Was medieval feudalism really that bad? Why does it get such a bad rap? Is there something about it the government fears?
>>17992360It's generally bearable as long as the people in charge are present in the regions they are in charge of and all universal taxes to the king are handled by them personally rather than being farmed out.When royal centralization draws and keeps them away from their homes is when all hell breaks loose.
>>17992360It was pretty bad, I don't think modern governments fear it though, what gave you that idea?
>>17992395This. When the landowner is present and the taxes and rents are put back into the land and it's infrastructure it can work. When they just go to some 20 year old faggot lounging on a couch in London, Paris or Saint Petersberg to be spent on a new silk suit that will be worn once then thrown in the gutter is where it starts to fall apart.
>>17992407libertarians are pro feudalism for some reason
>>17992537>>17992395As a corrections and a modification, things actually get really really really really fucking bad once the economy picks up.Because your tax rates are probably fixed to a share of your wheat and some miscellaneous produce. So once you start a cottage industry, that one's 100% tax free, all into your pocket.And your landlord still is a violent milita leader who gets fucked in every orifice by the inflation your success is pushing along. So he will attack you and your family and do unspeakable violence to you until you cut him a new deal. He might farm out the violence, which means you can't even cut a deal with him any longer as some other goons now make a living shaking you down for him.
>>17992543Wtf why?
>>17992543>>17992575Because they think THEY will be the one to be king shit of turd mountain when their ideology is finally enacted.
>>17992575https://www.reddit.com/r/neofeudalism/about/
>>17992585>Half the images are wojaksTruly playing with dolls for incels.
>>17992360There were both good and bad periods of feudalism and some areas that were worse than others, feudalism didn't look the same all over Europe or over the centuries. You could be unlucky and live in a lawless area where the lack of central power made wars and feuding endemic, and then you have no recourse when your lord's rival comes to burn your shit before retreating to his castle for the umpth time. I don't know why people romanticize the idea of being a subsistence farmer at the mercy of your feudal overlord (or his rival).
>>17992585natural law be like>all people are equal and basically the unfulfilled promise of the US constitutionneofeudalists be like>I will FUCK all of Stacey's daughters once I buy the Ius primae noctae from my liege.
>>17992360The Middle Ages have been slandered by those who love usury (which was considered sinful until John Calvin approved it)
>>17992808>year of our lord 2025>still falling for the only 150 day meme
>>17992360It's a low level, distributed, decentralized way of "government", relying on local independence and personal relationships between rulers to forment unity. Advantage, few central institutions needed, so an efficient way to transform low productivity areas into a militarily useful "state". Disadvantage, the relationships are fragile and prone to low level warfare, so it doesn't have the stability of a centralized government. It's also undemocratic.As we saw in the end of antiquity, and in the rise of central government in the early modern age, it's an efficient system for low productivity areas, and not an efficient government for high productivity areas. One might wonder whether it wouldn't be a superior organization for certain third world states, but for first world states it's just overturned.The closest we got to democratic "feudalism" might have been the early US, with their high degree of local independence. That too proved to be inefficient, not least when half the country decided to secede.
>>17992822that is a silly number of course. But there is no reason to think they worked more than people working a 9-5 plus standard life upkeep. Which we always count as work when peasants do it.
>>17993161>But there is no reason to think they worked more than people working a 9-5 plus standard life upkeepWhy is that? Peasants had no modern, time-saving conveniences for anything in their lives. Every single thing you take for granted like having a warm, heated home no matter the time of year, or having clean water to drink or wash with, or being able to cook in the comfort of your home by pressing some buttons or turning a knob, or having clean clothing, was hours and hours of manual labor for a peasant to achieve. Hearths do not heat themselves, they need fuel which has to be chopped and hauled to your residence. Doing laundry means painstakingly scrubbing every article of cloth in a tub or in a creek by hand. Part of every peasant's daily routine was hauling fuel and water for basic needs like not freezing to death at night and being able to clean yourself and cook your food. Most peasants would not even rate this as real labor because back then it was just what you had to do every day to survive.Then you have the work a peasant had to do to earn his upkeep, which was substantially more than just plowing, sowing, and reaping a single field for his own sustenance and that of his family. Peasants very seldomly owned the land they worked on, they were tenants, or even serfs or other bondsmen. Peasants owned rent to the landlord, but most peasants were cash-poor as they had little practical use for money unless they were able to go to a market and sell things there. Most tenant farmers, like serfs, worked for the landlord as part of their lease. That work was whatever the landlord needed doing on his land, but most usually it meant working the lord's fields for him, or helping to construct something he's building, like a mill, a bridge, a barn, etc, or perhaps he just needed somebody to haul goods for him to his manor house. A certain amount of hours out of the week had to be given over to paying rent.
>>17992407Zero debt, only a meme level of taxation which can be waived in favor of military service, high local autonomy and after the black death at least commoners beginning to buy up the land they worked if not receiving inflated wages.If you note the heights of skeletons from the roman era to the 19th century, they were at their tallest during the "dark age" and almost as tall during the medieval warm period, especially the 15th century. This era would also spark the renaissance, although the renaissance>>17992543Why would a "libertarian" be in favor of dynastic rule, the church and its intolerance of decadence and degeneracy, tariffs and other such features of feudalism?>>17992395>>17992537>>17992573>shoots your tax collector and redistributes it back to the localsnothing personnel, baron guillaume
>>17992831>forment unity>forment
>>17993365>If you note the heights of skeletons from the roman era to the 19th century, they were at their tallest during the "dark age" and almost as tall during the medieval warm period, especially the 15th century[citation needed]
>>17992808Ok so do I just tell my cows and chickens to feed themselves and clean out their own shit today because the pope said I only work 150 days a year?
>>17992360Feudalism is a system that benefits nobody but a class of feudal lords. It fucks over the state by throttling its power and it fucks over the people by introducing a system of obligations and makes common people inferior to this class. There is a reason why in the 14th century feudalism had largely been torn apart in places like England, it served no benefit for the new rising middle class and was in fact in direct opposition and it served no benefit for the king who was more powerful and more able to protect his subjects without them.
>>17993383The peasant enjoyed anywhere from eight weeks to half the year off - Thorold Rogers
>>17993403that doesn't respond to my point and is just an appeal to authority without actually raising any real arguments
The Middle Ages started being shittalked around the Enlightenment. Around late 1700's/early 1800's they also popularized the term "Dark Ages" to refer to that period.
>>17993383It’s a lie. Even in the Roman Empire laborers and farmers were expected to work on holidays. Obviously you still have to maintain everything which takes a long time even if you don’t have anything particular to do in a day
>>17993448gotta love how these always just boil down to an incel fantasy of being handed a bride
>>17993448>>17993454same person, it is fairly obvious you posted that ridiculous pedo ifunny/reddit watermark version of your opponent's argument as black propagandain reality they were religious and chaste back then and medieval marriages were usually in their early 20s, end of discussion
>>17993448funnily enough it was a devout catholic from the 14th century who was the first to coin the "dark age" terminology
>>17993822Back then, the slavic invasion did reverse Christianization across most of Europe. So he wasn't wrong.
>>17993189This is true, but factories and capitalism picked things up a bit, didnt it? People still worked thier asses off. Now that it seems to have slowed down happiness is not on the rise.People talking about stability and all that should consider what the next 10-20 years are going to be like.
>>17992585Lemures are closer to Humans than these "people". They are sub-Lemur, and thus are so below human that they shouldn't be classified or engaged with as such
>>17993365>Zero debtDebt existed.>only a meme level of taxation which can be waived in favor of military service,Typically it was the other way around retard. Scutage in England for instance was a tax paid to avoid military service. Military service was a requirement and taxes were paid alongside it. Military service was for knights, however they might pick a peasant to go instead. It wouldn't be the peasants choice though. >high local autonomy Local automany was for the nobles, not the commoners (unless you lived in a city)>and after the black death at least commoners beginning to buy up the land they worked if not receiving inflated wages.I bet all the people who died and lost loved ones were very happy. Not that the nobles were happy about it. Peasants also had to deal with a whole host of laws forcing them to work to the same wages they had before the plague, and an inability to move. They only got better wages where the lord's were willing to skirt the law. >If you note the heights of skeletons from the roman era to the 19th century, they were at their tallest during the "dark age" and almost as tall during the medieval warm periodThis is nonsense btw, average heights kept rising (excepting some periods of great conflict) up until urbanisation and industrialisation when food quality dropped. This had nothing do with feudalism. Also heights today are on average taller than back then. >shoots your tax collector and redistributes it back to the localsnothing personnel, baron guillaumeThe next day a horde of knights rush through the town slaughtering every man woman and child they can find.
Its bad rap comes from modern discomfort with decentralized, non-state authority, highlighting inequalities without context, and later ideological framing.
