Feudalist counterrevolutions

[Comrade #138672]

When Socialism is overthrown by Capitalism, we call it a counterrevolution. What about the overthrow of Capitalism by Feudalism? Is this possible? Has it happened before?

Could Fascism be considered a Feudalist counterrevolution since Fascism is structurally similar to Feudalism in some ways?

[Manic Impressive]

No modes of production do not move backwards.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

During for example the French Revolution it was possible.
But nowadays the classes and their contradictions that led to the coming of feudalism don't exist anymore so I would say it is impossible.

[Psy]

The Feudal class could only react to capitalists taking power, for example the Boshin War (1868-1869) where the Japanese feudal class tried to maintain power yet resistance to the new Japanese bourgeoisie state was an exercise in futility and the fiefdoms were crushed by the new Japanese bourgeoisie army.

[TheOneWhoKnocks]

No modes of production do not move backwards.

Says who? Even if historical examples of such a change are wanting, there's no sort of ahistorical law that demands all societies progress linearly through discrete stages. I don't see any reason why the reemergence of feudal social relations couldn't occur in response to some significant historical crises.

[Psy]

Says who? Even if historical examples of such a change are wanting, there's no sort of ahistorical law that demands all societies progress linearly through discrete stages. I don't see any reason why the reemergence of feudal social relations couldn't occur in response to some significant historical crises.

The only way feudalism could return is we lose industrial production methods even then the class consciousness of the masses is way to high for a feudal system to pacify the masses. Even the most reactionary worker in the USA would become a rebel if they are expected to work for a landlord just for the right to be a substance farmer.

Feudalism collapsed because its exploitation of the working class is blatant, once peasants gained class consciousness they violently rebelled. Capitalism is a huge improvement for the ruling class as it masks exploitation behind abstractions.

[Manic Impressive]

Technological advances make revolutions possible and necasserry, so unless you're talking about the dismantling of all industry and world wide amnesia then no it can't go backwards.

[Astarte]

Fascism cannot be considered feudal restoration, nor is it similar structurally to feudalism in anyway, despite its romanticizing and usage of symbolism from past historical epochs.

Feudal counter-revolution, of the political variety; ie at the superstructure of society and not the economic base, has happened in the early days of the capitalist epoch. If you are interested, you could read about the "Bourbon restoration", or the English Civil War - when feudal "restorations" occurred they usually retained much of the bourgeois economic mode which displaced economic feudalism proper and relied on either systems of "enlightened despotism" or "constitutional monarchy".

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Given enough time and ecological devastation, we could very well see a return to pre-bourgeois modes of production, provided there hasn't been a global socialist revolution which has enacted immediate measures to slow, and eventually reverse, said ecological devastation.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

The idea that history is progressively linear is naive at best and dangerously misleading at worst.

There is no large or influential feudal class to lead a feudal "counter revolution", for feudalism to return somehow the mode of production would need to be seriously interrupted. Something like global warming or the kind of severe, anarchic civil war seen in places like Somalia and 90s Afghanistan perhaps could cause such a thing. However right now there is no reason empirically to think that any nation within the global capitalist order is liable to do this in the short term. To happen on anything more than the level of one state, the whole system of global trade would need to be interrupted, which seems unlikely too in the short term.

[TheOneWhoKnocks]

Feudalism collapsed because its exploitation of the working class is blatant, once peasants gained class consciousness they violently rebelled. Capitalism is a huge improvement for the ruling class as it masks exploitation behind abstractions.
The peasants were an important element of the rebellion against feudalism, but ultimately the creation of the working class through primitive accumulation was a very violent and disruptive process for those people..so i am not sure that the fundamental reason for the collapse of feudalism had much to do with class consciousness on the part of the peasantry..



Technological advances make revolutions possible and necasserry, so unless you're talking about the dismantling of all industry and world wide amnesia then no it can't go backwards.

I think you are mistaking technological forms for social relations. If neofeudal social relations emerged, they would be in an entirely different technological context. There's no reason why it would have to revert to the technology of medieval Europe.

[Die Neue Zeit]

When Socialism is overthrown by Capitalism, we call it a counterrevolution. What about the overthrow of Capitalism by Feudalism? Is this possible? Has it happened before?

Could Fascism be considered a Feudalist counterrevolution since Fascism is structurally similar to Feudalism in some ways?

It's happening right now without fascism. Look up "rentier society," debt peonage, and Michael Hudson's work, including The New Road To Serfdom.

Really, it fits right in with Marx's critique of Proudhon, where he mentioned capitalist monopoly as the "synthesis" of feudal monopoly and capitalist competition.

[Psy]

The peasants were an important element of the rebellion against feudalism, but ultimately the creation of the working class through primitive accumulation was a very violent and disruptive process for those people..so i am not sure that the fundamental reason for the collapse of feudalism had much to do with class consciousness on the part of the peasantry..

Actually peasants were key as their growing class consciousness increased their reaction to their exploitation.

[RedMaterialist]

Marx actually discussed the counter-revolution of the aristocracy against the bourgeoisie after the French Revolution, in the Manifesto, specifically, in "Reactionary Socialism," and "German Socialism." I think the discussion in "German Socialism" is an eerie forecast of Nazi Germany and Hitler.

[Ismail]

Feudal counterrevolutions are hard to envision since the mass of the people in many bourgeois revolutions (i.e. the nascent proletariat, artisans, certain strata of the peasantry, etc.) sided with the bourgeoisie and its calls for democratic freedoms.

[Grenzer]

Don't you know? Without the mass party utopia of Karl Kautsky, Pieter Troelstra, Paul Brousse, Lenin*, and Filippo Turati, we will return to feudalism once again!

*Mileage may vary.

[Lord Daedra]

Maybe a peak oil crisis/asteroid impact/rise of the coporation cliche dystopia would equal a raturn to feudalism

[Catma]

The institutions of ideological maintenance would have to be destroyed. The church was undermined by enlightenment philosophy which went hand in glove with the bourgeois revolutions. You'd have to remove the idea of the rights of man from the general consciousness and reinstate the divine right of kings, or something like that. I don't see how that could happen.

[Lord Daedra]

The institutions of ideological maintenance would have to be destroyed. The church was undermined by enlightenment philosophy which went hand in glove with the bourgeois revolutions. You'd have to remove the idea of the rights of man from the general consciousness and reinstate the divine right of kings, or something like that. I don't see how that could happen.

I'd think a corporatist society that owes nominal allegiance to a vastly weakened "state" could be considered neo feudal

[l'Enfermé]

During the (Bourbon) Restauration, not only was capitalist transformation that France has so far experienced not rolled back, but it continued to a great extent. Really, if it didn't, there would not have been a material basis for the dictatorship of the big bourgeoisie(and the economic "boom") between 1830-1848 under Louis-Phillippe(Roi des Français? Pffttt, too bad they didn't guillotine that bastard like his daddy). I don't think you can even call the Restauration a "feudalist" counter-revolution.


Don't you know? Without the mass party utopia of Karl Kautsky, Pieter Troelstra, Paul Brousse, Lenin*, and Filippo Turati, we will return to feudalism once again!

*Mileage may vary.
lol

Are you still doing this thing?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

It's impossible to comprehend, since the decline of Feudalism/rise of Capitalism was, initially, borne out of a split in the peasant movement; from a peasant movement of free and unfree landholders (but not landowners) to a division between wealthy landholding peasants producing above subsistence (i.e. a primitive accumulation of surplus) and landless labourers, with the former employing the latter.

Whilst it's not a practical impossibility for feudal relations to be realised in the future, it's logically difficult to see any situation in which this would occur. I really can't think why anybody would want this system: it was a system which greatly multiplied the exploitation of much of the poor classes, and which in the end became hap-hazard and inefficient for the ruling class.

[TheOneWhoKnocks]

This might just be semantics, but any creation of neo-feudal social relations wouldn't be as much a counterrevolution as it would be a new revolution altogether, as there is no longer any sort of feudal classes in most of the world that could effect such a change. Rather, it would involve the creation of new class relations altogether.

Perhaps the coming "bifurcation" of capitalism that Wallerstein predicts could lead to such a change?

[Rafiq]

There are no existent classes (or class interests) capable of re introducing the feudal mode of production. It's that simple.

[Rafiq]

Don't you know? Without the mass party utopia of Karl Kautsky, Pieter Troelstra, Paul Brousse, Lenin*, and Filippo Turati, we will return to feudalism once again!

*Mileage may vary.

Have you anything to offer besides your insecure shit slings against dnz?

[Rafiq]

The embryo of feudalism does not exist in capitalism. In this sense it is impossible. But if there was, for example a nuclear disastor or something, and all of civilization destroyed, it is possible.

[Lord Daedra]

The embryo of feudalism does not exist in capitalism. In this sense it is impossible. But if there was, for example a nuclear disastor or something, and all of civilization destroyed, it is possible.

9:27- Read a post from a man who deals in absolutes yet sounds logical.
9:28- Realized he doesn't know how to spell disaster and quickly lose my reverence for him.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The embryo of feudalism does not exist in capitalism. In this sense it is impossible. But if there was, for example a nuclear disastor or something, and all of civilization destroyed, it is possible.

But what about the stuff I posted on economic rent and rentier societies?

[Rafiq]

9:27- Read a post from a man who deals in absolutes yet sounds logical.
9:28- Realized he doesn't know how to spell disaster and quickly lose my reverence for him.


And if the essence of a post for you amounts to it's grammerical structure, nothing you say is worth shit, anyway.

[Rafiq]

But what about the stuff I posted on economic rent and rentier societies?


It would be a mistake to call this Feudalism as the capitalist mode of production would survive. The bourgeois class cannot be destroyed by it's own state or what not.

[Luís Henrique]

Says who? Even if historical examples of such a change are wanting, there's no sort of ahistorical law that demands all societies progress linearly through discrete stages. I don't see any reason why the reemergence of feudal social relations couldn't occur in response to some significant historical crises.

What social forces within a capitalist society demand the restablishment of feudalism?

There is the reason you are trying to see.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Capitalism is a huge improvement for the ruling class as it masks exploitation behind abstractions.

That's absurd; the ruling class under capitalism is not the same as the ruling class under feudalism.

Luís Henrique

[Psy]

That's absurd; the ruling class under capitalism is not the same as the ruling class under feudalism.

Luís Henrique

Capitalists are a evolved form of the feudal lords, the smart feudal lords became capitalists the stupid ones lost their fortunes to capitalists (or their heads to peasants). The smart feudal lords understood capitalism gave them a far better justification for exploiting labor thus at this early point they no longer had to limit their exploitation of labor.

[soso17]

Hmm...so as long as capitalist relations are dominant globally, a feudal counterrevolution cannot take hold…
...and…
…as long as capitalist relations are dominant globally, a socialist revolution is doomed to eventual failure.

Fuck you, capitalism, you resilient SOB!!!

[Astarte]

It's happening right now without fascism. Look up "rentier society," debt peonage, and Michael Hudson's work, including The New Road To Serfdom.

Really, it fits right in with Marx's critique of Proudhon, where he mentioned capitalist monopoly as the "synthesis" of feudal monopoly and capitalist competition.

This is actually a great point and why some say that right wing "libertarianism" and "anarcho-capitalism" actually lead to neo-feudalism.

[Sea]

Have you anything to offer besides your insecure shit slings against dnz?When he said "mileage may vary" I rushed to put on my shutter shades and muttered "danke, Grenzer" with a sigh of relief.
That's absurd; the ruling class under capitalism is not the same as the ruling class under feudalism.

Luís HenriqueBut now the ruling class can hide behind the notion that value can come from exchange.

[Luís Henrique]

Capitalists are a evolved form of the feudal lords, the smart feudal lords became capitalists the stupid ones lost their fortunes to capitalists (or their heads to peasants). The smart feudal lords understood capitalism gave them a far better justification for exploiting labor thus at this early point they no longer had to limit their exploitation of labor.

No; that's an extremely simplist, and for the most part false, explanation. Capitalists are by no mean an evolved form of feudal lords; they are a completely different kind of bug. Their roots are rather on the feudal merchants, guildmasters, villains, and more generally in the feudal cities and communes.

True, some feudal lords have been able to turn into capitalists - generally of the rentist variety, and generally only much after a bourgeois revolution pressed them into either doing that or falling into the lower layers of society - but by absolutely no means the capitalist class "evolved" from the feudal nobility, much less by "realising" that capitalism would allow them to get richer.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Hmm...so as long as capitalist relations are dominant globally, a feudal counterrevolution cannot take hold…

Exactly - because there are not, within capitalism relations, any contradictions that can be solved by a feudal restoration.


as long as capitalist relations are dominant globally, a socialist revolution is doomed to eventual failure.

But this is completely false. As long as capitalist relations are dominant, they will continue to produce the conditions and the actors for their own destruction. Namely the fall in the profit rates, the rise in the composition of capital, and an organised working class.

Luís Henrique

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

No; that's an extremely simplist, and for the most part false, explanation. Capitalists are by no mean an evolved form of feudal lords; they are a completely different kind of bug. Their roots are rather on the feudal merchants, guildmasters, villains, and more generally in the feudal cities and communes.

True, some feudal lords have been able to turn into capitalists - generally of the rentist variety, and generally only much after a bourgeois revolution pressed them into either doing that or falling into the lower layers of society - but by absolutely no means the capitalist class "evolved" from the feudal nobility, much less by "realising" that capitalism would allow them to get richer.

Luís Henrique

I'm sorry, you're slightly wrong here. Firstly on a technical level, Villeins never became capitalists. Villeins, at best, because fairly successful guild-workers or labourers.

You're right that feudal merchants and those who engaged in wholesaling of artisans' (guild) produced goods were the obvious source of capital accumulation, but this is to miss the rich history of capital's early development outside of towns and cities, in the countryside. I'm researching this currently. The most primitive accumulation of surplus did occur in the account books of the wealthy peasants. This allowed them to move to the new towns and cities, but even before there was such concept as a city (for example, in 1381 the population of London was something like 23,000, smaller than Norfolk and many other large agricultural villages/towns) there was the existence of surplus accumulation, there was an increased prevalence of money rent over other 'feudal rents' such as labour rent, rent-in-kind etc., and there was the separation of the landless labourers and the wealthy landholders within the previous class-of-itself named, the peasantry.

[Psy]

No; that's an extremely simplist, and for the most part false, explanation. Capitalists are by no mean an evolved form of feudal lords; they are a completely different kind of bug. Their roots are rather on the feudal merchants, guildmasters, villains, and more generally in the feudal cities and communes.

True, some feudal lords have been able to turn into capitalists - generally of the rentist variety, and generally only much after a bourgeois revolution pressed them into either doing that or falling into the lower layers of society - but by absolutely no means the capitalist class "evolved" from the feudal nobility, much less by "realising" that capitalism would allow them to get richer.

Luís Henrique
The feudal lord are where property rights find their roots, previously only the crown had property rights yet with the decentralization caused by monolithic slave society collapsing under class friction we found the feudal lord that claimed property rights over their fiefdom, before the feudal lord there was no banker or merchant as a class. For example the Pharaohs of Egypt had no use for bankers because they simply ordered the armies of slaves to produce more wealth.

Feudal lords had less direct power over their subjects since peasants could migrate to other fiefdoms and the lords only claim to their labor was demanding rent for living on their land. The smart feudal lords realized that the new proletariat class was coming from peasants and without peasants they had no means of generating capital and they had to quickly get invest their capital just to sustain the life style, thus they invested into capitalist industry themselves becoming capitalists as they demanded interest on the money they lent to industrial capitalists.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Feudal lords had less direct power over their subjects since peasants could migrate to other fiefdoms

This was only the case from the late 14th century onwards, though. Before the advent of towns and the decimation of population caused by the Black Death, peasants didn't tend to have the ability to leave the village, either because they were unfree, or even in the case where they were free, simply because towns and cities didn't present satisfactory migratory opportunities.


and the lords only claim to their labor was demanding rent for living on their land.

Actually, the relationship was a lot more exploitative than this. Lords frequently claimed rent for not only land but labour services and pretty much anything. They could also control who their serfs married and were very subjective when it came to rights to inheritance and other financial matters. To say that they only had claim to the labour of their peasants is to simplify the exploitative lord-peasant relationship and overlook the all-reaching power that Lords often had over the lives of peasants, particularly serfs.


The smart feudal lords realized that the new proletariat class was coming from peasants and without peasants they had no means of generating capital and they had to quickly get invest their capital just to sustain the life style, thus they invested into capitalist industry themselves becoming capitalists as they demanded interest on the money they lent to industrial capitalists.

I'm not sure this narrative is actually true. My research, and the literature that i've surveyed, indicates that many Lords lost out and yes, some were smart and retained their privilege but often through aristocratic means - becoming members of the House of Lords or manipulating trade - rather than through any primitive accumulation of merchant capital themselves, though this isn't my prime area of research.

[Psy]

This was only the case from the late 14th century onwards, though. Before the advent of towns and the decimation of population caused by the Black Death, peasants didn't tend to have the ability to leave the village, either because they were unfree, or even in the case where they were free, simply because towns and cities didn't present satisfactory migratory opportunities.

Lords didn't really have the means to stop migration, having regular patrols along roads was very costly and feudal lords cut back on their armies to embezzle funds from the crown going to maintain their army. This why as trade increased along roads there was the growth of banditry in both Europe and Asia ambushing convoys along roads because the money going to grow armies was being pocked by feudal lords.



Actually, the relationship was a lot more exploitative than this. Lords frequently claimed rent for not only land but labour services and pretty much anything. They could also control who their serfs married and were very subjective when it came to rights to inheritance and other financial matters. To say that they only had claim to the labour of their peasants is to simplify the exploitative lord-peasant relationship and overlook the all-reaching power that Lords often had over the lives of peasants, particularly serfs.

By the time capitalism was encroaching on feudalism most feudal lords lost these rights due to reforms imposed by the crown to try and maintain some kind of status quo.




I'm not sure this narrative is actually true. My research, and the literature that i've surveyed, indicates that many Lords lost out and yes, some were smart and retained their privilege but often through aristocratic means - becoming members of the House of Lords or manipulating trade - rather than through any primitive accumulation of merchant capital themselves, though this isn't my prime area of research.
In Japan most of the aristocracy that wasn't slaughtered by the Boshin War became capital investors lending their capital to the Japanese bourgeoisie state that loaned it out to capitalists resulting in the remains of the Japanese feudal class being transformed into financial capitalists.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

[QUOTE=Psy;2555006]Lords didn't really have the means to stop migration, having regular patrols along roads was very costly and feudal lords cut back on their armies to embezzle funds from the crown going to maintain their army. This why as trade increased along roads there was the growth of banditry in both Europe and Asia ambushing convoys along roads because the money going to grow armies was being pocked by feudal lords.

You're right, going into the middle of the 15th century. But earlier on, and particular in the repression post-1381 revolt, there was a lot of help from the King's Court for Lords to find and fine their peasants who had deserted the land. Indeed, records show that it was only into the 15th century that bondsmen and other unfree peasants were granted manumissions.



By the time capitalism was encroaching on feudalism most feudal lords lost these rights due to reforms imposed by the crown to try and maintain some kind of status quo.

Again, this is slightly simplified since the decline of feudalism and rise of capitalism weren't mutually exclusive. There were elements of potential capitalist development, I believe, as early as the mid 14th Century. Indeed I believe some cite it even a century or two earlier.

[Psy]

[QUOTE]

You're right, going into the middle of the 15th century. But earlier on, and particular in the repression post-1381 revolt, there was a lot of help from the King's Court for Lords to find and fine their peasants who had deserted the land. Indeed, records show that it was only into the 15th century that bondsmen and other unfree peasants were granted manumissions.




Again, this is slightly simplified since the decline of feudalism and rise of capitalism weren't mutually exclusive. There were elements of potential capitalist development, I believe, as early as the mid 14th Century. Indeed I believe some cite it even a century or two earlier.

As capitalism mechanized it became mutually exclusive, for example the feudal lords of Britain was against the building of railways as they when through their lands and required an army of labor just to build and maintain the railways (meaning prioritization of the peasantry).

Yet once the decline of feudalism become obvious, lords started to invest their surplus capital in the market through the new bourgeoisie states. For example Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin found significant investment from the former German aristocracy.

[Luís Henrique]

Yet once the decline of feudalism become obvious, lords started to invest their surplus capital in the market through the new bourgeoisie states.

Here you get the chronology correctly: after - and only after - the decline of feudalism became obvious - obvious enough to become obvious even to their feudal minds - lords, or some of them, started to transform their funds (which were originally not capital) into capital. And of course, the decline of feudalism only became obvious because another, very different, class - the bourgeoisie - had been asserting itself against feudal rule for centuries.

The feudal lords resisted the process as much as they could.

Luís Henrique

[Psy]

Here you get the chronology correctly: after - and only after - the decline of feudalism became obvious - obvious enough to become obvious even to their feudal minds - lords, or some of them, started to transform their funds (which were originally not capital) into capital. And of course, the decline of feudalism only became obvious because another, very different, class - the bourgeoisie - had been asserting itself against feudal rule for centuries.

The feudal lords resisted the process as much as they could.

Luís Henrique
Even before the capitalists took hold it was obvious that the feudal lords were an obstacle for having a strong imperialist state as the feudal lords was more interested in fighting other fiefdom within the empire then fighting enemies of the empire. Thus China and Japan became so fractured because in China and Japan the feudal lords had even more power then in Europe.

[Luís Henrique]

Even before the capitalists took hold it was obvious that the feudal lords were an obstacle for having a strong imperialist state as the feudal lords was more interested in fighting other fiefdom within the empire then fighting enemies of the empire.

What do you mean by "imperialist State"? Surely feudal States couldn't be "imperialist" in the Marxist sence of the word.


Thus China and Japan became so fractured because in China and Japan the feudal lords had even more power then in Europe.

Eh?

Japan was one feudal entity; Europe was scores of them. China on the other hand was never feudal.

Luís Henrique

[Psy]

What do you mean by "imperialist State"? Surely feudal States couldn't be "imperialist" in the Marxist sence of the word.

Basically a strong empire for the ruling class to exploit foreign lands. I.E the military expansion of the Roman Empire prior to collapse of the Roman Empire.



Japan was one feudal entity; Europe was scores of them. China on the other hand was never feudal.
Luís Henrique
No it wasn't one signal entity, Japan was warring fiefdoms with the emperor being a mere figure head, which was the whole point of the Boshin War where capitalists was empowering the emperor as they saw the road to building a strong Japanese bourgeoisie state through using the emperor as their puppet. The feudal lords took offensive to the re-centralization of power into the hands of the emperor and warring against the emperor that was acting in the interest of the capitalist class.

China did become feudal when its central bureaucracy collapsed into warring fiefdoms.

[Luís Henrique]

Basically a strong empire for the ruling class to exploit foreign lands. I.E the military expansion of the Roman Empire prior to collapse of the Roman Empire.

I see. We shouldn't call that "imperialism".


No it wasn't one signal entity, Japan was warring fiefdoms with the emperor being a mere figure head,

Which is basically what Europe was, except they had dozens of figure heads instead of one.


China did become feudal when its central bureaucracy collapsed into warring fiefdoms.

No, that is not what feudalism is.

Luís Henrique

[Psy]

I see. We shouldn't call that "imperialism".

Within the context of feudal society it was.




Which is basically what Europe was, except they had dozens of figure heads instead of one.

The difference is that Japan was not like Britain or France, the central governing body of Japan was totally impotent to the powers of the feudal clans.




No, that is not what feudalism is.

Luís Henrique
You had peasants in servitude to feudal lords that in turn swore allegiance to feudal clans that once westerns intervened succeeded from China.