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I want to point out that a feudal system is not possible in a highly technical-developed society. There is no way you can sustain the machinery, the structure and the knowledge with a feudal system.

What you can indeed have is a "South-America in the 80's" world. That is, you can have societies where 30% are not considered citizens (no-status, hunger..), 30% have low level jobs, 30% are middle class (the technics sustaining hte knowledge) and 10% have huge amounts of wealth.

The present 15% of low wage workers, 70% roughly in the middle and 15% super rich can indeed change and become more unequal. But the famous 10% at the top and 90% in misery of feudal societies is just not possible.. luckily.  This is not to say that the world some people have in mind is not disgusting.

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

by kcurie on Sun Jan 9th, 2011 at 05:36:55 PM EST
The idea that technological society can't be maintained under a feudal system needs to be investigated further.

In the feudalism of the middle ages, while it's true that technology didn't develop, there was a class of scribes who maintained the accumulated written knowledge. And there was a civil engineering class that specialized in technically complex cathedrals.

One must also ask what all of the future 10 billion people are going to do. Make-work is one good answer, and a feudal system can supply that through a complex and superfluous hierarchy of servants and minions, each with a specified rank and privilege. The railroad system in India seems to have that system figured out, as do most military establishments.

And who says that feudalism needs to be unpleasant? If it can supply a basic level of physical comfort, plus football and gossip, 90% of humanity will be perfectly happy. It's only the troublemakers who worry about social justice who get upset when the hierarchy isn't "fair."

The trick is for the ruling class to manage the system so that there's no revolution. With the lower classes enthusiastically supporting the current system, we're quite a ways from that sort of bother...

by asdf on Mon Jan 10th, 2011 at 03:12:20 AM EST
[ Parent ]
It's not actually true that technology did not develop in the middle ages. It did, but it was based on craftsmanship rather than centralised mass education.

It is quite probable that centralised mass education is necessary to maintain a technically sophisticated industrial society. But it is less than perfectly self-evident that this education cannot be co-opted by a feudal system. If you have a two-tier educational system in which corporations sponsor high-quality education in subjects that they like (and in a context that encourages loyalty to their bureaucracy), then you would have an almost classic late feudal system. As a member of the privileged classes you would get to pick which corporation you want to align with (and work in and pay off your student loans to). As a member of the underprivileged classes, your situation would be analogous to that of the Incas after the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors.

I don't see how this can't possibly work, as long as the plunder remains profitable. And when it becomes unprofitable, all you have to do is corral in the lower classes with consumer credit. Then we've come full circle.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Mon Jan 10th, 2011 at 07:09:29 AM EST
[ Parent ]
In Spain it is already the case that the "added value" of a private University education is not a higher academic standard, but access to a "job bourse" at the end of the degree, or an internship during the degree leading to a job afterwards. Public universities, by and large, lack this.

The same is true of Master's degrees: in most cases the point is not to receive an education but to access an internship or job with one of the firms sponsoring the program.

If you have any appreciation for education or knowledge, or believe in universal access to education or equality of opportunity, the system is already repugnant.

Of all the ways of organizing banking, the worst is the one we have today — Mervyn King, 25 October 2010

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jan 10th, 2011 at 08:41:49 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Famous story of Euclid's response to a student who asked what gain he would get from studying geometry, "Give him three obols, since he must needs make gain out of what he learns."

In the US we've been constantly told a university education is a sure route to a high paying job.  A half-truth since most high paying jobs require technical knowledge easiest and quickest to acquire at a school of higher learning.  The other half of the truth: studying and acquiring knowledge to deepen understanding or only for the joy of learning, is hard to justify in a predatory capitalist climate where scientists, engineers, and other intellectuals are effectively 'hired guns,' or mercenaries, useful to our Masters only as much as we twiddle around making things capable of maximizing profits over the shortest amount of time.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Mon Jan 10th, 2011 at 12:20:08 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Which makes me think y'all might find this article interesting:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/business/09law.html?pagewanted=2

Karen in Bischofswiesen

'tis strange I should be old and neither wise nor valiant. From "The Maid's Tragedy" by Beaumont & Fletcher

by Wife of Bath (kareninaustin at g mail dot com) on Mon Jan 10th, 2011 at 06:54:18 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Alas, the NYT lies when it reports:

Like everything else about the law, however, the full picture here is complicated. Independent surveys find that most law students would enroll even if they knew that only a tiny number of them would wind up with six-figure salaries. Nearly all of them, it seems, are convinced that they're going to win the ring toss at this carnival and bring home the stuffed bear.

Neo-Classical Economics informs us in a rational world where people act only rationally based on rational decision making having rational expectations.  

Rationally.

Thus, the situation described in the article is UnPossible and should, therefore, be ignored.


She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Mon Jan 10th, 2011 at 07:42:03 PM EST
[ Parent ]
What options do young people have? Get rich or die trying?!

The modern culture is full of stereotypical Darwinism, that there is not much choice neither economically nor socially.

by das monde on Tue Jan 11th, 2011 at 06:43:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I was always surprised, when living in the USA, at how many people spent lots of money gambling.  I like the bumper sticker that says "Gambling is for the mathematically challenged."

I personally enjoyed law school, the learning part, but never had any expectations of becoming wealthy.  Unlike the guy profiled in the article, I didn't kid myself that it gave me any special status, especially among the people whose opinions mattered to me.

Karen in Bischofswiesen

'tis strange I should be old and neither wise nor valiant. From "The Maid's Tragedy" by Beaumont & Fletcher

by Wife of Bath (kareninaustin at g mail dot com) on Wed Jan 12th, 2011 at 09:18:06 AM EST
[ Parent ]
How did Euclid himself make a living?

Of all the ways of organizing banking, the worst is the one we have today — Mervyn King, 25 October 2010
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Jan 11th, 2011 at 05:26:13 AM EST
[ Parent ]
He was an academic, as you well know.  (I assume.)

When I first started looking into Complexity Theory, as an offshoot of my interest in General Systems Thinking, the "practical" benefit was nil.  Nobody was going to pay me one nickel per decade for the knowledge.  Now (30 years later) Complexity Theory is vital for a project I'm working on; a project that has a distinct change of making me a rather nice sum.  

Other knowledge I've acquired over the years hasn't made me a dime and most likely will never will.  

Acquiring knowledge for "it's own sake" gives the learner the same skill set as those who only acquire the knowledge to get a degree as a credential to get a job.  But, in my experience, those who take joy in learning will go on and continue to learn.  Those who only wanted to get a job will stagnate.  The economic benefit, which I do not deny, of continual learning is an ever-expanding skill set that, among other things, allows a person to recognize opportunities and take advantage of them as they arise.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Tue Jan 11th, 2011 at 01:04:50 PM EST
[ Parent ]
You indeed can have a two-tier system, but it is absolutely impossible that this would be 10-90. No, it would be 10-30-30 and non-existent(another 30).

This is the most stable advanced society you ever had. Present feudal systems exist only in agricultural countries where the elites have to travel around to get the proper luxuries of high status. Feudal lords in Guatamela, Honduras, el Salvador,etc... do have to travel around.. and they have to import the technics to sustain even the small non-luxury bubble they have to live in.

So, you can not sustain a luxury life with less than 30% of a properly trained workforce. And this is Argentina, Brazil and Chile 30 years ago... and one still could claim that the numbers were not that bad since the highly advanced luxury areas had better numbers, and that you had to take into account that large areas where dominated by feudal agriculture structures.

Just, think about the level of workforce that you need for the health structure, the computer structure, the research structure, the innovation structure to have more, exciting new things (more expensive than the other to get the status), the machinery use and the distribution, plus the high-quality food structure plus the chemist plants, plus the heavy industry knowledge...keep counting.. Brazil had all that in the 80's and it needed at least 30% of the population to control it. One could actually argue that, right now, you need more people.

The argument that a feudal system would need to be 10-30%-40% plus 20% neglected is that when rich feudal systems emerges in India, you will have to shift all the workers that are now helping to reduce the need for low-medium skilled works and some highly skilled jobs from supporting overseas operation to support local luxury.

The only possibility to get a new feudal system appears when the number of items to generate status is fixed, and you get a half a century of improvements in the production (better productivity) of these items... however , the present western totem mythology makes that impossible. Feudal lords will never accept a freeze totem-status system, it is just impossible to think. They will not accept the idea that there is no possible cure via research of the illness that will kill them eventually. While we keep in their heads the stupid idea that science can make their lifes longer and longer non-stop until becoming immortals, they will not even think of a mythology where new stuff is not important.

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

by kcurie on Mon Jan 10th, 2011 at 04:08:26 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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