Feudalism is a relatively simple societal and military structure based on mutual but unbalanced benefits contrived from the need for protection and material provision. In its basic form, feudalism offers those at the top a ready supply of warm bodies and arms for personal and national protection. Those in the middle act as conduits for the upward supply of military might and the downward supply of protection and basic necessities.
At the bottom is the laboring class that provides a source of food, revenue, and soldiers to drive the government. Obviously, those at the bottom receive the least benefit, work the hardest for it, and have the smallest amount of input into national decisions. Unlike the relatively new concept of capitalism underscored by a representative democracy that has been in practice for a little over two centuries, feudalism formed itself and held sway on Western society for 600 years.
The United States has been evolving toward political and capital polarization.
In general, only millionaires or those near that level can realistically participate in national level elections. This concentrates the real political power in the hands of perhaps one percent of the population. Added to this is the recent trend for all big business to donate in an extremely lopsided fashion only to one party that has historically sided with business against labor.
Union labor is weakening numerically and politically.
Organized labor, on the other hand, has dwindled from 35% of the working population in the 1950’s to less than 12% in 2012. (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm ) Likewise, political contributions in 2012 from big business and their sympathizers are outpacing labor by hundreds of millions of dollars. (http://www.opensecrets.org/overview/blio.php# ) Add to this that the wealth of the rich is continuing to increase rapidly while the poverty bubble continues to expand to cover more and more of the population.
Since the settling of the western frontier was finalized, individual freedom has been slowly eroding.
Once the contiguous 48 states were in place, the focus of the national government changed from expansion mode to internal control mode. States rights had been tamed during the Civil War. This gave the federal government the ability to legislate national controls that would limit many personal freedoms in the name of civil rights, gun control, minority rights, and a plethora of other freedoms.
Even rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights are up for grabs.
Some basic rights, such as, free speech and privacy are routinely violated and blamed on national security and safety issues. The citizenry is becoming more amenable to the national government and government sanctioned monopolies and oligopolies. As the line between big government and big business becomes more blurred, rights in public and in the workplace will become more and more restricted.
The model of American feudalism is following the format of the ancient European model with a few minor adjustments.
Instead of kings at the top, the United States puts millionaire lawyers and businessmen in positions of supreme political power. These leaders then turn to their associates in big business who have funneled them immense amounts of money to assist their rise to power for advice and assistance. Empowered by their relationship with the political leadership, the captains of industry set the wages and career paths of those entering the workforce.
Access to real wealth is beyond the grasp on nearly all Americans.
While the American dream is rags to riches, only a handful of people in each generation actually achieve this. It is largely a pipe dream for the general populace. Even those with education and drive more often than not fall by the wayside as carrion of the system. Even those who scrimp and save with modest success end their working days with a comfortable retirement realize that the divide between them and the rich is enormous.
This gap assures that from the middle class downward will continue as indentured servants to the elite.
Like the serfs of the feudal age, middle class workers do not starve, but they will never rise above their current caste unless some benevolent lord above them chooses to let them. They will always be the class of worker bees in the federal hive. Their lot is to serve the needs of those at the top both in industry and in government. Their true tax is not from their direct wages, but from their huge donations of cheap labor.
The lords in the feudal system depended on the king to grant them the power to control their land and their labor. Tax incentives, high costs of entry into industry, union busting activities, and lack of anti-trust enforcement are a few ways that big business are empowered to hold onto its position. Even modern outsourcing is a way of devaluing the American labor force. These modern-day lords promise to care for those holding political power in exchange for their right to control labor.
Businesses give work space and trickle down income to employees while working to eliminate employee unions and jobs.
Small business owners in this country understand that without labor, their business will fail. Because of this, many small business owners will go without a paycheck to keep employees compensated. Big business never operates this way.
Labor is seen as resource to feed money and power to the ownership and management.
Those at the top skim off large shares of revenue to line their own pockets and make the necessary adjustments at the bottom to make it work. This includes layoffs, wage reductions, and eliminating long-term higher paid employees with new employees who can be paid starting wages.
These practices make certain that the rich get richer and the number of poor and beholding workers increases.
They provide businesses with a steady stream of employees who unable to reject their wage offers because they cannot afford to not have some type of income no matter how small. Rank and file employees serve big business for inferior wages and little chance of true advancement.
A resumption of the military draft is a big piece of the puzzle.
An all volunteer military works against feudalism because it gives citizens the right to choose whether or not to serve in the armed forces. So, the Vietnam era mentality needs to erode slightly more to make the military draft palatable to the American populace. Even during periods of huge conscription, businesses had the right to withhold employees from military service if it was deemed best for national security. This shift would place huge amounts of power into the enormous multi-state/multi-national corporations to become the conduits for shuffling warm bodies into the military machine.
Big business is largely responsible for the shift of the American population from rural to urban over the past century and a half. (http://www.theusaonline.com/people/urbanization.htm) One benefit of the Electoral College is that it forces presidential candidates to pay attention to states with small populations. Winning a state with just a few hundred thousand voters is important if it represents the three or more electors who will come from the state. The power of small states will vanish into the black hole of huge metropolitan entities with their overwhelming voter base.
A continued escalation in the economic imbalance between those at the top and those at the bottom is needed.
Finally, the gap between those with power and wealth and those without it must continue to widen. This will consummate the removal of economic and political power from the middle class and poor. When the working class reaches the place where it no longer has a true voice in the government, feudalism will be achieved.
