The Return of Feudalism? What Might Happens if the Modern Nation State Fails
The current crises brings massive changes to our lives, one might be the emergence of new feudalism.
In an earlier video, I talked about Megacorporations and the reasons why these companies are not taking over power like promised by classic dystopian cyberpunk Science Fiction. We came to the conclusion, that companies or organized crime might be forced to take over power, if the states they dwell in crash down and said entities have to step in to protect their interests, therefore making themselves the face of power. Their new subjects then start to hold them responsible, an expensive responsibility, which said companies used to avoid. Companies and other private interest groups usually seek a third way, that is using their influence to get the state to do things they like, but keep the state as a strawmen for dirty tricks. However, the future necessities might weaken the state enough to force companies and special interest groups to pick up responsibilities, at least towards their employees and dependents. We will see, if this might led to neo-feudalism.
The current crises has weakened the nation state and it is doubtful, whether western nations can still deliver on the manifold tasks the western welfare state has took on. The state has to maintain infrastructure, provide schooling and welfare, health care and a stable currency, to name only a few of its many tasks. All these things cost a lot of money, money the state soon won’t be able to extract from crumbling economies by taxation or inflation.
The actual reason for this video was an announcement by my employer to provide private tuition for the employee’s children, since most employees have children that have to be home schooled, which prevents them from concentrating on work. The schools in my area have been closed since March 2020. Obviously, the company does not want to pay for this, because it is just an expense they did not incur one year before. However, they had to pay because the state, although still collecting taxes, does not provide for schooling anymore, therefore impacting the productivity of the company’s workforce.
There is a mayor difference between public schooling and such company schooling: The former is in general open to everyone living in the territory of said state, the later, however, only to employees of said company. We are used to thinking of our relationship to the state by territory and citizenship. We obey the state, on whose shores we put our feet on, and we demand public services based on our geographic position and maybe on our citizenship. The flip side of this coin is, that we generally do not interact with states that we are not in or whose citizenship or residence permit we do not have. This relationships are somewhat general and impersonal, our modern understanding defines the state as an abstract being that floats above us, which makes it so effective yet terrifying. The Leviathan, this channels namesake, is a big whale hovering about the plankton, that are the individual citizens. This is different from the many little fish big and small living in a huge swarm which characterizes feudalism.
Feudal states, however, feature exactly these personal bounds between individuals, not an abstract understanding of a state to whom everybody has to obey because you are in its territory or are its citizen. People back then did not think: I am an Englishmen because I am living in London under the law and rule of her majesty the Queen and have an English citizenship, or I am a Frenchmen because I am living in Paris under the laws of the French Republic. The concept of citizenship or state didn’t even exist back then, obviously like the French Republic too. Medieval people saw their life as being a set of memberships and relationships, like we perhaps understand our personal relationships and social club memberships today.
A farmer in a medieval European village saw himself as a serf to a local lord, to whom he addressed his needs and who granted him protection in return. In the very same village, the local priest saw himself as a subordinate to the local bishop, to whom he addressed his personal needs; the bishop, in return, had to care for the priests wellbeing. Said priest did not address the local lord with his needs nor expected the local lord obedience from the priest. Nobody of these people would have thought of himself as being a citizen of a nation and a direct subordinate to the king or whoever might be the head state. The king was to most people back then more akin to a mythical being, whom the power to heal was ascribed, than an actual human. These people did not have the concept of citizenship or having a head of state at all.
These relationships were indeed more close to individual contracts than to any kind of administrative or constitutional law we have today to describe our relationship with the modern state. These contracts and relationships had different names like loan, fief, vassalage or feu. For sake of clarity I will still call them contract or relationship.
Perhaps, aforementioned priest was the son of said local farmer, who joined the church after training in a church owned school. With joining the ranks of the church, he basically switched his master like we switch the membership of one gym to another nowadays.
Usually, a member of society, especially when he had some status, held more than one personal relationship. Let’s assume, that said farmer had another son who didn’t want to work for the local lord. Therefore, he decides to go to a city to live there instead. With becoming a citizen – Burgher – of said city, he entered a new personal relation, distinct from the ones his farmer father and priest brother have held. Imagine, that he is a skilled artisan and has been able to start as an apprentice with a local smith. He now entered a distinct second relationship: He is, as a Burger, member of the town on the one hand, as a smith’s apprentice, member of the local smith’s guild on the other hand. Now imagine, that he is especially successful in his trade. The king recognizes his skills and grants him the right to take some wood for his furnace from a local forest that is owned by the king. The smith maybe has to give the king five swords in return every year. This adds a third relationship to this list. Most importantly, these relationships could not be characterized as public nor private.
Well, now imagine that our successful smith had a son. If the smith dies, it has to be checked for every of these relationships, if the son inherits them and which conditions apply to the inheritance. Maybe the king’s grant is only granted to the smith in persona and is lost by the smith’s death. After all, the king just wanted his good swords and not those of anybody else. But maybe he is willing to renewal this contract with the son if he turns out to be as talented as his father.
The membership with the guild depends on whether the smith’s son is a trained smith as well. If we assume that the son has not yet apprenticed as a smith, he cannot become a member of the guild, maybe even has to hand over the forge to another smith deemed qualified enough. Perhaps, however, he becomes a Burgher of the city, because he meets the requirement of having real estate within the city walls.
Moreover, if any dispute within one of these relationships appears, there is no neutral general court you can go to by default, no codified law one can fall back to. Every relationship is essentially a standalone version, with embedded procedures and laws. This obviously made settling of conflicts and changing existing structures an increasingly difficult task. Remember, that the modern nation state just needs to pass legislation to literally do anything within the borders of reason.
Nowadays we distinguish between public law and private contracts. You are subject to the laws of a nation by virtue of stepping within its borders, without having to close any contracts with the local city or a local lord. Vice versa, you can be sure that the laws of other nations do not apply. Any contract you close is private in nature and subject to the laws of the nation you are in and can be settled in state courts under the guidance of the law. This separation between the public space and the private space marks the difference between the medieval society – you can hardly name this system a medieval state – and the modern nation state.
On a side note, it is wrong to say that one system is superior to another. These systems are to be judged under the specific challenges humans and rulers had to face when they were created. The feudal state was the response to the collapse of the Roman Empire, which was somewhat close to a modern nation state. The modern state was the response to the sectarian wars that teared through the medieval fabric after the reformation and the general economic collapse of medieval society. The separation between public and private space allowed different religious groups to life with each another and lightened the complicated and often hardly fair system of individual relationships, which, however, continued to exist till the 19th century.
The neo feudal system therefore is the response to the modern nation state, which cannot keep up with welfare and the many functions modern states have to perform. Private actors have to steep in where the state cannot act anymore, like local lords and the church had to step in for the failing Roman Empire. Schooling is a prime example: Since public schools collapse, companies and religious groups have to take over the burden, making schools available for their members. People will start to identify themselves more and more as members of certain groups than as citizens of a failing state.
There are pros and cons to this development: On the one hand, in the long run we will see lower taxes since the nation state fades away. People indeed embraced the end of the Western Roman Empire, because they had to pay significantly less taxes to their local lord than to Rome. This offers opportunity to those willing to take the risk in uncertain times. On the other hand, however, people start to become more and more dependent to the groups they are members of. Switching your employer will become a life changing event like migrating to another country today: Not only your work does change, but everything else like schooling, housing, welfare et cetera switches as well. There is no legal oversight on those entities, especially the lower class will fall prey to basically enslavement in the long run. Moreover, the ever increasing system of individual relationships will make it difficult to react to social change and external threats. This creeping development ultimately killed medieval feudalism. The upper class, like the medieval nobility, will stay afloat with dozens different relationships towards different rulers, companies and religious groups. The lower class will be absorbed by the group they end up in, for better or worse.
The rise of neo feudalism might give rise to new great cities, which could look like the Mega Cities of Judge Dreed or the Hive Cities of Warhammer 40k. There is a reason, that these cities like Necromunda have a feudal organization. Organized crime also has a feudal organization, since every mobster is personally connected to a local leader, who is indebted to his master so on and so forth. Comment, if you are interested in videos about these topics.
In another upcoming video I will talk about the reasons why Tesla endorses and acquires bitcoin. Tesla did not only endorse Bitcoin but actively participates in the software development surrounding bitcoin. This is another example of a private company taking over tasks of the state, but not voluntarily but out of necessity, because the survival of state issued fiat currency is at least doubtful.
Last but not least we will see a resurgence of domestic servants that accompany the rise of neo feudalism, topic of another video in my pipeline.
Obviously, things might develop in a totally different direction. The current challenges surely have more than one possible solution. Neo feudalism is a path rarely discussed, hence this video.