Although there is still debate about the transition from slavery to serfdom as the dominant form of unfree labor in Europe, it is generally agreed that as slavery became less common in Europe, serfdom replaced it. More generally, peasants could be subclassified into freemen, who generally either owned their own parcel of land or paid some sort of monetary rent serfs, who were obligated to work plots of land for their lord as a sort of unfree labor and slaves, who were considered property and had few legal rights. Peasants reside on this land, and they are generally politically and economically subject to the lord and his collection of various family members and retainers. In manorialism, a lord controls a certain area of land, which has usually been awarded to him by a more powerful lord or king. The feudal system used to manage agricultural production and rural life in general is referred to as manorialism. The other half of feudalism (the forced labor and masses of unwashed peasants beholden to a Noble lord) is mostly referred to as manorialism.Īs might be expected of medieval political systems, most feudal societies are primarily centered around agriculture. To clarify the definitions, chivalry mostly encompasses all the “fun” parts of feudalism we like to see in movies and books. More accurately, there were definitely knights and lords and ladies (or whatever terminology a given society used for warrior and noble classes), but they were a very small part of the population, which was mostly serfs (or whatever term the landowners used to describe “the rabble”). It wasn’t all, “Knights and Lords and Ladies, huzzah!” as we might think from popular media. But there are far more parallels between our current digital ecosystem and feudal societies than can be described with broad strokes, and the commonalities are so striking that it could be argued that the digital ecosystem, and especially the social media ecosystem, constitutes a de facto feudal society.īefore we get started, it’s important to briefly discuss the nature of actual historical feudalism. Users participate in platforms, often with only the barest knowledge of the data they surrender, and that data is then used to generate value exclusively for the platform owners. In the common conception of feudalism, a relatively small rentier class (lords) uses a variety of subtle and overt political and economic systems to extract value from the daily lives of the producer class (peasants), who generally have little choice or influence over the system. Unfortunately, our modern digital ecosystem is rapidly organizing as a feudal power structure erected in parallel with our existing power structures and freedoms.
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