David Brin

Competition, by itself, always leads to cheating by the powerful, who try to establish pyramids of power, like feudalism. Yet, competition is the great creative force! So how do we save it from its own contradictions? By cooperation! By cooperating with each other, via politics, to make rules and prevent cheating, so that competition can thrive!

American Author

Marvin Ammori

Ever since the end of Medieval feudalism, and the writings of John Locke, we have understood the importance of being able to buy and sell one's own property, including books and watches, both for reasons of economics and liberty.

American Lawyer

C. L. R. James

In the last quarter of the eighteenth century bourgeois Europe needed to emancipate itself from that combination of feudalism and commercial capitalism which we know as mercantilism.

Trinidadian Journalist

Lawrence Lessig

The danger in media concentration comes not from the concentration, but instead from the feudalism that this concentration, tied to the change in copyright, produces.

American Educator

John Lydon

We need wealthy dogs off the seats of power. They're taking us back to feudalism and I really don't want that. But I'm very far from being a socialist.

English Musician

John McCarthy

We modern Marxists regard socialism as a historically brief transitional stage between feudalism and capitalism, necessary only in backward countries.

American Politician

Timothy Leary

In the information age, you don't teach philosophy as they did after feudalism. You perform it. If Aristotle were alive today he'd have a talk show.

Swara Bhaskar

Bollywood, as an industry, is based on relationships. It has always been star-driven, and it has an element of feudalism.

Indian Actress

John Boyle O'Reilly

With the advance of feudalism came the growth of iron armor, until, at last, a fighting-man resembled an armadillo.

Irish Poet

Barbara Amiel

Totalitarianism is feudalism in the twelfth century sense of the word.

British Journalist

Understand feudalism as a historical term reflecting medieval social structures, not modern ones.

Historical Context

Feudalism is not used to describe current social systems, it's a term for past societies.

Not Contemporary

Reflects strict power hierarchies, notice the focus on land and protection in exchange for service.

Power Dynamics

Use feudalism when referring specifically to medieval times, not just any historical period.

Medieval Specific

Key points are the exchange of land for loyalty and military service in this system.

Land and Loyalty

Focus on the lord-vassal relationship, characterized by vassals' allegiance to their lords.

Hierarchy and Allegiance

 Higher living standards also brought an increase in social mobility, weakening feudalism, and eventually leading to political reforms. But the plague also had an important biological impact. The sudden death of so many of the most frail and vulnerable people

The past, present and...

 When I was growing up, I was told a story that explained all I ever needed to know about humanity. It went like this. All human societies develop in linear progression, beginning with primitive society, then slave society, feudalism, capitalism, socialism,