Basically what rich people have figured out, near as I can tell, is that they don't really have to sell you anything or provide any necessary service if they can just rig the government to take money from you and give it to them in a variety of ways.

Now, the most obvious example of this is the bailouts, any idiot can understand how that works because it's literally "we're taking money from the public sector and just handing it to the private sector, which in theory, you the average person is going to pay for"

Now, in reality, you aren't going to pay for it directly, the govt is by creating money, but they're going to use that created money to deny you essential services and material aid at some point "OMFG LOOK AT THE DEFICIT" so for all intents and purposes, that's real.

(see: our previous discussions about reality being all made up because we agree to it - factually, your "tax dollars" aren't actually paying bailouts, it's keystroke $ - but because we all AGREE they're being paid that way, reality functions as if they are. See? Fucked up huh?)

But really, this goes a lot, lot deeper than just bailouts.

When the govt decides to block public healthcare, thus guaranteeing a market for private companies that have bought all the politicians that form the govt, that's a very good example of what I mean by "neo-feudalism"

In essence, the government is acting against the best interests of the majority of the labor class, in an insanely monstrous way, to create a fucking MARKET for pharmacorps, for products and services sthe customer will fucking DIE without...

that's not "free market" anything.

And this goes on and on. The credit card bill? Neofeudalism. Denying students the right to declare bankruptcy on loans that everyone else would have? Neofeudalism. Allowing predatory lenders to target marginalized communities, legally, often with the govt's help? Neofeudaliism

These aren't decisions our society is making for the well-being of the majority of people - these are things corporations (which are owned and controlled by? RICH PEOPLE) are BUYING politicians to enact into LAW without your choice - so, you are being forced to pay. Literally.

Now, if you were being forced to pay into something that was for the good of the vast majority of people, like public healthcare - that wouldn't be neofeudalism; but this money is being extracted from you, at every turn, legally, simply to enrich the absolute top cut of society.

You are no longer a consumer, operating in a "free market" and they are no longer an "enterprise" seeking to make profit by answering market demand.

There's a pantomime of that going on up front - but in the back end, it's all enforced purchases/payments

and that extraction is facilitated by a political, media and corporate class that has simply been bought off by the rich and is not even remotely concerned with the duties of public life or office or the welfare of the labor class, or the greater good.

You can't leave. You can't escape. You're not getting off the grid. You're not getting out the debt cycle and even if you did all that, we'll throw you ass in jail for not paying your taxes so they can be funneled, mostly to rich nazis.

The contract, which was always bullshit, is broken - and at that point, I think the term neo-feudalism is quite appropriate. Some disagree.

Even something like your internet, or your phone bill - look at our society; how the fuck are you navigating that without internet or a phone? Let's say you need help from the government - how are you doing that on pen and paper, today, with all the offices gone & e/t online?

You're fucking not.

So every month you're buying internet and a phone because otherwise you are fucking OUT of the economy buddy.

This is what I mean.

Neofeudalism.

Oh and I guess here's where I should point out what I mean by "you can't leave"

- the effective digital surveillance state (I know, alarm bell term, just bear with me) makes it largely impossible to escape debt and obligations - without the digital Panopticon, neofeudalism wouldn't work; you are, your debt and your debt is promised, against your will.

So, not only are there a whole bunch of purchases or fees you're forced to cough up (or you die/fall out of society) but also, you can't just go someplace and start over b/c there is no other place - it's everyplace and the digital record is more "real" than reality even.

This is a VERY real technological boon to the ruling classes - after all, it's hard to keeps serfs on the land if you don't even know how many serfs you have, or where to find them when they try to escape.

Part of what I sometimes sneeringly call neoliberals "the Technocracy"