The Billionaires Plan To Escape From Us

[WSHazel]

31. That is an inaccurate characterization of pre-17th century England and Europe as a whole

With a few exceptions, most Europeans lived in some form of feudal society from about the 6th century through the 15th or 16th century. Even then, most agricultural workers, which was most workers, lived as virtual serfs through the 17th and into the 18th century. The idea that there were widespread communal lands that people worked collectively in harmony is a fantasy. Life was brutal and short for the vast majority of Europeans into the 19th century. The development of cities in the late Middle Ages did lead to greater freedom and opportunity, which is why so many people migrated to the cities in the Renaissance and after. Places like Venice and Florence, Amsterdam, Hamburg and Antwerp provided a much better quality of life for their residents.

With the American and then French Revolution, followed by the transition to greater democracy in Great Britain, there was an explosion of innovation and improvements in quality of life and lifespan, starting around 1800. Most economic historians that have opined on this topic believe that somewhere between 90% and 95% of all major innovations in human history have occurred since 1800.

Most conflicts over that period involving the developed world have resulted from the traditional feudal culture struggling to adjust to a technological society where the most effective organizations are collaborative and dynamic instead of autocratic and static. The American Civil War, the Revolutions of 1848, the Meiji Restoration, China for most of the 20th century, the Russian Revolution, throwing off the colonial yokes in South America, Asia and Africa, and the Arab Spring, all have this dynamic to some extent.

The most dangerous societies are ones where a traditionalist ruling class gets control of a rapidly advancing economy. Examples of this are Germany and Russia prior to World War I, and Japan prior to World War II. The ruling classes in those countries were not responsible for those countries' rapid development, and those ruling classes misunderstood the source of their power and misused that power badly as a result.

I am of Western European descent, and I live with freedoms and a quality of life that my ancestors could not dream of 300 years ago. If Slavery is America's original sin, Feudalism is the West's original sin. It was a brutal social construct that resulted in centuries of 90% of all people living in misery and virtual slavery. The idea that there was some primitive, communal utopia under Feudalism is absurd.