dude, where’s my country”, whilst the Mail will have theirs, and it will all belong to the neoliberals.
The problem with neoliberalism is it looks like left v right
Neofeudal looks like oppression
Looks like, smells like, and is oppression, Richard. In fact, if we had to strip it back to its bones that may well be its marrow.
May be, but I’m not sure about that and less sure that it matters. In any case we need clear blue water. Many non-yellow book libdems can and do march against neoliberalism and the take over of the state and society by the large corporates.
These social democrats, labour, greens and progressive left need to agree what we are against, get a narrative sorted and agree the marketing message.
I think another of your regular commentators – Andrew Dickie – may have used the term here before I did, Richard, but in any case we are both on the same page on this topic and have remarked on it often via your blog.
Your summary of the main features of neo-feudalism, and why it is so damaging and dangerous to the vast majority of citizens – and society in general – is spot on, of course. And I agree with you about Miliband and The Mail – on which Polly Toynbee also has an interesting piece http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/04/no-retreat-ed-miliband-paul-dacre-murdoch
The Mail’s “Miliband’s father hated Britain”, (and, as Polly Toynbee notes, the headlines of most of the daily newspapers after Ed Miliband’s end of conference speech last week) illustrates the extent to which our right wing press creates an environment in the UK similar to that which Fox News (and the Tea Party – often funded, if my memory serves me correctly, by those paragons of virtue and champions of the common people, the immensely wealthy Koch brothers) have in the US.
However, if anyone want’s a really insightful example from recent weeks of what constitutes the creation of a neo-feudal state they need look no further than Richard Brook’s article on ‘Britain’s shadow tax system'(Tax, Lies and Videotape, Private Eye No.1349). I challenge anyone who reads that report – be they a Daily Mail reader or of any other political persuasion – to deny that the UK is now governed for and by the 1%. Furthermore, Brook’s work demonstrates beyond doubt that despite The Mail’s best efforts to portray Ralph Miliband’s and C.Wrights Mill’s arguments about the dangers implicit in allowing big business and the wealthy to gain power and control over the state as simply “claims”, fifty years after those warnings all the evidence is that they were correct.
Marxism and Marxists like Ralph Miliband may once have been regarded as posing a threat to the form of democracy we like to refer to as representive. But that threat – if indeed it ever existed – was long ago replaced by the corporate elite and feral rich. That is, of course, not something that the likes of The Daily Mail want the ordinary citizens of the UK to realise.
What people haven’t cottoned on to yet is that we now have ‘reverse socialism’.
In reality, it is the world of big finance that hates Britain. When banks like JP Morgan can commit crime after crime and be offered the privilege of ‘negotiating’ the fine they will pay whilst a benefit claimant gets clobbered for earning a tenner cash in hand we know a parallel legal system exists to support those pulling the financial strings. They are gambling that the public will remain befuddled – so far that has been true.
Benefit claimants are getting clobbered for a lot more than something shady like that… http://www.michaelmeacher.info/weblog/2013/10/most-people-forced-to-seek-out-foodbanks-have-had-their-benefits-sanctioned-often-for-no-just-reason/#comment-51269 As Meacher says this itself is damaging to the economy.
Yes, Bill, it gets worse! I think the Job (Sanction!) centres’ staff are under ‘target’ pressures and even if they can whip people of benefits for a few weeks under fraudulent premises they get a brownie point. In the past they have ‘picked’ on people with learning difficulties or just those that might not have the skills to defend themselves -it is vile beyond belief!
see: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/apr/01/jobcentres-tricking-people-benefit-sanctions
This so called neofeudalism rest on two modern and rather fragile presumptions both of which are ultimately in the control and remit of representative governments.The continuing permissive acceptance of tax havens which could be eliminated by world governments at a stroke and the ability of banks to create money out of thin air and furthermore to decide where and how this is spent could be revoked.I wonder how modern feudalism would fare if these two remedial actions were taken
As the people and organisations that have ultimate influence and control of those representative governments have most to loose from any attempt to revoke or undermine those ‘rather fragile presumptions’, Mark, I don’t expect anything to change anytime soon.