by Charles Hugh Smith
Of Two Minds
That’s how Neofeudal systems collapse: the tax donkeys and debt-serfs finally rebel and start demanding the $50 trillion river of capital take a new course.
The Great American Middle Class has stood meekly by while the New Nobility stripmined $50 trillion from the middle and working classes. As this RAND report documents, $50 trillion has been siphoned from labor and the lower 90% of the workforce to the New Nobility and their technocrat lackeys who own the vast majority of the capital: Trends in Income From 1975 to 2018.
Why has the Great American Middle Class meekly accepted their new role as debt-serfs and powerless peasants in a Neofeudal Economy ruled by the New Nobility of Big Tech / monopolies / cartels / financiers? The basic answer is the New Nobility’s PR has been so persuasive and ubiquitious: soaring inequality and Neofeudalism has nothing to do with us, it’s just the natural result of technology and globalization–forces nobody can resist. Sorry about your debt-serfdom, but hey, your student loan payment is overdue, so it’s the rack for you.