A question on feudalism, pre-feudalism, and debt

[Die Neue Zeit]

Anyhow, this finance student was browsing around the Internet to analyze further the sub-prime crap that's been going on for the past two weeks now. This leads me to my learning question: what is the structural difference between a feudal slave (or more accurately a pre-feudal slave during the era of the "slave mode of production") and someone who is choked in debt: mortgages, home equity loans, lines of credit, credit card debts, car debts, etc.? Are we seeing a new type of "synthesis" wherein the system of "decadent capitalism" / "capitalism in decline" includes piecemeal features of previous modes of production? :huh:

If my cursory evaluation is off base, please feel free to correct me (I'll need it, even as a "learned" finance student). After all, this is a Learning thread. ;)

[BreadBros]

The comparison seems to make obvious sense to me. If I were to offer my own analysis (keep in mind I'm far from being a finance student or anything like that): capitalism is already in decline. In order to keep up the same level of wealth that we've enjoyed the system has created these debt bubbles to generate wealth from nothing other than debt financing or paper/money shuffling. So I guess one difference is that the current system seems far more flimsy and not the "natural" state of the economy if that makes any sense.

[RGacky3]

The difference is a slave is held through direct threat of violence, and the slavery is justified through the idea that he is supposed to be a slave (Plato thought that some people were just born slaves).

A person held through debt is held through threat of taking away goods, and the ability to use goods, also the justification is that the person in debt put himself there by borrowing money and is now obliged to pay the money back.

Obviously the problem is the way the system is set up some people don't have a choice to not be in debt, so that person becomes a semi-slave by default.

Thats one problem with fighting Capitalism, if you look at it on the surface it can easily be justified, to find the oppression and exploitation you have to look deeper into the underlining structure, whereas slave societies were much more overt and clear.

[CornetJoyce]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18, 2007 09:27 pm
what is the structural difference between a feudal slave (or more accurately a pre-feudal slave during the era of the "slave mode of production") and someone who is choked in debt: mortgages, home equity loans, lines of credit, credit card debts, car debts, etc.?


Aristotle explained that chattel slavery originated in debt. It was, of course, greatly expanded by conquest, which also turned subject populations into helots, "bound to the land" much as villeins were in the Christian ages.