The Coming of Neo-Feudalism

A Warning to the Global Middle Class

De: Joel Kotkin

Narrado por: Traber Burns

Following a remarkable epoch of greater dispersion of wealth and opportunity, we are inexorably returning towards a more feudal era marked by greater concentration of wealth and property, reduced upward mobility, demographic stagnation, and increased dogmatism. If the last 70 years saw a massive expansion of the middle class, not only in America but in much of the developed world, today that class is declining and a new, more hierarchical society is emerging.

The new class structure resembles that of Medieval times. At the apex of the new order are two classes - a reborn clerical elite, the clerisy, which dominates the upper part of the professional ranks, universities, media, and culture, and a new aristocracy led by tech oligarchs with unprecedented wealth and growing control of information. These two classes correspond to the old French First and Second Estates.

Below these two classes lies what was once called the Third Estate. This includes the yeomanry, which is made up largely of small businesspeople, minor property owners, skilled workers, and private-sector oriented professionals. Ascendant for much of modern history, this class is in decline while those below them, the new Serfs, grow in numbers - a vast, expanding property-less population.

The trends are mounting, but we can still reverse them - if people understand what is actually occurring and have the capability to oppose them.

©2020 by Joel Kotkin (P)2020 by Blackstone Publishing

Thought provoking & well narrated

This was a worthwhile book. The author’s premises are properly referenced and supported, so as not to read as an overly biased view and not get too political (although most of the “blame” for our current condition is directed towards the extreme Left). The focal point of the book is income / wealth inequality, and the shrinking of the middle class. What happens if these disturbing trends continue to worsen?
- BRJ 12/7/2022

sneaks up on you.

about halfway through, I realized he was shaming liberals for not playing fair with conservatives.
nothing about the inverse.
curious.

Perfect

This is quite literally the best book I’ve ever read, I called my dad as soon as I finished it to tell him to read it

Grim Truth

Well explains how we are all being reduced to being serfs. Even physicians often find themselves employees by venture capital firms that have bought up once physician owned practices. The once pro und and independent middle class now all work a masters field. The masters all have an HR department and DEI officer that regulates their public speech and even private opinions

A broad survey of trends, however…

Kotkin ties together a lot of important trends but is too eager to explain them in simplistic terms. He has a thesis to support, so he feels pressure to give concrete explanations. The reality is that these trends have complex, nuanced and contradictory explanations. I appreciate him identifying the trends but withhold judgement on causality, etc.