I'm not very dumb, but not very smart either. And I'm old and I work. So there's whole bunches of stuff that's important that I'm pretty ignorant about. I am glad to be curious. As ignorant as I am, I often fall into rabbit holes.
I was thinking about songs. I want people to sing songs. There's a quote by Pete Seeger about songs which I like very much:
“Songs are funny things. They can slip across borders. Proliferate in prisons. Penetrate hard shells. I always believed that the right song at the right moment could change history.”
I was mulling over the trouble with people singing other people's songs. And thought of a lecture that Lawrence Lessig gave a long time ago. Searching for it the very first google result was a link to Leonard Lin's blog random($foo). Lin had put the lecture on the Internet and it's kind of cool to see how it was done back then. I headed over to YouTube to watch Lessig's talk at the O.Reilly Open Source Conference in July of 2002.
The talk is still worthwhile. At the time some of my creative friends thought Lessig was a sort of villain, so his talks got talked about.
At Tumblr someone I am very pleased to have encountered is Dr. Damien P. Williams. Something about meeting him at first on here is knowing what a kind and good person he is prior to discovering his deep erudition about the social implications of technology. These days I follow him on Mastodon where he pointed to an episode of NPR'S Code Switch with Safiya Noble dealing with "the complex questions that arise when algorithms and AI intersect with race."
It's a wonderful interview which really does touch on complexities, but the part that really made an impression was her background in advertising before returning to graduate school and earning her Ph.D. It put the economics of enclosure front and center in discussing AI.
I'm describing my fall down a rabbit hole and I think the next thing I engaged with was a post by Andy Baio at WAXY, Weird A.I. Yankovic, a cursed deep dive into the world of voice cloning. Songs are funny things.
After that I landed on a review of a new book by Yanis Varoufakis by Christopher Pollard at The Conversation, Is capitalism dead? Yanis Varoufakis thinks it is – and he knows who killed it. The book is entitled Techno-feudalism: What Killed Capitalism and will be available in print in the US in February. I listened to several interviews with Varoufakis and searched for literature on Neo-feudalism. It's certainly an idea I want to learn more about.
Back in the early oughts there was a book, Netocracy : the new power elite and life after capitalism by Alexander Bard & Jan Söderqvist. For a little while the ideas were discussed quite a lot online. Remembering those conversations I did not anticipate how incredibly concentrated the autocracy would become, i.e., how few feudal lords there would be. And I paid too little attention to Chinese technology. But Bard coined a term for a new underclass called the "consumtariat" which seems quite handy and has stuck with me over the years.
It's going to take me a long while to wrap my head around neo-feudalism. But I suspect it will be time well spent.
Wendy Grossman at net.wars has a recent post, The end of ownership. The provocation for the post is a garage door opener which among other evils forces an ad on you before you can open the garage door. Grossman points to Cory Doctorow, The enshittification of garage-door openers reveals a vast and deadly rot. I'd laugh, but it telling how fast technology and the tech-lords are enclosing us.
Who can sing songs and whose songs can we sing are urgent questions.
A long association with Holocaust deniers is even uglier than their Third Reich connections
This is a valuable and interesting article, but there’s an offhand remark that really jumps out at me as incorrect:
“…dictatorship doesn’t really square with limited government.”
That’s not remotely the case, as practiced by today’s libertarians & conservatives. Limited government is simply their framing for limiting democracy, and placing control in the hands of an oligarchy.
You can call it neo-feudalism instead, if you like, but its point and purpose is to undermine the power of regular people in favor of an elite. Ultimately that goal is better served by fascism and even dictatorship, as long as that elite can remain in control, and it’s why we’re seeing a worldwide authoritarian movement funded by the Kochs and others just like them.
Nevertheless, none of this will force the climate activists to reconsider how the current strategies against global warming could break the backs of the already beleaguered working and middle class. (For British readers, I use the phrase ‘middle class’ here in the American – less bourgeois – sense.) The climate chorus of celebrities, oligarchs and royals may feel virtuous, but for most people the future could prove to be propertyless proletarianisation. Many of those in Glasgow at the moment pray at the altar of ‘de-growth’. They want to limit the consumption of the working and middle classes, undermine their jobs, raise their energy bills, and inhibit their ability to buy property or travel.
These policies are fine with ‘woke’ corporatists like BlackRock, who see enormous profits in the regulated shift in energy, even as they seek to expand their business with the world’s dominant polluter, China. What’s missing is any focus on how to cut emissions without causing high inflation, raising energy prices and destroying the middle class. So far, more palatable options, like increasing remote work, geothermal energy, natural gas, nuclear power and varied new technologies, have not managed to get on to the agenda.
With climate, as with many other issues, the upper classes are inflicting their own preferences on working- and middle-class people. As nonprofits, oligarchs and bureaucrats plot out the future, small business owners and the middle class, as one entrepreneur put it, are ‘not at the table – or even in the room’. This is the very class – what I refer to as the yeomanry – that has driven much of the West’s economic progress and nurtured self-government.
Joel Kotkin, “Serfing The Planet” (November 1st 2021).
“Who defines “Freedom”? Is it the People, the Patricians, or the Capitalists?” (Pt. 2)
(Pt. 1)
2. Primitive Freedoms brought by Tribes
The second is special attribute of Western “Freedom” was brought by tribes.
The era of Christianity has this paradox: the formation of Christian countries was achieved during the process of invasion of Germanic and other tribes. On one hand, Christianity had an all-encompassing command over society, and on the other, Germanic tribes came in from the great forests and they brought with them these natural, primitive traditions of Freedoms.
This is why I’ve said this in many places: the Western tradition of Freedom is, in many ways, derived from the Primitive Freedoms of such tribes. For example, the “Common Law System” that Liberals glorify, a lot of it comes from the traditions of illiterate tribes.
Before the 9th century, many Europeans spoke and read Latin. At that time, when judges are deliberating a case they may refer to the “Compilation of Roman Laws”. But after the 9th century, when Europe entered the era of Tribal Feudalism, especially in places like Germany and France, from kings and aristocrats down to farmers and slaves, everyone was illiterate. You could even say Legislation was non-existent.
For example, the last French Legislation was passed in 884 AD, and Germany in 880 AD, after the death of Louis I the Pious and the empire broke into pieces, never had another law after that. Hence, aside from places like Italy where the Old Roman traditions were deeply embedded, all over Europe the “Common Law” became the only functioning source of legislation.
So when civilians and aristocrats want to sue, they had to verbally inquire with the legal authorities, and since the legal authorities and aristocrats were all illiterate, they can’t refer to the “Compilation of Laws”, so therefore they had to come up with all sorts of strange customs, superstitions, and religious doctrine so they could then construct the final verdict based on the above.
There was even a very long time in Europe where they used “Trial by Ordeal”, something similar to summoning the “Voice of God” during judicial proceedings.
Because everyone was illiterate, it caused a lot of other interesting things to happen, like during the signing of treaties. When signing a treaty, you normally write it down using words. Because if you don’t, how will people remember the content of the treaty? And so the Europeans invented all sorts of strange rituals, or hand gestures, to emphasize the legitimacy of this contract signing, or to strengthen people’s memory of this contract signing.
Famous French historian Marc Bloch recorded such interesting customs in his books Feudal Society.
For example, you are about to sign a treaty. You want to sell this plot of land to John Johnson III. What do you do to make this contract more memorable, so people don’t forget about it twenty years later? You have to bring your child with you to the signing. This way after you die, your child can verify the existence of this contract.
However, the child might not pay attention to the legal proceedings. How do you make them remember it well? You slap them in the face during the signing if the treaty! Or force them to bathe. Because Europeans did not bathe in those days. They only bathed once during baptism, and then again after death. So forcing your child to bathe will make them remember this for the rest of their life.
In a society so colored by tribal culture and law, we can see that many primitive traditions of the Tribes were preserved. This is, in fact, one very important origin of modern day “Western Liberalism”.
3. Freedoms of the Aristocracy in the Middle Ages
The Feudal System in the Middle Ages likewise created a kind of Freedom that is exclusive to the Aristocracy.
The main characteristic of Medieval Feudalism is hierarchy of power, that is, from the king, to the aristocracy, each hierarchy has its own separate power. The power of the king cannot infringe upon the power of the aristocracy. So for these aristocrats, they have Absolute Freedom on the swathes of land that they own.
This so-called “Freedom” is actually what we consider “Privilege”. For example, “Local Autonomy”, “Local Jurisdiction”, “Indentured Servitude”, and the right of the aristocracy to collect miscellaneous taxes from the people. Actually, some aristocrats even have this “droit du seigneur”. In places like Germany and France, low-ranking aristocrats can coordinate with high-ranking aristocrats to legally counter the king.
The Liberal intellectuals of today always introduce Western Enlightenment from the point of view of the aristocrat. This causes a lot of people to be tricked into thinking, “what a wonderfully free and ideal era that was.”
For example, we always hear, “The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the crown. It may be frail - its roof may shake - the wind may blow through it - the storm may enter - the rain may enter - but the King of England cannot enter.” But in reality, it is not the house of a peasant that the king and his men cannot enter — it is the house of the aristocrat.
Also, take for example, the Magna Carta, “restricting public authority” and so on. When we read about such things we must learn to ask, from whose point of view are such realities taken? If we switch to the point of view of farmers and slaves, or even low-ranking aristocrats, then the effect of “Freedoms of the Aristocracy” is not, in fact, Freedom, but instead, Calamity.
“Local Autonomy” is always plagued with corruption, so much so that at times, it is the faraway king who actually stands for Justice. For example, in Medieval England the king had a Circuit Court, and in the 16th century there was the Star Chamber. Liberal intellectuals today always criticize kings for amassing power, or forming the king’s legal court. They feel like such actions are infringing upon their rights and privileges.
But when we read historical records of that time, aristocrats are like mafia bosses abusing their extended privileges to oppress peasant farmers and slaves, roaming farmers, and even low-ranking knights. When these aristocrats hear that the king’s Circuit Court is coming their way, they will run immediately to block the road, and whine loudly about how they are being “treated unfairly”.
Of course the power of the kings of Medieval Europe was very different from the power of Chinese emperors, because they are but a larger Feudal Society. At times, a European king is not even the “master” of the dukes, but rather, just the “leading duke” among a group of dukes.
So this is quite different from China’s common concept of (being the ruler of) “everything under the Heavens”, and even the Chinese people’s collective understanding of the Chinese Emperor’s powers. We cannot talk about these two things in the same context, and we cannot overestimate.
Many of the laws regarding “Freedoms”, that were created during feudal times, actually had much to do with the “Freedoms of the Aristocracy”. For example, the “Representative System” is a classic Freedom of the Aristocracy. There are a few possible origins for the “Representative System”: one is that the king needs the assistance of the aristocrats to govern certain areas.
The second is that the king is going war and needs the permission of the aristocrats to collect taxes. Because it is the aristocrats who collect taxes from the people, so the king needs their permission. The third possibility is that after the 12th or 13th century, European states and governments became more and more the embodiment of Private Property.
The king certainly has no power over the lands and property rights of the aristocrats. Furthermore, as representatives of their own property rights, aristocrats have the right to participate in legislation and judicial proceedings. So you need aristocrats to attend, for example, the king’s council, or ectats générax and other such institutions.
Basically, the “Representative System” is a system where the different holders of private property share executive power according to the size and proportion of their property.
Today, many people believe that the Parliamentary System is the representation of a Democratic System, when in fact it is the exact opposite.
Historically, the “Representative System” is not at all related with Democracy. The “Representative System” represents the property rights of the Aristocracy, as well as the Newly-arising Bourgeoisie.
So Zhang Taiyan (Late-Qing Dynasty theorist, Pro-Democracy Revolutionary) pointed out this fact very early on. He said, “The Representative System is only covert Feudalism” and pointed out the equivalence between the Representative System and the Feudal System, how closely they resemble each other.
Of course today, it’s the same, there are people who criticize the United States for using the so-called “Representative System”, which is actually the A-Dollar-A-Vote System. Furthermore, the “Electoral System”, “Fixed-term Appointment System”, “Appointment by Rotation”, and other such modern governance systems, to some degree, are all evolved from the Feudal System.
Because the West is in the position of directing today’s International System, it follows that the Western historical experience is the one that is most represented in today’s International System.
It is not, of course, that traditional capitalist sectors have disappeared. In the early nineteenth century, many feudal relations remained intact, but capitalist relations had begun to dominate. Today, capitalist relations remain intact, but techno-feudalist relations have begun to overtake them.
Yanis Varoufakis in DiEM25. Techno-Feudalism is taking over
“King coal is dead!” we heard from the summit.
Really? Coal is a foundational resource in Asia, and demand for coal grows as the populations and economies of Asia expand.
Coal accounts for 60-65% of the electricity generation in China and 68-73% in India, two nations that represent more than a third of the world’s population. Nations such as Australia depend upon the sale and shipment of coal as essential components of their exports. Consider Scotland itself. Should it move to secede from Britain, will it gladly forfeit the North Sea oil and gas deposits that have proven so beneficial to Britain?
As America transitions to clean energy and electric vehicles, our own reliance upon China will grow. For China is today the world’s principal supplier of solar panels and the rare earth minerals vital to the batteries of electric cars.
Before we begin today’s article, I just want to thank those of you who responded to last week’s request and contacted me with information on companies that provide print on demand services for CD.s. We are investigating your leads to determine which one is the best fit for our music albums.
Everyone is wondering why the technocrats are in such a big hurry to build Data Centers everywhere. For…
While cruising down route 66 in Arizona not long ago I was meditating on the Globalist plans to implement 15 minute cities, geofencing, digital currency and S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) devices of all sorts. It occurred to me that what they are trying to do is create a new type of Feudalism for the modern age. As many of you will recall, in Medieval Europe the…
