interesting article karl.. thanks... i don't think the class structure ever really went away, although those at the top would like to constantly suggest it has... but trump is making it more clear that while serving his billionaire buddies, it is very much a war on the lower classes and trump is fully supportive of it too... that is the sad reality as i see it..
Thanks james! I see a need to provide the newest post-colonial nations with advice on the formation of government structure and system so they avoid the feudal trap.
Took me a while to catch on that all those faux jihadis militias on Western payroll were more often than not camped around the corner from some valuable strategic mineral resource.
so do they not know about the Black Nobility ? Mostly in Spain I think and Italy - no mention. Only England and Germany basically - England fuedal - Germany not so much ( and France they say ? ) I also agree with Science and Technology FOR GOOD - that's all very well but the ' for good ' needs to be for the animals too - in the experiments. I think China needs to give up animal experiments in science....( as do all countries ) I totally agree with you about President Jingping constant reforms. Rudolf Steiner said 100 years ago - any institutuion is decadent within 20 years. Rudolf Steiner wrote a few books on the Threefold Social Order which is still applicable today, as he didn't make it into hard forms but just gave the theory of the government the people and the economy ( finance ) being separate and no control over each other. Goverment meaning basically the legal sphere of human rights. Anyway - thank you very much Mr Sanchez. Very interesting.
It’s difficult to discuss technofeudalism without discussing feudalism, but you don’t need to go into it really deeply, an outline’s enough. And since it was for a Chinese audience, it’s assumed they are well versed on China’s own feudal history. I find it interesting to think about the concepts floated in the Spengler article and how they interact with this overall topic.
sorry - I didn't see the link to the Spengler article - which may be above my head anyway. I just wondered if they are aware of the Black Noblility that is interbred with the Jewish banker cartel...and rules the world. Its located in Venice so I've read. But it was so great to read about what Chinese people think. Its so cool to become so cosmopolitan even from inside this monstrous machine of the US ( actually Canada )
email me and I can put you on the list...or maybe you already have enough on your plate...but I will post this tonight with your China post...thank you so much. ( about 100 people read NEWS BITES )
Nice contribution today, Karl. Hearing the first panelist talk about Yannis and these other fake lefts was very frustrating. Somebody needs to clue him in on our man Hudson.
"I really hope that these thinkers will put forward better theories, more powerful words, and be more proactive in helping the people of the world to oppose the oppression of capitalism and the restoration of feudalism, so as to build a better and more progressive modern world."
We all hope for this, but I think China needs to do more to foster the movement the world wishes to see in the west. As he notes, in such a reactionary political environment, a real left alternative will not organically appear. Lenin stressed this point too in What is to be done. Yes, the breakdown will bring strikes and other spontaneous resistance by the wage slaves, but not the scientific, historical perspective required to actually understand and defeat our new lords and their putrid Imperialist system.
The fact that China does not have its version of the comintern promoting revolution abroad is not just a legacy of Stalinist nationalism, it signifies China's status as a complacent, Capitalist country, albeit with real state power over the rich and an agenda to try to reform some of the more anti-social aspects of the market economy. He notes China itself needs reform. I agree. It needs to turn back toward real revolutionary action internationally. Only in this way, can it assure that the Imperialist attack planned for it never comes to fruition.
Thank you for posting this interesting discussion, Karloff 1. I agree with the comment of Ahenobarbus.
Within the context of the metaphor of feudalism and how it is less of a condition today in China than in the US and allies and others, this is certainly true, but an article I read recently by Temu Ruskola in New Left Review, Jan./Feb. 2025 Issue 151, titled "The Making of the Chinese Working Class" points out another area in which China may have to change in order to more fully reject "feudal" characteristics which is the inequality between the peasantry and the urban working class. Historically China suffered from European feudalism, according to Ruskola, in that the each peasant family in a village, did own its own plot of land, although the village did work the land communally. There we're rich and poor families and some peasants were landless it is true. This historical social condition of land ownership in the countryside formed the basis for how the CCP raised capital to make possible the reform, the 'leap forward' to reform, as it was able to take increased produce from the peasants' labor to sell abroad thus turning sustenance production into market production. The Communist government built it's socialism with Chinese characteristics by reinvesting it's expanding profits into raising the living standards of the entire society. However, a schism remains between the city working class and the peasantry. The Chinese government has ownership of all city land, and it leases spaces to industrial production, such that all workers in cities have all benefits necessary to life, housing, medical, etc. guaranteed once they work for an enterprise or factory, all of which are on city controlled land. However, the peasantry, since it owns its own land, is not eligible for those benefits since theoretically it can support itself on its own land. So a large number of peasants live similarly to seasonal foreign workers -- like migrants. They work part of the time in the city, then return to their families and homesteads in the country. The government somehow can take over more land if it wishes, and according to Ruskola, it does so. He says that a working class is 'coming to consciousness' in China, and I assume he refers to this peasant-worker, but another reader of this article may read more closely than I have at this point. However, I would say that in the sense that the concept was discussed in the discussion by the Chinese academics, this Chinese social condition of inequaIity that is outlined in "The Making of the Chinese Working Class" would be considered 'feudal'.
CPC acknowledges the inequality existing between urban and rural regions and has formulated policies to address the problem. Will they succeed is the question. But there are social and cultural issues too. No matter the effort, rural regions will always be bucolic versus the urban and preferred by a certain number of people, and because of their bucolicness will never be as advanced as the cities. How to manage both types of regions and attain harmony is an ongoing challenge. And that problem isn’t confined to China as it’s existed here for over a century.
China now faces a new problem—urban unemployment—and is faced with the need to create jobs for that rising working class. Xi Jinping is well aware of China’s internal contradictions and the need to mitigate them if not solve them. Most of what is provided at the Gym are the interactions China has geopolitically and geoeconomically, not what’s happening internally. IMO, it’s easier to deal with the external aspect versus the internal because the latter requires much more prior knowledge than the former. And for better or worse, this is an event-driven platform that doesn’t often have the luxury to deal with more complex, prior knowledge required topics.
The paper I was going to translate and publish today will need to wait since events involving Iran are at the moment more important. But it deals with what just emerged from the recent Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and its decisions to “unswervingly strengthen and improve the state-owned capital and state-owned enterprises.” This coincides with Russia’s decision to concentrate on its own internal economic improvement as was discussed by Putin at the congress of industrialists and entrepreneurs I reported. Lurking behind all of that is the high likelihood of an attack on Iran by the Outlaw US Empire, which is what I’m going to deal with today.
Had to fight my demons to get through this article but most glad I did.
The topics and characters brought back fond memories as to when the penny dropped for me. You know the system is corrupt/rotten but you're not quite sure how 'their game' is played.
I can remember Yanis Varoufakis, shorts and short sleaved shirt weaving through heavy traffic on motorbike, clutching his old worn briefcase, probably purchased sometime between graduating and his first teaching post and now on his way after his new temporary (self proclaimed) appointment as, correct me if I'm wrong, Greek Finance Minister of the recently elected Syriza Party. Defiance and Hopium in Greece. You Can Shove Your Austerity Programme Where The Sun Don't Shine was the battle cry of the serfs.
Operation BAILOUT Programme - Yanis v The Troika
The Troika - The European Commission (EC), The ECB (Mario Dracula Draghi), IMF
The Guardians/Gatekeepers of the Feudal System who possessed the power to severely limit Greek Banks' access to liquidity, access to cheap Central Bank CASH.
No Yanis dear boy put those working papers away, the ones that you've spent these last few weeks preparing in order to convince us of another path for Greece outside of the EU Bailout Programme. We've read your press releases and in another era you'd be working with us, who knows what the future holds except we'll be in charge. Oh before you depart here's the list of new Privatisations of Public Services, wage and welfare cuts, please hand it over to Party Leader and ask him if he can let us know asap as to who will be his new Finance Minister.
If you want to end feudal doctrines these would be a good start :-
1) A life-ban on anyone that's attended Oxford-Cambridge, Yale-Harvard-Other from holding Public Office
2) Anyone who's passed the BAR.
You'll notice/observe that the Feudal Lords have recruited Lawyers to hurry passage of future public FISTINGS. Please Sir, may I have another!
3) The removal of ALL Bryan Adams & Celine Dion music from the airwaves. Sorry Canada but you've gone too far this time.
You’ve missed the most insidious effort of all — limiting freedom of speech. The entire substack system, writers and readers, is ultimately at risk. If HR 6696 is revived and passed and a supporting Senate bill gains traction, it will make any mention of the protected group (“Jew”) a dangerous undertaking. It is clear now with the deportation of Mahmoud Khalil (as if we have forgotten Gonzalo Lira) that there are no limits to penalties for freedom of speech.
The ramp up of the court system and the building of penitentiaries/prisons are obvious bottlenecks at present. SCOTUS cannot support the First Amendment as it has been interpreted by legal precedents. If Obamacare was effectively a “tax”, then limiting investigation and criticism of the Jew will be mere “expressions” of freedom of speech — to be revealed as intended by the original drafters of the Constitution.
I do believe that was mentioned in passing as platform owners having the ability to shape opinions and distort politics. But yes, the discussion was mostly about technofeudalism’s economic aspects.
This was a great post, Karl. As you do with your translations from Russian, doing the same for key Chinese discussions is invaluable. I admit I’ve only scanned the lengthy pieces, but every paragraph I saw had intriguing thoughts. One verboten connection I made was between the practice of feudalism and the scripture concerning the “other” (goyim) in the Talmud.
I’ve been told that there’s much effort in China to comprehend the historical, religious and commercial (usury) foundations of the Jews. Anything you come across would be more than welcomed.
We know the Hebrews were addicted to Mammon worship, but they likely didn’t adopt usury until they ceased being nomadic. Hudson and others agree that usury was being practiced by 800BC, but who transmitted it from Anatolia to them remains a mystery, although there‘re several suspects.
One quick comment having looked at the site is that not "all wars are bankers wars" because wars existed well before there were banks. And as Hudson has shown the charging of interest at its outset didn't involve banks at all for they didn't exist then either. Hudson and other historians show Hebrews took their laws from the Babylonians. Hudson says this: "The Jewish laws were taken word for word from the Babylonian practice. You’d cancel the debts, personal debts, not the commercial debts, but the personal debts that were due." from this interview, https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/05/24/debt-michael-hudson-oligarchies-greece-rome/
Hudson's "... and forgive them their debts" is where he shows how interest was "born." Graeber's "4,000 Years of Debt" likely has further info. IMO, Hebrews became very aggressive city dwellers after their Babylonian experience, disobeyed their religious and cultural laws and joined with more powerful partners as vassals, which is where Jesus enters the show, attempts to reform the unreformable, and is killed for his efforts. How Jews interacted with their Roman superiors is unknown to me, but there must be some histories about that. I just haven't bothered to study that.
It's an interesting framing of the question of oligarchy and the extraction of value which is undergoing a fundamental shift via mechanisation with the application AI. Western economies have gone from labour+capital to a services economy that is now in transition from services (or knowledge) to a total displacement of human input in the chain of value. People like lawyers who see themselves as irreplaceable can be dispensed with altogether, ditto every single profession; redundant. So, there's no value to extract and what to do with these populations? In the west it seems dispossession and abandonment is the acceptable solution. After all, their votes don't even have value when you simply dictate the result.
When you look closely at Western history, people in general have never been valued—they only exist to make the elites strong—and that POV is one of the big dividing lines between East and West. The East seeks Harmony and will thus find a way to incorporate its people into the new dynamic. The West continues to seek Dominance but that’s crumbling—first in Europe, then within the Empire. It’s possible you Aussies will escape given your close proximity to Indonesia, Malaysia and ASEAN. Time will tell.
Wait, so as long as everything is being taken from the peasants for the single emperor that's okay, because it's not feudalism? I think that was very worth reading, but the framing was profoundly disingenuous. I think the Chinese have definite and worthy insights about us, but cannot be trusted to tell the truth about themselves, I'm sorry.
As I replied previously, the discussion mentioned China’s past feudalism and the audience is Chinese and would presumably well know their history since the studio audience for this program is mostly university students.
To honestly address your point would take a long essay of the sort that I generally don't have time to compose. Yes, it's a cop-out, but I have to make choices about where to devote the finite amount of time I have to work with.
So modern a synopsis of our predicament by those who haven’t pledged an oath of fuedal fealty to Zuckerberg.
Things change by doing something not talking into eternity.
In Canada the Oath of Political Office is to King Charles 111 and his heirs forever and forever. The second oath of office is to the Privy Council who has a vested interest in owning everything .
One can watch this in action with the recent swearing into office if our new Prime Minister.
Try and change the oath to serve our elected democratic mandate!
It will be a real challenge.
It took Ireland 30 years, civil war , and much bloodshed to rescind the feudal oath of fealty .
It’s now a topic for discussion this entrenched rentier economy .
Thank you for an interesting article and an insight into China. The mere fact that it was a TV discussion programme and the way that it developed was illustrative of how relatively closed off the UK is, as a supposed modern and free society. The fact that the moderator could say that ordinary Chinese citizens learned about Feudalism
"... when they studied politics in middle school, ..."
brought home the provisions of our 1944 Education Act, which never included a requirement to educate our young to understand politics in order to excercise their democratic rights. It did, however, legislate to obligate all schools to provide Religious Education/Instruction.
The distinction between 'feudalism' and 'counties' as political expressions of administration and their respective forms in relation to 'individual freedom' was interesting.
Much food for thought. The comments reflect that.
There was reference made to the periodic revival of feudal political economics during the history of China, which reminded me of my opinion that feudalism probably indicates a decline - the most dramatic being the collapse of the western regions of the Roman empire. The Byzantine empire had to resort to 'Themes' as a way of maintaining its armies during times of crisis, which were feudal administrations, within the 'county' format that characterised Byzantium. Just a thought.
One major aspect happening as the Outlaw US Empire declines is the escalation of feudal-like actions at the federal government level. The article had a picture of Trump signing his massive number of executive orders to accentuate that point that I opted not to include because of length issues. The political attacks on property— Teslas—being called domestic terrorism is another sign. Then there are many issues related to the flaunting of constitutional law that the courts are busy policing. Crooke’s latest is now at SCF and is worrisome to say the least. It will be interesting to hear what he further explains to Judge Napolitano in their chat today, https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/03/24/trump-and-putin-begin-addressing-cumulated-geo-strategic-debris-amidst-trump-ultimatum-to-iran/
Just finished it. This quote sums up Trump's blather,
"Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of IRAN, and IRAN will be held responsible, and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire!”
So what about the actions of Ukraine and the Occupation entity in Palestine?
He thinks he's a Big Boss man, but he's just tall that's just about all. I'm pretty much all in on my TRS syndrome (Trump Realisation Syndrome).
The analogy to feudalism makes more sense in the context of a newly industrial country emerging from actual feudal relationship to the means of production than it does in an industrial economy of long standing, such as that of UK or US. China, on the other hand, had an agricultural economy with feudal ownership of land in living memory. Inheritance of financial and rentier profit does not equal feudalism even though the source of wealth is the labor stolen from those who work, in each case. But certainly, excessive inheritance of stolen wealth must be contested….
interesting article karl.. thanks... i don't think the class structure ever really went away, although those at the top would like to constantly suggest it has... but trump is making it more clear that while serving his billionaire buddies, it is very much a war on the lower classes and trump is fully supportive of it too... that is the sad reality as i see it..
Thanks james! I see a need to provide the newest post-colonial nations with advice on the formation of government structure and system so they avoid the feudal trap.
yes, because that appears to be happening now in these post colonial nations! very good!
All the West African nations and their recent revolutions and divorce from France are some in mind. .
Took me a while to catch on that all those faux jihadis militias on Western payroll were more often than not camped around the corner from some valuable strategic mineral resource.
Fancy that, whoda node?
so do they not know about the Black Nobility ? Mostly in Spain I think and Italy - no mention. Only England and Germany basically - England fuedal - Germany not so much ( and France they say ? ) I also agree with Science and Technology FOR GOOD - that's all very well but the ' for good ' needs to be for the animals too - in the experiments. I think China needs to give up animal experiments in science....( as do all countries ) I totally agree with you about President Jingping constant reforms. Rudolf Steiner said 100 years ago - any institutuion is decadent within 20 years. Rudolf Steiner wrote a few books on the Threefold Social Order which is still applicable today, as he didn't make it into hard forms but just gave the theory of the government the people and the economy ( finance ) being separate and no control over each other. Goverment meaning basically the legal sphere of human rights. Anyway - thank you very much Mr Sanchez. Very interesting.
It’s difficult to discuss technofeudalism without discussing feudalism, but you don’t need to go into it really deeply, an outline’s enough. And since it was for a Chinese audience, it’s assumed they are well versed on China’s own feudal history. I find it interesting to think about the concepts floated in the Spengler article and how they interact with this overall topic.
sorry - I didn't see the link to the Spengler article - which may be above my head anyway. I just wondered if they are aware of the Black Noblility that is interbred with the Jewish banker cartel...and rules the world. Its located in Venice so I've read. But it was so great to read about what Chinese people think. Its so cool to become so cosmopolitan even from inside this monstrous machine of the US ( actually Canada )
I don’t think it will be over your head, https://karlof1.substack.com/p/spenglerian-analysis-by-constantin
thanks - I'll post it with your other article - I send out a NEWS BITES to friends on email - its free - would you like to read it ? here's my email
anncaspian@gmail.com - I don't make any money off your reposting stuff
email me and I can put you on the list...or maybe you already have enough on your plate...but I will post this tonight with your China post...thank you so much. ( about 100 people read NEWS BITES )
Thanks for spreading my work! I’ll decline your offer, though as my substack work keeps me very busy.
no problemo - thanks for all you do too !
Nice contribution today, Karl. Hearing the first panelist talk about Yannis and these other fake lefts was very frustrating. Somebody needs to clue him in on our man Hudson.
"I really hope that these thinkers will put forward better theories, more powerful words, and be more proactive in helping the people of the world to oppose the oppression of capitalism and the restoration of feudalism, so as to build a better and more progressive modern world."
We all hope for this, but I think China needs to do more to foster the movement the world wishes to see in the west. As he notes, in such a reactionary political environment, a real left alternative will not organically appear. Lenin stressed this point too in What is to be done. Yes, the breakdown will bring strikes and other spontaneous resistance by the wage slaves, but not the scientific, historical perspective required to actually understand and defeat our new lords and their putrid Imperialist system.
The fact that China does not have its version of the comintern promoting revolution abroad is not just a legacy of Stalinist nationalism, it signifies China's status as a complacent, Capitalist country, albeit with real state power over the rich and an agenda to try to reform some of the more anti-social aspects of the market economy. He notes China itself needs reform. I agree. It needs to turn back toward real revolutionary action internationally. Only in this way, can it assure that the Imperialist attack planned for it never comes to fruition.
Thank you for posting this interesting discussion, Karloff 1. I agree with the comment of Ahenobarbus.
Within the context of the metaphor of feudalism and how it is less of a condition today in China than in the US and allies and others, this is certainly true, but an article I read recently by Temu Ruskola in New Left Review, Jan./Feb. 2025 Issue 151, titled "The Making of the Chinese Working Class" points out another area in which China may have to change in order to more fully reject "feudal" characteristics which is the inequality between the peasantry and the urban working class. Historically China suffered from European feudalism, according to Ruskola, in that the each peasant family in a village, did own its own plot of land, although the village did work the land communally. There we're rich and poor families and some peasants were landless it is true. This historical social condition of land ownership in the countryside formed the basis for how the CCP raised capital to make possible the reform, the 'leap forward' to reform, as it was able to take increased produce from the peasants' labor to sell abroad thus turning sustenance production into market production. The Communist government built it's socialism with Chinese characteristics by reinvesting it's expanding profits into raising the living standards of the entire society. However, a schism remains between the city working class and the peasantry. The Chinese government has ownership of all city land, and it leases spaces to industrial production, such that all workers in cities have all benefits necessary to life, housing, medical, etc. guaranteed once they work for an enterprise or factory, all of which are on city controlled land. However, the peasantry, since it owns its own land, is not eligible for those benefits since theoretically it can support itself on its own land. So a large number of peasants live similarly to seasonal foreign workers -- like migrants. They work part of the time in the city, then return to their families and homesteads in the country. The government somehow can take over more land if it wishes, and according to Ruskola, it does so. He says that a working class is 'coming to consciousness' in China, and I assume he refers to this peasant-worker, but another reader of this article may read more closely than I have at this point. However, I would say that in the sense that the concept was discussed in the discussion by the Chinese academics, this Chinese social condition of inequaIity that is outlined in "The Making of the Chinese Working Class" would be considered 'feudal'.
Correction -- Historically, China did NOT experience European-style feudalism
CPC acknowledges the inequality existing between urban and rural regions and has formulated policies to address the problem. Will they succeed is the question. But there are social and cultural issues too. No matter the effort, rural regions will always be bucolic versus the urban and preferred by a certain number of people, and because of their bucolicness will never be as advanced as the cities. How to manage both types of regions and attain harmony is an ongoing challenge. And that problem isn’t confined to China as it’s existed here for over a century.
China now faces a new problem—urban unemployment—and is faced with the need to create jobs for that rising working class. Xi Jinping is well aware of China’s internal contradictions and the need to mitigate them if not solve them. Most of what is provided at the Gym are the interactions China has geopolitically and geoeconomically, not what’s happening internally. IMO, it’s easier to deal with the external aspect versus the internal because the latter requires much more prior knowledge than the former. And for better or worse, this is an event-driven platform that doesn’t often have the luxury to deal with more complex, prior knowledge required topics.
The paper I was going to translate and publish today will need to wait since events involving Iran are at the moment more important. But it deals with what just emerged from the recent Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and its decisions to “unswervingly strengthen and improve the state-owned capital and state-owned enterprises.” This coincides with Russia’s decision to concentrate on its own internal economic improvement as was discussed by Putin at the congress of industrialists and entrepreneurs I reported. Lurking behind all of that is the high likelihood of an attack on Iran by the Outlaw US Empire, which is what I’m going to deal with today.
Would not a US attack on Iran disrupt China's trade route?
Yes, and Russia’s. Iran is geographically at the axle—the hub—of Eurasian trade routes.
Had to fight my demons to get through this article but most glad I did.
The topics and characters brought back fond memories as to when the penny dropped for me. You know the system is corrupt/rotten but you're not quite sure how 'their game' is played.
I can remember Yanis Varoufakis, shorts and short sleaved shirt weaving through heavy traffic on motorbike, clutching his old worn briefcase, probably purchased sometime between graduating and his first teaching post and now on his way after his new temporary (self proclaimed) appointment as, correct me if I'm wrong, Greek Finance Minister of the recently elected Syriza Party. Defiance and Hopium in Greece. You Can Shove Your Austerity Programme Where The Sun Don't Shine was the battle cry of the serfs.
Operation BAILOUT Programme - Yanis v The Troika
The Troika - The European Commission (EC), The ECB (Mario Dracula Draghi), IMF
The Guardians/Gatekeepers of the Feudal System who possessed the power to severely limit Greek Banks' access to liquidity, access to cheap Central Bank CASH.
No Yanis dear boy put those working papers away, the ones that you've spent these last few weeks preparing in order to convince us of another path for Greece outside of the EU Bailout Programme. We've read your press releases and in another era you'd be working with us, who knows what the future holds except we'll be in charge. Oh before you depart here's the list of new Privatisations of Public Services, wage and welfare cuts, please hand it over to Party Leader and ask him if he can let us know asap as to who will be his new Finance Minister.
If you want to end feudal doctrines these would be a good start :-
1) A life-ban on anyone that's attended Oxford-Cambridge, Yale-Harvard-Other from holding Public Office
2) Anyone who's passed the BAR.
You'll notice/observe that the Feudal Lords have recruited Lawyers to hurry passage of future public FISTINGS. Please Sir, may I have another!
3) The removal of ALL Bryan Adams & Celine Dion music from the airwaves. Sorry Canada but you've gone too far this time.
I was very disappointed Greece didn’t declare the debts odious and default as that was the correct position to take versus EUCB.
You’ve missed the most insidious effort of all — limiting freedom of speech. The entire substack system, writers and readers, is ultimately at risk. If HR 6696 is revived and passed and a supporting Senate bill gains traction, it will make any mention of the protected group (“Jew”) a dangerous undertaking. It is clear now with the deportation of Mahmoud Khalil (as if we have forgotten Gonzalo Lira) that there are no limits to penalties for freedom of speech.
The ramp up of the court system and the building of penitentiaries/prisons are obvious bottlenecks at present. SCOTUS cannot support the First Amendment as it has been interpreted by legal precedents. If Obamacare was effectively a “tax”, then limiting investigation and criticism of the Jew will be mere “expressions” of freedom of speech — to be revealed as intended by the original drafters of the Constitution.
I do believe that was mentioned in passing as platform owners having the ability to shape opinions and distort politics. But yes, the discussion was mostly about technofeudalism’s economic aspects.
This was a great post, Karl. As you do with your translations from Russian, doing the same for key Chinese discussions is invaluable. I admit I’ve only scanned the lengthy pieces, but every paragraph I saw had intriguing thoughts. One verboten connection I made was between the practice of feudalism and the scripture concerning the “other” (goyim) in the Talmud.
I’ve been told that there’s much effort in China to comprehend the historical, religious and commercial (usury) foundations of the Jews. Anything you come across would be more than welcomed.
I was digging around in Hudson’s vast archive and found an interesting item form 2002 that has some illumination, https://michael-hudson.com/2002/04/i-meet-the-leading-authority-on-the-babylonian-and-near-east-tradition-of-debt-cancellation/
We know the Hebrews were addicted to Mammon worship, but they likely didn’t adopt usury until they ceased being nomadic. Hudson and others agree that usury was being practiced by 800BC, but who transmitted it from Anatolia to them remains a mystery, although there‘re several suspects.
Thanks for the link. I share the following which is an excellent summary of usury and banking over time:
http://entityart.co.uk/usury-the-root-cause-of-all-problems-on-the-planet-debt-slavery-central-banks-wars-assassinations-nwo-solutions-caesar-napoleon-hitler-jfk-lincoln-gaddafi-zionism-federal-reserve/
Cool, thanks!
One quick comment having looked at the site is that not "all wars are bankers wars" because wars existed well before there were banks. And as Hudson has shown the charging of interest at its outset didn't involve banks at all for they didn't exist then either. Hudson and other historians show Hebrews took their laws from the Babylonians. Hudson says this: "The Jewish laws were taken word for word from the Babylonian practice. You’d cancel the debts, personal debts, not the commercial debts, but the personal debts that were due." from this interview, https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/05/24/debt-michael-hudson-oligarchies-greece-rome/
Hudson's "... and forgive them their debts" is where he shows how interest was "born." Graeber's "4,000 Years of Debt" likely has further info. IMO, Hebrews became very aggressive city dwellers after their Babylonian experience, disobeyed their religious and cultural laws and joined with more powerful partners as vassals, which is where Jesus enters the show, attempts to reform the unreformable, and is killed for his efforts. How Jews interacted with their Roman superiors is unknown to me, but there must be some histories about that. I just haven't bothered to study that.
It's an interesting framing of the question of oligarchy and the extraction of value which is undergoing a fundamental shift via mechanisation with the application AI. Western economies have gone from labour+capital to a services economy that is now in transition from services (or knowledge) to a total displacement of human input in the chain of value. People like lawyers who see themselves as irreplaceable can be dispensed with altogether, ditto every single profession; redundant. So, there's no value to extract and what to do with these populations? In the west it seems dispossession and abandonment is the acceptable solution. After all, their votes don't even have value when you simply dictate the result.
When you look closely at Western history, people in general have never been valued—they only exist to make the elites strong—and that POV is one of the big dividing lines between East and West. The East seeks Harmony and will thus find a way to incorporate its people into the new dynamic. The West continues to seek Dominance but that’s crumbling—first in Europe, then within the Empire. It’s possible you Aussies will escape given your close proximity to Indonesia, Malaysia and ASEAN. Time will tell.
Thanks Karl. I'll be closely watching the uniparty which hopefully sees a continuing collapse of support.
Wait, so as long as everything is being taken from the peasants for the single emperor that's okay, because it's not feudalism? I think that was very worth reading, but the framing was profoundly disingenuous. I think the Chinese have definite and worthy insights about us, but cannot be trusted to tell the truth about themselves, I'm sorry.
As I replied previously, the discussion mentioned China’s past feudalism and the audience is Chinese and would presumably well know their history since the studio audience for this program is mostly university students.
That doesn't address the point I made, though.
To honestly address your point would take a long essay of the sort that I generally don't have time to compose. Yes, it's a cop-out, but I have to make choices about where to devote the finite amount of time I have to work with.
Understood, thanks for the hard work you put in.
So modern a synopsis of our predicament by those who haven’t pledged an oath of fuedal fealty to Zuckerberg.
Things change by doing something not talking into eternity.
In Canada the Oath of Political Office is to King Charles 111 and his heirs forever and forever. The second oath of office is to the Privy Council who has a vested interest in owning everything .
One can watch this in action with the recent swearing into office if our new Prime Minister.
Try and change the oath to serve our elected democratic mandate!
It will be a real challenge.
It took Ireland 30 years, civil war , and much bloodshed to rescind the feudal oath of fealty .
It’s now a topic for discussion this entrenched rentier economy .
Hoorah!
Thank you for an interesting article and an insight into China. The mere fact that it was a TV discussion programme and the way that it developed was illustrative of how relatively closed off the UK is, as a supposed modern and free society. The fact that the moderator could say that ordinary Chinese citizens learned about Feudalism
"... when they studied politics in middle school, ..."
brought home the provisions of our 1944 Education Act, which never included a requirement to educate our young to understand politics in order to excercise their democratic rights. It did, however, legislate to obligate all schools to provide Religious Education/Instruction.
The distinction between 'feudalism' and 'counties' as political expressions of administration and their respective forms in relation to 'individual freedom' was interesting.
Much food for thought. The comments reflect that.
There was reference made to the periodic revival of feudal political economics during the history of China, which reminded me of my opinion that feudalism probably indicates a decline - the most dramatic being the collapse of the western regions of the Roman empire. The Byzantine empire had to resort to 'Themes' as a way of maintaining its armies during times of crisis, which were feudal administrations, within the 'county' format that characterised Byzantium. Just a thought.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theme_(Byzantine_district)
One major aspect happening as the Outlaw US Empire declines is the escalation of feudal-like actions at the federal government level. The article had a picture of Trump signing his massive number of executive orders to accentuate that point that I opted not to include because of length issues. The political attacks on property— Teslas—being called domestic terrorism is another sign. Then there are many issues related to the flaunting of constitutional law that the courts are busy policing. Crooke’s latest is now at SCF and is worrisome to say the least. It will be interesting to hear what he further explains to Judge Napolitano in their chat today, https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/03/24/trump-and-putin-begin-addressing-cumulated-geo-strategic-debris-amidst-trump-ultimatum-to-iran/
Thanks for the link. I meant to look first thing and haven't! Cheers.
Just finished it. This quote sums up Trump's blather,
"Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of IRAN, and IRAN will be held responsible, and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire!”
So what about the actions of Ukraine and the Occupation entity in Palestine?
He thinks he's a Big Boss man, but he's just tall that's just about all. I'm pretty much all in on my TRS syndrome (Trump Realisation Syndrome).
Yes, there’ll be more on that shortly.
The analogy to feudalism makes more sense in the context of a newly industrial country emerging from actual feudal relationship to the means of production than it does in an industrial economy of long standing, such as that of UK or US. China, on the other hand, had an agricultural economy with feudal ownership of land in living memory. Inheritance of financial and rentier profit does not equal feudalism even though the source of wealth is the labor stolen from those who work, in each case. But certainly, excessive inheritance of stolen wealth must be contested….