Ok hear me out, I'm scatterbrained so not sure how to explain this well.
Who's to say that a "techno-feudal" future wouldn't literally be techno-feudal? Is this really at odds with capitalism?
The Roman patrician class. Patrician comes from pater, pater meaning father. "Descendant of father". What father? Allegedly, the one of several that originally settled Rome. These fathers monopolized power over the presumed late-comer migrants to Rome who would become the plebs. To use an analogy, it's like how today you might immigrate somewhere but find yourself discriminated in employment and housing because you're not "one of them" even if you obtain citizenship. But on a smaller scale.
The power of a patrician did not necessarily come from being a "household name". Rather it is belonging to the collective of "household names" that gave power. A bundle of sticks, if you will. A ruling class. We are taught in schools however that the distinction between patrician and pleb faded. Did the ruling class fade? No, the ruling class became "the wealthy". Actually, the patricians were already "the wealthy". The only thing that changed is that now, the plebs could become "the wealthy", too.
In other words, the bundle of sticks expanded to incorporate new "sticks". Why could the original fathers of Rome monopolize their power in the first place? Because from the very start they were "the wealthy" relative to the late-comer migrants.
By the way, virtually the exact same thing played out in Athens. The eupatridae were the Athenian equivalent of patricians.
The old Marxist tale is that capitalism defeated feudalism. Leaving aside the fact that "feudalism" is ill-defined. In vernacular conception, "feudalism" is rule of nobility. But as we've established, "nobility" (such as the patricians and the eupatridae) is older than Medieval Europe. Well, what the old Marxists wanted to say really, is that the descendants of Medieval European nobles were defeated by the "bourgeoisie". This happened, right?
You might find two factoids interesting.
One, in Medieval European cities, wealthy "burgher" or bourgeois (if you will l) families were known as "patricians". Can you guess if that had something to do with monopolizing power?
Two, England is cited as the birthplace of capitalism as we know it today. If this is correct, the first "capitalists" would have in fact been the land-owning English gentry (who are "minor" nobility, in the English system semantically not referred to as nobility but being in effect what in other countries would be referred to as the lower nobility).
>>2602736>techno-feudalRead Marx instead of liberal spergs
Are you trying to say that modern capitalism might not be radically different from older systems of power and class, particularly feudalism and aristocracy? Well yes, that was Marx's point as well. That is why he said in the Manifesto:
>The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.
Make sense? You draw a parallel between the Roman patricians and the bourgeoisie, suggesting that both hold power not just because of individual wealth, but through collective influence within a group or class. But Marx never denied that. Also, he talks about how capitalism is still essentially built on primitive accumulation (taking things by force) and inheritance, both of which have the potential to recreate an aristocracy, especially after the bourgeoisie outlive their historical role and become their own gravediggers, which is where we've been for a very very long time.
Your argument questions whether capitalism truly broke away from feudalism, suggesting that both systems still involve power monopolization by a wealthy ruling class. This continuity is evident in the fact that capitalists are often the landowners, and you point out the term "patrician" even appears in bourgeois urban centers. You say that modern capitalism may just be an extension or evolution of older hierarchical structures, not a complete break from them. That is Marx's point as well. You are just rediscovering the points Marx made, but you seem confused and think they are somehow different from Marx.
You question the bourgeois-revolutionary narrative of capitalism overthrowing feudalism, proposing instead that both systems share similar features of power consolidation and inheritance among elites, but that is literally Marx's point as well. He does not deny that. That is why he was criticizing the bourgeoisie in 1848 at a time where they were still (relatively speaking) revolutionary, and participating in the rapid changing of society through industrialization, and overthrowing fighting the landed aristocracy. Yes, some of them even came from the landed aristocracy, but they fought the more reactionary elements in their own class. The aristocracy had class traitors who helped the bourgeoisie, just like the bourgeoisie had class traitors who helped the proletariat (see Engels). In Japan, we even see parts of the feudal aristocracy carry out conservative top-down reforms in the direction of Capitalism:
>The Japanese elite knew their country to be one among many confronted by the dangers of conquest or subjection which they had faced in the course of a long history […] what is perhaps more important, the Japanese elite possessed a state apparatus and a social structure capable of controlling the movement of an entire society. To transform a country from above without risking either passive resistance, disintegration, or revolution is extremely difficult. The Japanese rulers were in the historically exceptional position of being able to mobilise a traditional mechanism of social obedience for the purposes of a sudden, radical, but controlled 'westernisation' […] the 'Meiji Restoration' […] a drastic 'revolution from above' […] The parallelism between Japan and Prussia has often been made. In both countries capitalism was formally installed not by bourgeois revolution [against feudal lords] but from above, by an old [feudal] bureaucratic-aristocratic order which recognised that its survival could not otherwise be assured.
- Eric Hobsbawm, Age of Capital (1848-1875), Chapter 8
>>2602748>liberal schizoposting is now theory lol
Lmao
What is techno feudalism?
>>2602760It's this idea from Yanis Varoufakis that the bourgeoisie decreasingly rely on profits from commodity production and rely on rent and interest instead, making them more like the feudal aristocracy than like the early bourgeoisie. Problem is, his analysis is limited to the imperial core.
>>2602758I'm not a schizo. I don't dabble in conspiracy theories.
>>2602760In the loose sense (not specifically the way Yanis Varoufakis more narrowly defines it) a term that as I understand is used as a metaphor for the increasing wealth gap and monopoly over big tech "recreating" feudalism. But what I'm wondering is what if it's not a metaphor. What if we actually end up with an unironic techno-aristocracy?
>>2602753I'm on short time so I'll just briefly reply to the image you posted. What if "class conscious" porky is in fact the porky trying to make aristocracy a thing?
>>2602785> is used as a metaphor for the increasing wealth gap and monopoly over big tech "recreating" feudalism. But what I'm wondering is what if it's not a metaphor. What if we actually end up with an unironic techno-aristocracy?i actually read varoufakis's book, and he doesn't use it metaphorically. he is making the precise argument that the bourgeoisie regress to feudal control when they rely on rent instead of profit. the tech industry in particular used to sell commodities (install a piece of software that you bought as a CD Rom) but now they do subscriptions and rents for everything which are difficult to cancel, including means of production people require for work (software is often a means of production). So instead of paying for a commodity once, and getting to own it, you just rent it as a subscription. This makes the profit-based capitalist economy gradually into a rent based technofeudal economy, since your digital workers are renting their software that they need to work just like peasants paid rent to the lord.
Techno-feudalism is a meme. It's nonsense.
Fukuyama won. All the smug pseudo-Marxists lost. Enjoy the neo-lib century.
the idea that ruling classes fought but overall are similiar is something i think all marxists can agree on, however every "ruling class" wants their type of economy to take place. to say that the feudalism the nobles wanted is similiar to today's capitalism and therefore capitalist and noble interests overlapped is a folly, however it is true to guess that nobles today will defend capitalism over socialism. there was a very specific difference that Marx talks about, in that during feudalism the rules were written, each class was said class by law, this isnt the case anymore in capitalism which made the nobles lose power. Dosent mean however that nobles, as in landowners, cant gain power in capitalism too.
>>2602736"Techno feudal" is just still capitalism, the current capitalist phase to be precise. We have all these monopolies that everybody else relies on and has to pay them either directly or by some other fees by using their walled gardens.
>>2602770>Problem is, his analysis is limited to the imperial core.Surplus value that is captured by the Western capitalist *has* to come from somewhere anyway. There's no capitalism without productive labor. Also, capturing surplus product (feudalism) vs. surplus value (capitalism) is completely different, a category error on Mr. Rockstar Economist's part.
>>2602876English tenant farmers paying rent in coinage predates capitalism IIRC.
>>2602886Yes, the profit motive becoming a key aspect and driver of English tenant farmers rent is where capitalism really began. Read about "The Brenner Debate". Exceptionally interesting, and dives into what really separates capitalism from earlier mercantilism.
>>2602770Idk what makes it techno that capitalist increasingly look to rents and financialization for profit. The same shit happened in the 1930s when porky stopped building productive forces due to overproduction and instead relied on rents and taking out loans to gamble on the stock market.
Marx failed to consider that it isn't capitalism that's bad but late stage neoliberal post modern globalist techno feudal fascist evil billionaires that are bad
Small biz millionaires are the true vanguard ❤️
>>2603126r/ultraleft-kun we don't use emoji here on leftychud post a reaction image
>>2603137I'm anarchist sorryy hun 💫 🥳😹
>>2602799>precise argument<historically revisionist understanding of how software was distributed and monetizedlol. lmao even.
all this rent seeking shit isn't feudalism, it is capitalism scraping by because the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. lenin wrote about that shit a hundred years ago.
you can call it feudalism when meta or some other corp managed to make it possible to actually harvest and download food in farmville.
>>2602799Mods, permaban this revisionist history falsifier NOW!
>>2603155>all this rent seeking shit isn't feudalism, it is capitalism scraping by because the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. lenin wrote about that shit a hundred years ago.Yes and it is manifesting Varoufakis argues as a technofeudalism
>>2603157I don't actually agree with Varoufakis and never said I did. I just read his book and weighed in. But leave it to the weirdos of this board to think that bothering to read and describe something means you agree with it.
we are so close to communism, just make a digital fund platform jointly funded by the tech oligarchs or whatever that gives everyone UBI
>>2602736The world isn't just Europe you fucking idiot there's India with it's brahmin system, China with it's pseudo-caste systems, and Africa with a lot of systems
>>2603459China and India didn't have aristocrats? The reason we're talking about Europe is because "capitalism defeating feudalism" is tied to Europe.
>>2603493>landlord>land…lordlol mindfuck
>>2602760The idea is based on the observation that tech platforms allow for large scale appropriation of rents from productive capitalists. Think amazon for commodity producers, uber for taxi drivers, airbnb for landlords (who are unproductive as well but that's besides the point), and all other platforms that rely on ad revenue. All of these platforms centralize all essential data collection and information processing that, though unproductive of surplus value, is crucial for firms in order to market their commodities and find consumers.
The growing dominance of these tech platforms over most of modern market exchange means that most of the economy sits on a digital domain that demands a rent for the economic activities being carried out on said domain, just like a real feudal lord taking rents from productive capitalists making Georgists seethe. The different is that, while the feudal lords of old were a relic of the past to be extinguished by the advancement of capitalism, the tech giants are on the contrary the result of the advancement of the forces of production under capitalism, specifically the information technology revolution, and as such are not the past but the future of capitalism. This seeming contradiction is captured by the very term coined to name this historical development, techno-feudalism
>>2602770>>2602760>>2602799Yeah but he's wrong. It's just an evolution of merchant capital/imperialism. Control of shipping lanes, resource monopolies and communications technology are still both the same kinds of arbitrage.
>>2603695Like read the section on the struggle to eliminate commercial profit
https://www.marxists.org/archive/grossman/1929/breakdown/ch03.htmThis techno-feudalism stuff is no different than multinational monopolies building components in the periphery and assembling them in the imperial core. It's just the fusion of merchant capital, industrial capital and the state.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch20.htm >>2603608Techno-feudalism is an emotionally loaded marketing buzzword and the underlying reasoning seems pretty vibes based and unmarxist.
Whatever, keep running with that shit as if virtual platforms would conjure a new reality.
>>2604520"Capitalism swept away feudalism" I scream as the technicians install an implant in my brain and send me to work in Sir Musk's Epic Baconsauce Kingdom.
Can the emergence of aristocracy be explained in these terms?
Phase 1 aristocracy emerges when a dominant clan or coalition of dominant clans engages in state-building, thereby wiping out the lesser clans. The "nuclear family" phenomenon, sort of.
Phase 2 aristocracy emerges further when in the now-built state competition between phase 1 aristocrats causes a crisis of the state's stability. A dictator emerges as a necessity of keeping the state alive, for society is too dependant on the existence of the state logistically to allow it to crumble. The dictator rewards those loyal to him and punishes those that oppose him. The resulting phase 2 aristocracy is made up of old loyalists and new cronies.
IF the state crumbles, you're back at square 1. Clan-based society.
This maps onto Rome and the Middle Ages in Western Europe. Republic (phase 1) > Empire (phase 2) > Germanic conquest (state crumbles, back to clans) > "medieval times" (phase 1 again)
Unique IPs: 26