Neo-feudalism, or the modern feudal ideology, is growing influential and widespread worldwide. Today neo-feudalism represents the epitome of the contemporary resurgence of codes of state, economy, and public life. Neo-Feudalism is reminiscent of those present in various feudalistic institutions. It is the modern version demonstrating unequal privileges and legal protections for ordinary people as well as the elite.

In addition to those applicable to traditional feudalism, the concept of “neo-feudalism” also focuses on economics.

There are existing themes arguably referring to the notion of neofeudalism within modern society. The latter phenomena include; Class Stratification, Globalization, Neoconservative foreign policy, Mass immigration, Illegal immigration, Open borders policies, Transnational corporations, and Neo-corporatism.

Expectedly, the reincarnation of feudalism has not spared healthcare and medicine. The health maintenance organizations (HMO) allow non-physician entrepreneurs to develop business models for the healthcare initiative. They tend to charge given management fees in trade for their administration and marketing accomplishments.

Feudalism is more than obligations of the warrior nobility

There is no naturally ratified contemporary description of feudalism. Yet, in a conventional sense, François-Louis Ganshof, in 1944, described feudalism as a set of mutual legal and military commitments. His vision entails warrior aristocracy, which swirled around the three key concepts of lords, peasant, and surf.

In the medieval times of Europe Feudalism was recognized as a mixture of legal, economic, and military traditions that boomed between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly characterized, it was a way of structuring society around affairs arisen from land ownership in exchange for service or work. Although, based on it’s the Latin word “feodum” or “feudum,” the term feudalism and the system it interprets did not stand for as a political scheme by the people living in the Middle Ages.

Then; How did feudalism work?

Traditionally, medieval feudalism represented the government originator of the modern nation-state. But initially, The Feudal society existed as a military makeup in which a governor or lord offered mounted soldiers “fiefs” or beneficiaries, a unit of land to oversee- in trade for military employment.

Hence, the individual who accepted the land became a vassal. The man who granted the property became known as his liege or his lord. Within the process, Factors such as land quality, the fighter’s skill, local customs, and the fiscal status of the liege lord always played a part.

In the late medieval era, this military service desertion took place in the intention of monetary reimbursement, or agreement. It is supposed to provide a specified number of men-at-arms or mounted knights for the lord’s use.

Feudalism is de-central

Feudalism inhibits unified government. Sole Lordship would split up their turfs into smaller and smaller sections to give to inferior bosses and knights. The secondary noblemen, in turn, subdivide their territories into even smaller fiefs to provide to even less important nobles and knights.

The feudal government invariably served as a treaty between individuals and not between nation-states and civilizations. While individuals might have been loyal to the king or centralized noble family, nonetheless, typically, no dominant legal ritual existed to prevent them from declaring war on each other.

Feudalism is anti-growth

Feudalism discourages business and economic expansion. That is merely because the land peasant growers worked lands or by “serfs,” who were tied to individual blueprints of territory and forbidden to move or change careers without the authorization of their lord.

The feudal lord usually claimed one-third to one-half of their produce in taxes and tariffs. The serfs owed him an agreed number of days each year in which they would work the lord’s fields in trade for the right to work in their turfs.

The ancient character of the feudal world

Timeline of feudalism

The Middle Ages started with the Roman Empire’s fall in 476 and to have lasted about 1,000 years until about 1450, the end of the Middle Ages, and the antecedent of the Renaissance. The barbarians were widespread in most of the European nations of the Middle Ages. Magyars, Mongols, and Vikings penetrated or raided, but the barbarian incursions were the shift from the traditional to the feudal societies.

People under feudalism

Middle Age citizens lived under hardship, as many were illiterate, and thought that fate dictated their survival, thus had little hope for improving their status.

During the Roman Empire era, the soldiers of the monarch defended the impoverished selves. So, when the empire collapsed, no laws existed protecting them. And When it happened, they turned to the masters to keep the peace and to act on their interests. The eagerness to be ruled by the masters led to the uprising of feudalism. Some peasants were free, still most became serfs to the master too.

The government of the feudal state

In the old days Under the feudalism, everyone (except the master and a ruling lord above) to whom he owed loyalty and service to receive land and protection in return. For safety and defense, farmers in the Middle Ages developed small communities around a central lord; as a result, most people lived in isolated manors.

The nature of the feudal family

Family life feudalism was governed by the place once existed as a society. The nobles had the highest status, possessed the most wealth and land.

Education in the feudalist system

In the Old days, Monks taught boys from wealthy noble classes how to read and write in Latin. Some boys from wealthy families enjoyed private tutoring. Students of the medieval times began learning the seven liberal arts of Latin grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. Girls, on the other hand, were deprived of literacy. And- Children of the poor spent their time working in the fields and caring for the home.

Entertainment in feudal life

Music and art were prominent in the Middle Ages, mostly influenced by the church. People sang with or without instruments. Nobles typically played games such as chess, checkers, and dice. On the other hand, Peasants engaged in more outdoor sports such as hockey, stickball, and soccer. Towns or manors often had festivities that included jokers, who were like clowns in a carnival. Tournaments matched knights in jousts and fights. Sports with few rules also were played.

Feudalism as the prerequisite to Slavery

In the Middle Ages, lords governed the lives of some people. Serfs lived in societies that were ruled by the local nobles. They did not have permission to leave the manor or even espouse without the lord’s approval. Serfs did the work on the estate farm. They worked in the fields, cared for the animals, built and cared for the buildings, and made the clothing and everything else that necessitated manual labor.

Medicine and feudalism

During the dark ages, Medical knowledge was very restricted; therefore, parables, fables, and superstition dominated healthcare. People of the dark ages believed that bad odors caused disease and that some illnesses were the result of “sins of the soul.”

Practices such as the use of leeches for “blood-letting” was the prevalent practice of the time. Some even believed that the moon and stars, as well as their astrology sign, caused some diseases.

The return of feudalism

During the Medieval periods, a system of Nobility, Clerics, Peasants, and Builders was in harmonious existence. It was merely the system of the Lords” vs. “the Others, where the “Lords” comprised of clerics and the laymen’s such as kings, regents, knights who upheld the land inhabited by the peasants and its revenues while maintaining luxury living in fortresses, convents, and clusters. They ruled on a military-based structure where others would work, live, earned in food allotments. The servants had to go to war and had to die for the cause of their masters.

Similarly, the education was under the barter of the Lordship with the infamous notion of; You, the clerics shall keep the others dumb, while we the leaders, will save them impoverished.

Over time the feudal scheme was practiced beyond the European continent reaching out to China, the Indus Valley, and Africa.

Nowadays, after the civic upheavals in the form of seventy years of Communism and Socialism, contradictory consequences are declared openly. The coalition of Government, Supreme Court, and Magnates in every arena accomplish this in the form of new laws wherein appointed office clerkship to get incomes that exceed 40 to 50 times that of “the others” who do the same job. Not to mention the female workers who also earn less than their male counterparts.

Feudal Lordship and the new denomination

Today, a new faith of Lords was born right before our eyes without us noticing it. The new Class of Lordship’s see to it that the middle class slowly vanish to obtain the desired rift between the “Lords” and the “Others” as in ancient times of the feudalism period. Latter comprises every aspect of our lives that seems to have been overtaken by Neo-feudalism, which includes scientific research in every domain, including the care for our cultural heritage, medicine, technology.

Feudal lords of science and medicine

The current feudal structure of healthcare maintains itself by way of ditching the support for physicians and protection from the acts of the class system whose unethical behavior they condemn; the criteria used to appoint and maintain the hierarchy. The neo-feudalism associated with modern medical practice promotes the absence of the local committee’s independence. The latter entails ethics committees from their institutions. Within the system, patients’ have difficulties in obtaining their medical records.

Modern society has an inadequate conception of the feudal system’s threat of the physicians and patient’s free expression, hindering the advancement of science and medicine.

Beneath the rhetoric and fictitious mutual admiration, it is not a hidden fact that most hard work in medicine and science is the responsibility of the modern serfs of the scientific feudal who do the job but rarely receive the merit. Membership in reputable academies or institutions around the world often has little to do with real scientific or medical aptitude. Instead, it is earned in exchange for political favor or to pay off feudal dues.

Legitimate Scientific publication is knowledge independent

Obtaining an excellent scientific post is hardly dependent on providing quality care for patients, teaching, or research. Instead, if a person is politically correct and well connected, he or she will be the one securing the “The elite title.” Outstanding scientists are rarely good politicians; because of the way they think. Therefore, opportunists nurture to benefit from this trait and thrive at the expense of the dedicated physician and scientific surfs.

In reality, caring can often hinder legitimately knowledgeable physicians and scientists (in general) obtaining an elite position; deeply probing or criticizing the accepted authority or tenet may be subject to humiliation.

Scientists are the foundation of science, for it is their constructive criticism that leads to discoveries. Unfortunately, they are also a real danger to the status quo merely because they are bright and will soon realize that the bosses are obtaining an unreasonable share of the harvest.

The ordinance of healthcare feudalism

The masters of the feudal medicine will warn physicians and scientists in softly with humor that this is how things work in their department. The leader will instruct serfs that the head of the department has a moral obligation and must ensure that the medical and scientific yield is of a high standard, something vital to sustaining the excellent reputation of “the Institution.”

If the smart physicians and scientists typically take the hint and preoccupy themselves to the formal duty of furthering their chief’s and his or her outstanding reputation, all dealt leniently.

Retaining Scientific surfs

The neo-feudal institution usually supervises the newcomers for a while. Such a practice would help to make sure they understand how fortunate they are to be able to work in a prestigious institution.

Unfortunately, a scientific habit of thought facilitates further analysis, formulation of beliefs, and the pursuit of solutions. Therefore, the speculative operatives may continue to uphold on the subject. Physicians and scientists may even be so courageous as to compile evidence of why the system is not working well. They may also prove that as to why not mostly substantial science is generated in the department. In all virtue, they may even propose a solution; and become blacklisted.

The heretics may face an abrupt deprivation of study grant, removal of academic or ward appointments, or drying up of lecture invitations. The latter are a few of the forfeits used by the masters of the department to herd the unorthodox scientists back into line.

Repercussions against the unorthodox thinker

Typically, the consequences may or may not directly be attributable to the boss. He or she may even reflect profound concern about the circumstance, which lamentably is always just outside his or her realm of influence.

If physicians and scientists fail to correct themselves in line with their master’s wishes, they will eventually face the consequences. Hence, they will continue to be set off until they improve their behavior and give the boss recognition for any work; they are still able to produce under those conditions.

When an extraordinarily independent psyche still resists feudalistic remedy; then, best physicians or scientists often become subject of overwhelming administrative harassment.

The steps of Obstaclization

In short, to “harness” a dependent physician or any scientist by the neo-feudalists follows the five-step process of “obstaclization”:

The latest start Subtly and then becomes blatant, presenting obstacles. The funds dry up, the bureaucratic protocols tighten and become more rigorous, decisions are reversed without cause or justification. Then, Every ambition becomes an undertaking. After that, Unjustified Impulsive indictments are likely, such as lack of promptness and poor job achievement. The accusation will potentially accompany the latter, the theft of irrelevant material, complicate matters, and inevitably induce a certain paranoia.

Sooner or later, the crushed reacts, powerlessly to resist the steady tension and unjustified accusations, leading to the escalation to explosion or defamation.

If impossible to expel, the dissident’s response will rationalize marginalization by legislative. It means that the lack of honor for superiors, lack of punctuality, or any other internal regulatory or formal pretext may be clasped if needed.

In the event of extreme gesture masters of scientific and professional feudalism, use defamation in the broadest possible sphere. They will hence indiscriminately use the Labels such as “conflictive,” “incompetent,” and “unreliable” while cloud prior accomplishments ensuring that applications for future jobs will not be victorious.

The ultimate consequence of insubordinate scientist

It is the feudal lord’s interest that his or her authority can only be re-established by the destruction of the unorthodox scientist. For that reason, Once the process against the serf is activated, it is hard to curtail the cycle.

The scientific authority carries little control in the eternity of this procedure, as often despised out of their hand. The only options vacated for the heretic are to relinquish their position. Hence, it will force them to try to shift to another institution, hospital, or country or to pursue another area of interest. By this time, the most imaginative years may be over, largely wasted in battling the established mediocracy.

The non-scientific-feudal fortifies the opportunity for genuine scientific discovery; Because all that remains in feudal offices is a paraphrase of old or imitated substance. Neo-Feudals weed out promising physicians and scientific minds because they are presumably a risk to the hierarchy and bureaucracy.

How feudal technology masters curb their serfs

Today is the time to think about the feudal Hi-tech industry and the digital world. Computers and the Internet are turning everyone into serfs. People are becoming conditional on the protection of feudal lords by the names of Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook.

According to Internet security expert and author Bruce Schneier -” we pledge allegiance to these feudal lords by handing over our data.”

We hope, lords of the information industry safeguard our credit card numbers and our privacy. So, in the land of Apple or the land of Google, the corporations expectedly retain some injunction. Virus-infected software isn’t allowed in the Apple or Android apps store. But we as serfs, still don’t have much in the way of having control over our private information, nonetheless liberty.

Historically in the domain of feudalism under their mutual agreement, lords had the capacity over others. Yet, one of the difficulties with the feudal system has always been about lordships intentionally ignoring their part of the deal.

We are Heading for Data-Feudalism

We have already entered a new era of human development. Within the realm of the scientific revolution, we are facing a risky pinnacle to all the achievements we have made for over a century.

Instead of serving as an equalizer or scientific progress continues to widen the gap between the digital haves and have-nots.

Related Article: Healthcare needs Physician Independence

Today, the Internet of things (IoT) is less about comfort than it is about business. Not only do companies sell us the gadget, but we, the consumers, continue to pay rent to the corporation by giving them our valuable data. Corporations can mine, a process to sell us more things, or sell the data itself to another company that wishes to sell us more gizmos.

Today a smart TV or child’s toy can record and transmit private conversations to a third party. The irony of the fact is that we’ve all have given free consent for the tech industry to take private information. Unwillingly, We perpetually agree to their terms and agreements and policies that would take hours to read and even longer understand.

More alarming is not that the collected information will enhance selling us goods or services, but that it could be used against us.

The automation of our lives will render it easier for those who wish to harm us to interfere with our lives. For example, Hackers have demonstrated that they can access everything from a self-driving car in the US to a smart toilet in Japan.

The feudal system of the medical profession

Every industry, yet medical practice, in particular, has traversed through the chronological era of sociopolitical systems. Medieval medicine in Western Europe comprised of a fusion of prevailing ideologies from oldness. Following the collapse of the Roman Empire in the middle ages, standard medical knowledge was primarily based on traditional Greek and Roman writings, preserved in monasteries. At the time, most people typically placed their faith in the church and God to heal all their diseases.

Only a few of the medieval medical disciplines followed Hippocratic medicine. Rest consists of a mixture of Temple healing, Pagan and folk medicine, Monasteries, Christian charity, Medicine, Classical medicine, Medieval surgery, Advances, Humor, Herbalism and botany, Mental disorders, etc.

The efficacy of healing during the dark ages was bound in the beliefs of patient and doctor rather than evidence, so that physical remedies were often subordinate to metaphysical intervention.

Modern medicine as a feudal system

The Medical profession of the 21st-century is well within the definition lines of feudalism.

The feudal lords-serfs problem in medicine is reality. The corporate takeover of the medical métier and physician attitude is imminent. It is a clear illustration of how healthcare has turned into a “feudal” organization.

For instance, most medical professionals are utterly reluctant to having

their basic medical knowledge checked at regular intervals or committed to the medical practice recertification exam. The latter mimics the old aristocracy mentality. The aristocrats found it quite natural to have their inborn privileges maintained for their entire lives without any possibility of questioning them.

Separation of scientific institution and patient care

In most modern medical or scientific institutes, many medical professionals take clinical practice, alongside teaching and research. Because they feel that the latter are not necessary for obtaining a “good reputation” unless one is politically correct and well connected. They can be a substantial hindrance to achieving such a position. In support, it often involved questioning, disagreeing with accepted authority or dogma. Even putting patients first is the cause for significant embarrassment for the politically ambitious and better put aside, whenever possible. Nor do these people need to bother to do much research, for politics is a time-consuming business. The scheme does not encourage its participants either to think much or to question anything.

Medicine as a political endeavor

In most institutes, where several candidates compete for a “good reputation,” the one who has been appointed to the associateship of a group is also the choice of Bosses ( feudal lords), rather than the one who has the best medical or scientific knowledge. In many instances, co-optation, besides being based on a master/serf relationship, is also on family relations, friendship, religion, sex, laziness, etc.

Because of his or her professional nature, a good scientist is rarely a good politician. Consequently, the number of second- or third-rate scientists, politicians, opportunists gradually increases. The surge of the opportunist elite is typically at the expense of the actual, determined, candid, modest individuals. Giving into opportunist doctrine will ultimately undermine compassionate medical doctors, scientists, and researchers. It will not only affect the feudal lords themselves but also among their “feudal serfs” disciples.

Freedom of speech is irrelevant in the medical world

Freedom of speech does not seem to exist among medical professionals. To the same, along with some civil servants, medical doctors appear to be over-represented by many institutions. That includes the Senate, the parliament, and the media.

Many medical professionals have too conservative professional training. Many physicians do not have any knowledge in literature, history, philosophy, the arts, etc.

It is a medicine that is, after all, the natural alliance of the humanities and the sciences. Yet the feudal situation of medicine probably owes this to lack of enlightenment.

The Corporate practice of medicine

Fundamentally corporate practice of medicine doctrine prohibits corporations from practicing medicine or employing a physician to provide professional medical services. This doctrine arises from state medical practice acts. It is primarily based on several public policy concerns. The latest includes allowing corporations to practice medicine or employ physicians. The concept is to prevent the commercialization of the practice of medicine. But, today, even though such policy is still standing on the theoretical sense, nonetheless, that is far from translation into practicality.

Across the world, more so within the United States, loopholes exist within the legislation system. They potentially permit corporations to gain the upper hand against citizens, especially healthcare professionals. Some examples of the mentioned opportunities include biased political lobbying, unilateral Stark’s law, legal kickback, Corporate personification, and monopolized physician education and licensing practices has created enough

Control over the medical profession

Control over the Healthcare Venture is the subject of significant controversy. The corporate tradition of medicine doctrine forbids medical management organizations from meddling with the power of the medical practice. It intends to stop any way of influencing the affairs of medical practice. However, the challenge lies within the healthcare venture managed by a powerful corporation that wants to call the shots.

The non-physician entrepreneurs dream up the healthcare venture, finance it, even staff it with the right physician. And this same entrepreneur can’t be in control. That’s what the corporate practice of medicine says.

Still, In the eyes of the law, the services submitted by a managed care company can indeed obscure the distinction between professional judgment and utilization review. In other words, medical assessment and practice should not be unduly influenced by the corporation. But what this means and how far does the practice of medicine doctrine go is extremely cloudy.

Will Corporate Practice of Medicine Kill Your Healthcare Venture?

Many legal professionals today believe the corporate practice of medicine is nonexistent. The prohibition against corporate practice often isn’t written into statutes. Yet, the enactments prohibit the unlicensed practice of medicine, referencing to “individuals.”

However, there is often a second set of statutes that talk about the fact that corporations cannot engage in professional practices.

Then usually the third set of statutes that deal with who can organize and own a professional corporation.

Few try to categorize the corporate practice of medicine as “Strong form corporate practice of medicine doctrine” vs. “Weak form corporate practice of medicine” By doing that, they want to create a distinction between the “strong” and “weak” versions particularly with regards to management services organization structure.

It is a sporadic belief that splitting the structure into weak and strong can work very well. Further, it helps to traverse between the corporate practice of medicine enforcement, the prohibition against kickbacks and fee-splitting.

But How about Legal kickbacks for the pharmaceutical industry and insurance companies given the legislative loopholes? – How about the personification of corporations? – And most of all, how about billions of dollars of corporate lobbyist groups?

Even the legal system is pulling blind over people’s eyes to the reality of corporate takeover of healthcare by corporations, also though they demonstrated defend the sovereignty of their domain quite diligently.

HEALTH CARE ON THE ROAD TO NEO-FEUDALISM

Over 20% of US citizens’ labor belongs to Aetna!

Recently few politicians proposed a Medicare buy-in option or public option. There seems to be a significant step further on the road to neo-feudalism. It is thus far too dangerous even if it gives millions (perhaps unaffordable) subsidies for health care. The bill would legally require a portion of Americans to pay more than 20% of the product of their labor to a private corporation in exchange for 70% of their health care costs.

Double charging citizens, to pay tax as well as forcing them to pay fees to corporations is unfair. More so, to have big chunks of that go towards private jets and gyms for the company CEOs is nothing but neo-feudalistic.

It’s the kind of deal ancient peasants made in the medieval era. Some proportion of the labor typically covered in exchange for protection. Only in this case, the federal government becomes a service agent to do collections for the corporations.

Single-payer for the benefit of corporations

The Medicare buy-in bill will move toward a single-payer, too–though not the kind we want. For a large number of people who live in a place with the inadequate competition, the bill will require them to get healthcare through the monopoly provider.

The bill guarantees power to corporations such as Halliburton or Blackwater. The latter holds the sole primary contracts of providing precisely the services they do. And so, like it or not, physicians and patients are dependent on them. And If the government or the people were to try and exercise oversight over them, they would ultimately face reality. Only then will they realize that they have no leverage over large entities. So taxpayers would have no option but to accept whatever they chose to provide. The Medicare buy-in bill gives the healthcare industry the advantage we’ve already given Halliburton and Blackwater.

All in all, ignoring the spoken commitments by the leaders of the industry must be taken seriously. And in the face of broad hints from collaborators of the healthcare system as should they have the misguided, unrealistic idea that they can correct such a state of conspiracies, then they must be dealt with swiftly and efficiently.

Economic Rent- The Influential Switch in Excess of Talent and Skill