{"id":37096,"date":"2018-08-27T06:37:44","date_gmt":"2018-08-27T11:37:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=37096"},"modified":"2018-08-27T06:37:44","modified_gmt":"2018-08-27T11:37:44","slug":"to-understand-americas-neofeudal-economy-start-with-extortion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=37096","title":{"rendered":"To Understand America’s Neofeudal Economy, Start with Extortion"},"content":{"rendered":"

To Understand America’s Neofeudal Economy, Start with Extortion<\/a><\/h3>\n

Here is the result of America’s neofeudalism: soaring wealth and income inequality. <\/i><\/p>\n

Let’s spin the time machine back to the late Middle Ages, at the height of feudalism, and imagine we’re trying to get a boatload of goods to the nearest city to sell.<\/b> As we drift down the river, we’re constantly being stopped and charged a fee for transiting one small fiefdom after another. When we finally reach the city, there’s an entry fee for bringing our goods to market.<\/p>\n

Note that none of these fees were payments for improvements to transport or for services rendered; they were simply extortion.<\/b> This was the economic structure of feudalism<\/i>: petty fiefdoms levied extortionate fees that funded the lifestyles of nobility.<\/p>\n

This is why I have long called America’s economy neofeudal<\/i>: we pay ever higher fees for services that are degrading, not improving.<\/b> This is the essence of extortion: we don’t get any improvement in goods and services for the extra money we’re forced to pay.<\/p>\n

Consider higher education: costs are soaring while the value of the “product”–a college diploma–declines.<\/b> What extra value are students receiving for the doubling of tuition and fees? The short answer is “none.” College diplomas are in over-supply, and studies have found that a majority of students learn remarkably little of value in college.<\/p>\n

As I explain in my book The Nearly Free University and the Emerging Economy<\/a>, the solution is to accredit the student, not the institution<\/i><\/b>. If the student learned very little, he\/she doesn’t get credentialed.<\/p>\n

Were students to have access to the best classroom lectures online (nearly free), and on-the-job apprenticeships in the workplace, (nearly free or perhaps even paid), learning would be significantly improved and costs reduced by 80% to 90%.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To Understand America’s Neofeudal Economy, Start with Extortion Here is the result of America’s neofeudalism: soaring wealth and income inequality. Let’s spin the time machine back to the late Middle Ages, at the height of feudalism, and imagine we’re trying to get a boatload of goods to the nearest city to sell. As we drift […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[127,6369,2329,21419,587],"class_list":["post-37096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-charles-hugh-smith","tag-extortion","tag-income-inequality","tag-neofeudal-economy","tag-of-two-minds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37096"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37097,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37096\/revisions\/37097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}