The New Feudalism (originally published on inteldaily.com and Indymedia.ie February 2011)

In a capitalist system the continued existence and expansion of the system is fueled by profit. Those that avail of this profit are no longer satisfied with merely making a profit, they want more and more profit every year. As most commerce is now through public companies instead of private enterprise this profit is usually availed of in the form of higher share prices and larger dividends.

In order for the captains of industry to receive their enormous bonuses and the stockholders to receive their huge dividends it is necessary for profits to be made at someone’s expense. In capitalism there are winner and losers – the profit makers and the exploited – e.g. the staff, the customers and the providers of the resources.

In the past it was easy enough to over-charge customers, a monopoly always means that you can charge what you like. Staff were easy to exploit but as ‘democracy’ and civil rights have grown in the west over the last three centuries it has become increasingly difficult to make a dishonest buck by ripping off the humble employee. That being the case, the easiest way to continue making more money has been to obtain cheap resources from naïve or powerless people – generally speaking that means extracting raw materials from third world countries at rock-bottom prices.

As time has passed countries have wised up with regard to their precious natural resources – this process led to the OPEC oil crisis of the seventies and since it has become increasingly difficult for these hard-pressed corporations to find countries to exploit, expect where a little extra pressure could be applied in the form of military coercion.

However, the situation is getting even worse now for the poor old corporations, even with the might of western firepower to do the dirty work it is just not paying like it used to do - those foreign governments just won’t play ball and give over their natural wealth for coloured beads and hard liquor any more. So what is a struggling corporation to do to keep those stockholders from rebelling at the next AGM? The trend of the last few decades has been to export all of the low skilled jobs to the poorest countries – why pay ten dollars per hour when you can pay some ignorant foreigner ten cents per hour? In the last decade even the high skilled jobs are starting to migrate to the developing world.

That all seemed to be working a treat for a good while, but hey what’s this? The Asians and the Africans are getting sick of working for next to nothing and actually want realistic pay and to be treated like real human beings - how outrageous. All those CEOs must be going out of their minds with worry now that there are no new countries left to plunder and the workforces are final waking up to the reality of their inhuman pay and conditions.

So what happens to capitalism when there is nowhere new left to go rape and pillage, no people naïve enough to fall for the same old tricks? You see, capitalism is like a virus, it kills the host it lives off and without a steady stream of new hosts a virus will die out. Just like a virus, capitalism requires more losers to exploit so that the corporations and their investors can carry on winning.

It must have taken quite a bit of ‘out of the box’ thinking to figure out where do you go when you reach the very real physical limits of the system? Well the answer turned out to be quite simple really – start again at the beginning.

It is no accident that workers in America and Europe are getting annoyed that they can’t get a job anymore or that if they have managed to get a job it pays a pittance in comparison to previous earnings. It is no accident that the money in your pocket no longer seems to have any buying power and it is no accident that personal freedoms are diminishing and government intrusion in all aspects of life is increasing.

The western model, that gave rise to capitalism, was based on feudalism, which itself is an evolved version of the Roman model of commerce – trade, expansion, robbery and slavery. That basic model has not really changed that much, hell slavery only disappeared in 1860 and what has replaced it for many is no better than medieval serfdom, except for the provision of shoes and television.

Now that the capitalists have nowhere left to go, they have no choice other than to come back home and begin exploiting their own people once more. In order to be able to fully exploit the plebs (a roman term) we need to be reduced to the gutter once more: financially, educationally, morally and spiritually and that process is by now in its advanced stages!

If you find this hard to stomach you had better wake up and smell the coffee. If you are not one of the club or one of their henchmen then you are nobody. The elites of this world have an agenda, perhaps not even as sophisticated as a New World Order, it is simply this – to make as much money as possible regardless of cost to everyone else.

If like myself, you find this insidious, creeping neo-feudalism an offence against humanity and all that is good in the world, then you need to get up out of the armchair and begin demanding your rights as a human being. All over the world, the penny is beginning to drop – we have a choice, only by allowing these people to enslave us can we be enslaved. If you value your freedom and the opportunity to have any quality of life for yourself or your children then it is time to stand up and be counted. Join the marches, write letters, go to meetings, tell other sedated people what is going on before the shackles are put on all of us and it becomes too late to act.

This drama is now in the final act and it is up to this generation of adults to put an end to this stupid capitalist game, otherwise the majority of mankind will become serfs in a nightmarish neo-feudal future.