The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class
"Following a remarkable epoch of greater dispersion of wealth and opportunity, we are inexorably returning towards a more feudal era marked by greater concentration of wealth and property, reduced upward mobility, demographic stagnation, and increased dogmatism. If the last seventy years saw a massive expansion of the middle class, not only in America but in much of the developed world, today that class is declining and a new, more hierarchical society is emerging. The new class structure resembles that of Medieval times. At the apex of the new order are two classes—a reborn clerical elite, the clerisy, which dominates the upper part of the professional ranks, universities, media and culture, and a new aristocracy led by tech oligarchs with unprecedented wealth and growing control of information. These two classes correspond to the old French First and Second Estates. Below these two classes lies what was once called the Third Estate. This includes the yeomanry, which is made up largely of small businesspeople, minor property owners, skilled workers and private-sector oriented professionals. Ascendant for much of modern history, this class is in decline while those below them, the new Serfs, grow in numbers—a vast, expanding property-less population. The trends are mounting, but we can still reverse them—if people understand what is actually occurring and have the capability to oppose them." If the squib is accurate, Kotkin misunderstands what has been happening. The liberal progressive epoch of wealth and opportunity ended by the mid 1960s. What followed was pure illiberal progressivism which was the return to the more feudal system through a greater concentration of wealth and property, and frequent economic stagnation. The idea that there was reduced upward mobility is wrong even during the illiberal progressive epoch. The new hierarchical society is what the Trump revolution is pushing back against. It is in places like illiberal progressive California, New York, and Illinois that we see the crushing of the Yeomanry and the rise of the neo-serf class. It is the rest of America which is pushing back against the neo-feudal progressivism. Remember, socialism/fascism/progressivism are heresies of feudalism, they have nothing to do with free markets. The solution is moar Trump and less progressivism, just ask the Blacks and Hispanics who have participated in the least racist economic boom in US history, or the Common Man who participated in the same boom while the elites have failed to keep up. The reason the elites are bellyaching so loudly is they fear the Common Man will be resurgent and the elites will be cut free from their sinecures. Keep cutting Mr. President!
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