Our new cycle of serfdom

In the medieval era in Europe most kingdoms employed the system of serfdom. In this, the rights to ownership, movement, and other basic forms of self-determination were severely curtailed by the landowners on whose land people worked and lived. Their state of dependency - that they had no land or means of production - meant that they were exposed to unfair conditions in dealing with the landowners. We are now entering a state of modern capitalism in which a great part of society lives or will live in a state of semi-serfdom. The landowner is today the alliance of the corporations and major governing parties. This is the situation in most of Europe, China, Japan, and the US.

The cycle of serfdom is different from the old one. The recipe now is to instill in people a sense of competition and ambition. All rewards - money, ownership, etc. - are performance tied, and performance is measured relatively to one's competing cohort not absolutely. People are then asked to get in dept or deplete a large amount of their resources to obtain the rights to enter the competition (go to uni, obtain professional training and licenses, etc.). This stage already sees a large number of people becoming indebted, with only a part of them having a chance of repaying those debts within reasonable times, say 4-10 years.

In the next stage more and more institutions raise the levels of entry to all positions. Cleaning and service jobs require now several trainings and previous experience; highly skilled jobs see the graduates of top universities go to to toe even with numerous internships and work experience under their belts. At this stage participants of the workforce who have to rely on wages or a salary get exposed to companies and governments. They are asked to be mobile to an absurd degree, and without adequate compensation. Without willing to enter the race for the mid-management or higher jobs their financial rewards will never be enough to make them truly independent. Already their first purchase of a flat or house will put them into debt and dependence towards both their crediting institution and their workplace.

Take a career in medicine for example. University entrance exams are hard and so is progression. That's a good thing, for quality control reasons. But these institutions are also expensive in most countries, even with scholarships or loans. Then doctors are asked to work a large load of extra hours, night shifts, weekend shifts. They are rewarded to some degree, but comparing with the people owning factories, lands, businesses, shares, or being able to invest in bonds, securities, etc. their income is minuscule, while their work/life balance is abismal.

Take another as another example researchers. Research jobs used to be prestige jobs and a large number of them granted tenure. However this changed in the last 30 years. Business administrators and managers infiltrated the higher levels of higher education everywhere. Their salaries and numbers are rising at never before seen rates (this is what drives up the tuition fees to exorbitant levels), while some of the key reforms they bring is it undermine tenure, offer short-term and term-time only contracts, and dispose of any researchers speaking up on important social issues if they don't fit the ideas of Marketing.

The dirty work part of managing these changes and carrying them out is usually relegated to the throng of mid-level managers now found at almost any institutions. These folks are usually naive, good-willed, and often talented, hard working people. Nevertheless, they are either blind to what they assist in, make themselves believe that the rosy phrases in which marketing dresses things up are the reality (e.g. introducing mandatory extra tasks for job-roles is called 'opportunity to learn new skills', whereas in reality it is simply an additional duty to perform an extra task not included in the original contract without further remuneration for it), or they are corrupt enough not to mind.

It is a sad world, and most us either end up playing the debt game, or shape our lives in ways to accommodate the needs of corporations and public institutions increasingly run by people with a business background, having zero sense of social responsibility and the mission of public institutions.

This trend is horrible in itself. It makes it even more worrying that having to shape our lives around the needs of companies shatters most social networks. Shifting living places repeatedly makes us unable to stay near and take care of our parents and other old relatives. It ruins are chances to have a local identity and properly participate in charities, volunteer, get to know our neigbours and the folks at the local pub, and to participate and understand local and regional politics. That is, it makes us vulnerable to a lack of identity. Our votes are then only informed by what we see on TV, which are usually debates and slogans regarding enormous topics like the economy, war, immigration or healthcare. The dumbed-down and oversimplified choices we are offered aren't real, and our influence and understanding of politics is vanishing, as are our family ties and abilities to shape our local social groups.

It was just a question of time of course how the people will big money - the owners of corporations, land, politicians, business people, etc. of all nations, Americans, Chinese, Swiss, Brit, French, etc. - will come to figure out how to thwart the progress made between 1919 and the 1970s. That era saw a great shift in general welfare, supported by strong labour unions, strong government regulations, corporate social responsibility directives, and activism in politics of middle class and working class people. As we are gradually pushed out from politics and business takes over, the gains we made in equality are also disappearing. We can still stop this, and then move on with equalisation, developing sustainable economies and stopping climate change. Or we can see how for the sake of a few percent of the world's population it all goes to shite.