Are we about to enter a Neo-Feudal Era?

In an era of wealth inequality and market monopolization, we are faced with a scary possibility.

Ross Bennett
15th February 2022
A bleak future ahead? Image Credits: Wikimedia Commons, Flickr
The richest 10% of the human population hoard 52% of the world’s wealth— that’s a staggering statistic to think about. In 2020, when we lowly peons were struggling to put food on the table and being forced to stock up on tinned food, banks generated a profit of $147.8 billion in the United States alone. So are we about to enter a Neo-Feudal Era? The Answer is we already have.

Feudalism refers to the old monarchic way of governing— imagine a pyramid: the largest area at the bottom was where the peasants resided and the smallest area at the top was where the ruler sat. In essence, the King or Queen possessed the most power and wealth, whilst the peasants and laborers possessed the least. This system of governing was long thought to be a product of a bygone era, that we lived in an enlightened age – power to the people, and all that. How mistaken we could be?

Now replace the ‘ruler’ with someone like Jeff Bezos and the peasants with those who work in Amazon’s warehouses (where the poor working conditions have already been highly publicised, with even an employee dying at one of their ‘fulfilment centre’s’ in Essex last November). However, I doubt Mr. Bezos feels any particular kind of heartache when he realises he boosted his wealth by $86 billion during the pandemic.

You want more examples of income inequality? Look at the Panama Papers, 11.5 million documents detailing how the rich fat cats of the world (like David Cameron or former Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson) scurried away their wealth in offshore tax havens. About Cameron specifically: record numbers of UK citizens had to resort to food banks during his tenure, and that number has only risen in the years since he flew the coop after Brexit. I’m sure he cries himself to sleep at night whilst he lies atop the mountain of money he avoided paying tax on.

In the UK, Google only pays £50 million in taxes, which sounds like a large sum until you put it against the £1.8 billion their British offices make in revenue. Amazon didn’t have to pay any taxes in Europe two years ago, getting a tax cut due to an apparent loss of €1.2 billion even though they’re income soared to record levels. Where did this start? Some say with the 2008 financial crash, going back even further you could say it began with the neoliberal policies of Reagan and Thatcher – bailing out big business with Tax Cuts. But it doesn’t matter where or when or even how it started, what matters is what next. Should we continue to endeavour our lives, the lives of our children, grandchildren and however many generations to come into servitude for big business and the Jeff Bezos’ of the world? And if not, how are we going to put a stop to a train that’s already running?

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