Comment on Capitalism is all about using state power to protect capital by force
pachrist@lemmy.world 6 days agoYou can call that feudalism, among other things.
But that’s because it’s intentionally hard to tell if it’s feudalism in a capitalist hat or capitalism in a feudalism hat. That’s what oligarchy is.
Capitalism in itself is private enterprise, which is where capitalism defenders usually start trumpeting that capitalism isn’t actually evil. I think you can maybe make an argument that totally unregulated capitalism isn’t evil, because it’s basically anarchy. But the reality of human greed hits hard and always leads to self-regulation (collusion) and external regulation (coersion), which muddy the waters and lead to oligarchy and feudalism regardless as politicians and businessmen consolidate power.
Urist@lemmy.ml 6 days ago
No, (modern) oligarchy is a term we may use for the political structure that is supported by capitalism, which is the mode of production. In feudal society, oligarchs were nobles with landed power. In capitalist society, they are just a small subset of the capitalists.
It is not feudalism because the economic surplus is not extracted (primarily) through land ownership and dividends, but through the property relations of wage labour.
Yes, we can see neo-feudal structures within a late stage capitalist economy.
No, that does not preclude capitalism as the mode of production enabling those structures.