What We Can Learn from ‘Feudalism’

By Antonius J. Patrick

A reoccurring theme among many conservative and libertarian financial analysts is to disparagingly equate contemporary power grabs by governments and/or collusion between states and Big Business, which augment the power of both at the expense of everyone else, with that of feudalism, serfdom, and the medieval era in general.

One recent example of this can be seen in Thomas Kolbe’s article on the financial Internet website “Zero Hedge” entitled, “The Rise of Neo-Feudalism: Germany’s Conservatives Bow to Socialist Wealth Taxes.” The author reports on a debate within German socialist parties about hiking inheritance taxes and the reintroduction of wealth taxes.

While Kolbe understands the stupidity of these plans and calls them “anti-civilizational” and “devastating to capital formation,” which will only further deepen the recession that Germany is in, he compares the proposed tax increases and wealth confiscation to a “neo-feudal apparatus.”

The author should know that inheritance taxes were not a feature of medieval life, but were a prominent plank in Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto written in the 19th century long after the demise of feudalism. Inheritance taxes have been adopted by nearly all Western nations since Marx’s time and have placed onerous burdens on family-owned businesses and farms causing many to close and liquidate assets to pay the levy.