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Techno-Feudalism Feasts Upon Us All
What if the Marxists made a mistake?
What if the inevitable transition point for Capitalism isn’t socialism but feudalism? Yanis Varoufakis, one of the most influential modern economists, believes that this is the case, and his compelling argument is as chilling as it is necessary to hear.
Capitalism and feudalism, a brief history
Classical capitalist doctrine came about because of a recognized problem with feudal systems: the owner of a piece of land didn’t need to do anything more than own that piece of land to extract rents from it. He could sit back in comfort, knowing that his inherited wealth would remain intact. For the capitalists, this complacency meant that feudalism was inherently anti-competitive. After all, what incentive did the feudal owner have to increase productivity, to better the state of his lands or his workers? What incentives to find novel technologies and systems would there be if the drive to compete were deadened by guaranteed rents paid out, no matter what happened?
Capitalists wanted to do away with the feudal system, which they saw as inherently unjust, with a highly competitive system wherein only continuous improvement and progress could ensure the survival of one’s enterprise. In the idealized version of this model, no business person would be able to sit by complacently. If you didn’t treat your workers well enough, they could move to your competitor, who paid better. If you didn’t invest in better methods of production, the competitor who did would beat you at your own game. In this ideal, even a totally new operator on the capitalist playing field could work his way to the top by being a passionate enough (and cunning enough) innovator.
Marxists saw inherent problems with the capitalist model, however. Capitalism, they argued, was inherently self-destructive, and inherently Imperialist. Capitalism could only continue to see “progress” for as long as it could continue to expand. This expansion would, at first, force…
