Neofeudalism Isn’t a Flaw of the System–It’s the System Working Perfectly
Fakery is always precarious: the truth about the asymmetries of power might slip out and spread like wildfire.
I’ve been writing about neofeudalism and its cousin neocolonialism for seven years:
500 Million Debt-Serfs: The European Union Is a Neo-Feudal Kleptocracy (July 22, 2011)
The E.U., Neofeudalism and the Neocolonial-Financialization Model (May 24, 2012)
The basic idea here is the socio-economic-political system is structured such that the only possible output is neofeudalism. In other words, neofeudalism isn’t a flaw in the system that can be changed with policy tweaks or electing a new president or PM– it’s the result of the system working as designed.
Neofeudalism is a peculiarly invisible hierarchical structure of power: The New Nobility (or aristocracy if you prefer) wields vast concentrations of political, social and financial power, and does so without the formalized aristocrat-serf relationships and obligations of classic neofeudalism.
We appear to be free but we’re powerless to change the power asymmetry between the New Nobility and the commoners. This reality is reified into social relations that are simulacra of actual power, pantomimes acted out in media-theaters to instill the belief that the foundational myths of democracy and social mobility are real rather than misleading shadows.
Neofeudalism is fundamentally a financial-political arrangement, marketed and managed by cultural elites who strive to convince us that we still have some shreds of power. These elites have a variety of tools at their disposal. One has been described by filmmaker Adam Curtis as pantomime: Trump says/does something outrageous, the Democrats cry “impeachment,” and so on.
This theater of pantomime serves two purposes: it projects a simulation of functional democracy that makes us believe impeaching one president and getting another one in office will change anything about the neofeudal power structure; it won’t.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
