[continued from previous message]   
      
   For a good comparison, in 17th century England, historians estimate that   
   beer and ale could account for as much as 10-25% of a laborer’s cash   
   outlays. This wasn’t because England was populated by inveterate drunks   
   or fantastically irresponsible people, but because there was no point in   
   saving the marginal unit of money in a rigid, hierarchical system in   
   which the barriers to true social advancement were too high. DoorDash   
   culture is the digital version of that.   
      
   If this sounds a bit like feudalism, it is because that is exactly what   
   it is. Or more precisely, it’s a hybrid of feudalism and the type of   
   pre-Weimar detachment that arises when wages don’t match prices, the   
   currency is being debauched, and the future is profoundly uncertain and   
   ominous.   
      
   To take the analysis a step further, think of the US economy as not just   
   a post-middle-class economy but a post-growth economy. Let’s run a   
   simple comparison of two different eras.   
      
   The 1960s were a time of growth driven by manufacturing, industrial   
   innovation, infrastructure, and rising productivity; GDP gains largely   
   reflected the expansion of real-world economic activity; markets   
   functioned without hand-holding by central banks; debt levels were   
   manageable; high interest rates rewarded saving. Housing was affordable   
   for working families.   
      
   The 2020s are a time of growth driven primarily by financial services,   
   asset inflation, and debt-fueled consumption, with government spending   
   and central bank liquidity the primary engines rather than real   
   productivity gains; central banks engage in all manner of gimmicks to   
   prop up a system that no longer self-corrects. Asset prices are   
   inflated; housing is unaffordable, while real wages are declining.   
      
   These days, there just isn’t much growth, and whatever there is has to   
   be squeezed with great exertion as if out of an empty toothpaste tube.   
   And it takes a whole lot of debt to even attempt the squeeze. The US   
   economy managed to expand at a clip of 2.4% in 2024 – hardly an   
   impressive figure – but it did so with deficit spending reaching a   
   staggering $1.8 trillion and by vastly understating systemic inflation.   
      
   It also bears keeping in mind that the 2.4% figure is already distorted   
   because GDP makes no distinction between organic growth and the growth   
   created by debt-fueled consumption.   
      
   This brings us back to the notion of feudalism. This is the type of   
   system that coalesces in one form or another when an economy exits a   
   growth phase and enters zero-sum mode. Periods of economic expansion are   
   dynamic and tend to reshuffle the cards. Avenues appear for upward   
   mobility, new elites are created, and savings can be deployed to   
   productive endeavors. In the post-growth world, by contrast, the main   
   mechanism defining economic relations becomes rent rather than production.   
      
   The period from about 950 to 1250 in Europe was very economically   
   dynamic. The heavy plow became widespread, which allowed northern   
   Europe’s heavy soils to be brought under cultivation. The three-field   
   system replaced the two-field system, which increased yields. The horse   
   collar, horseshoes, and windmills all appeared or spread widely during   
   this period. These were incremental but transformative innovations.   
   Deforestation and reclamation advanced. Lots of forest and swamp were   
   converted into farmland across France, Germany, England, and Poland.   
   Europe’s population roughly doubled between the years 1000 and 1300.   
      
   The great cathedral-building boom of the 12th and 13th centuries was a   
   direct expression of this surplus. The Reconquista in Spain, German   
   eastward expansion, and the Crusades all represented outlets for surplus   
   population and ambition.   
      
   By the late 13th century, however, the limits of this expansion were   
   being reached. Virtually all arable land had been brought under   
   cultivation. Marginal lands were being farmed, temporarily increasing   
   output but with falling yields. Population growth began to outstrip food   
   supply.   
      
   It was this world of economic stagnation after a long period of   
   expansion that produced the feudalism of the High Middle Ages.   
   Hierarchies hardened and social structures rigidified as mobility and   
   opportunity shrank.  The feudal pyramid “froze”: a static hierarchy of   
   rent-seeking landed elites presided over a peasantry with declining   
   freedom. Cities and noble courts were often fiscally overextended and   
   clung tenaciously to existing structures because change felt dangerous.   
      
   We are exactly at that point, except the feudalism of today isn’t   
   recognizable to us. But how different are things, really? In the   
   rearview mirror are the dynamic post-war decades. Now, meanwhile, we've   
   settled into a system where the elites own the scarce assets while   
   everyone else pays ever more in participation costs while securing less   
   ownership. Perpetually rising asset values are a perfect defense against   
   those rising participation costs – if, that is, you’re fortunate enough   
   to be part of the asset-owning class. What’s 8% inflation and 15% higher   
   childcare costs if your stock portfolio is up 25% and your home is now   
   worth nearly $2 million?   
      
   Asset prices are always rising because the system is designed to   
   prioritize preserving balance-sheet stability. Markets are always too   
   big to fail and a disorderly decline in asset prices is treated as a   
   systemic emergency requiring intervention. But this means that losses   
   are socialized on the downside whereas gains remain private. The result:   
   asset prices trend upward over time almost by definition.   
      
   Like everything else, protests in the US are a business   
   Read more Like everything else, protests in the US are a business   
   To put it bluntly, central banks and governments guarantee that asset   
   prices stay ahead of inflation – an updated form of the old noble   
   privileges dished out by medieval kings.   
      
   We can extend the analogy. Power is tied to control finite resources,   
   not so much land but financial claims and, maybe even more importantly,   
   access to credit. Whereas average people who need funding pay 25% on   
   credit card debt, too-big-to-fail banks get to post underwater bonds as   
   collateral at full face value – not to mention a full bailout if things   
   go awry. This becomes even more perverse when you realize that this   
   abundant and essentially free credit provided to certain institutions is   
   being used to bid up asset prices even more.   
      
   Elites, meanwhile, protect their assets via political capture, while the   
   rest of society pays rents rather than shares in growth. In medieval   
   feudalism, power was decentralized: nobles had their own justice   
   systems, militias, and taxes. Today, corporations and asset-holders   
   function like mini-sovereigns. Hedge funds and private equity control   
   housing and employment structures. The list goes on.   
      
   However, this is not the feudalism of the Arthurian legends that can   
   exist in a state of bucolic stasis for centuries. This version is   
   perched precariously on a highly financialized economy that itself is   
   kept afloat by unsustainable debt levels. It is a system that is both   
   highly unstable and quite rigid at the same time, however paradoxical   
   that sounds.  And Generation Z senses both sides of that equation. This   
   is where feudalism meets Weimar Germany.   
      
   The US is nowhere near hyperinflation. But DoorDash culture points to   
   the psychological pre-conditions of a world that can quickly turn very   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)