image generated with Leonardo AI, analysis by me
Summary:
- Feudalism was a hierarchical system that restricted individual choice for those at the lower tiers (peasants).
- Indentured servitude (debt-laborers with few rights) was a condition people were coerced into by laws passed by those who ruled Feudal societies.
- Most of us today must go into debt or rent based relationships in order to merely exist.
- If you have a mortgage, you cannot be said to truly own your home, since, ownership implies you're done paying for something.
- Renting today is similar to the Feudal peasant's housing arrangement where they paid a lord of the land for the privilege to exist.
- Homelessness is being increasingly criminalized and demonized once again by the ruling class, making it an nonviable option.
Conclusion: Society has deemed that you have no fundamental right to exist unless you are wealthy or bound to someone contractually.
What is indentured servitude?
Indentured servitude is the practice of bonding an individual to perform labor for a specified period of time in order to collect repayment for debts. On the surface to some, this may not seem unreasonable since one could say that people should pay what they owe, however, let's look at the greater context here to understand the power dynamics at play here in the affairs of the state and economy to gain a greater understanding of the picture. First of all, let's look at why people were indentured in the first place, and by whom. It is well known by people who have studied history that many of the colonists to the 13 colonies were indentured servants. Why would anyone agree to work for someone for say, 10, 20 years or so, just so they could gain passage across the Atlantic on a dangerous journey, to a territory that hosted an unknown and risky fate? To answer this question requires a bit of understanding on the Feudal system from whence they came.
What is Feudalism?
Under Feudalism, a King was said to be recognized as the owner of all of the land in a particular area. The King would grant titles to the land to members of the nobility (counts, barons, dukes, etc) in exchange for obligations that ranged from providing military service and troops from their domains, to various forms of taxation. The noble, in turn, allowed the peasants who were bonded to the land (could not legally leave unless the land was sold) to build dwellings, marry, and use some of the noble's land for farming. The peasants would pay for this privilege with a portion of their harvest, and sometimes, with coin. The nobility were also generally expected to provide defense to the peasants from invaders. Contrary to popular belief, peasants were not the individuals who were the most commonly conscripted for offensive wars, as they were needed for the harvest. One important feature of this system, in England, was the designation of a chunk of the noble's land for common use. The commons, as the name would suggest, were patches of land that all the peasants in a given area had access to and the right to use in various ways, usually for grazing, or for harvesting wood. This system eventually changed.
Why did English commoners agree to indentured servitude?
Over time, the practice of maintaining the commons ceased and the lands were enclosed and it would only be the land owners who could have access to the land. This was a serious blow to the commoner, who relied upon those lands for sustenance. Many of these individuals would be forced to move the cities for work in the new proto-factories, others would decide to seek passage to colonies out of desperation. Some, of course, came to seek freedom to practice their religion, but, absent the impoverishment of the peasantry and commoners. there would not be a strong enough motive to colonize North America in the numbers that were seen until much later. These people, having little choice, were forced into their condition of debt bondage.
Indentured servitude and Feudalism were abolished, right?
Legally, yes, but functionally, not exactly. Right now, the vast majority of Americans either have a mortgage (a 10 or 20 year debt contract) or they are forced to pay rent in order to get by, much like the peasants of old who had to provide their lords of the land with a portion of their harvest in order to merely exist. The Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions have largely changed the form that the tribute for merely existing has taken. Few of us are farmers anymore, but the underlying mechanisms are very similar. Of course, one striking difference from indentured servitude and a mortgage, is the fact that after the mortgage is paid, the land is owned by the one who paid it off. Or is it? Property tax, if unpaid, is used as a mechanism to evict someone from "their" land should it failed to be paid. It is functionally rent, but paid to a government instead of a landlord.
Property tax on homes is rent?
One common critique of this evaluation is that: if we didn't pay property tax, how would schools and other public services be paid for? This is a valid concern, however it does not address the argument that being able to seize someone's only parcel of land where they are legally allowed to exist would imply that this individual cannot be said to actually own the land. Schools and roads can be paid for with forms of taxation that do not involve taxing one merely for being allowed to exist. If you have to keep paying for it to keep it, you don't own it.
Ok, but mortgage holders are not indentured servants.
Let's examine some differences between the two, then. One such difference is that a mortgage holder usually profits from home sales with mortgages. This actually applies to the indentured servant as well, since often indentured servants were actually compensated with land or other capital after their terms of service were up; they gained. A key difference between the servant and mortgage debtor, is that indentured servants could be beaten and lacked many civil rights. When you look at the state of the average person today, while they are generally not imprisoned, beaten, and can declare bankruptcy to avoid paying certain debts, they we do not have much say in their governments today either, and the poor and middle class still face more hardship when dealing with the justice system than the wealthy. There's definitely been improvement from indentured servant to mortgage-haver, but the fundamentals underlying the relationship, that of contractual debt that must be worked off at some point, remain.
Can't you just buy your home outright?
Not easily, and the following article shows how few of us actually do:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnwake/2023/03/31/us-has-3rd-lowest-percentage-of-households-that-own-their-homes-without-mortgages/
According to this article, only 23% of Americans owned their homes without a mortgage, putting the US at the 3rd lowest rate of "free and clear" home ownership on the list of those countries who were recorded. This means, everyone else does not own their homes, their lending institutions do. Didn't these individuals voluntarily sign up for this arrangement? The answer to this question depends upon whether or not one believes that the alternatives to this arrangement are even viable in the first place. Well, let's look at some numbers. According to this article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States ,
The median household income in 2023 in the US was $80,610 and according to this one https://www.zillow.com/home-values/102001/united-states/, the average home price in the US is $359,099. This means, assuming an average household saves all of the income they could after factoring the expenses seen at: (https://www.chase.com/personal/banking/education/budgeting-saving/average-american-monthly-expenses-and-bills), but with a median rent for a 2 bedroom
apartment being placed at $1600 a month (as opposed to the 2000 figure in the article), it would take them 31 years to save up enough money to purchase a house without a mortgage. Bear in mind this uses averages and medians, so it would not be true for everyone, but it would be for most. One may think ok, so let's say you don't have to own a home, right? Sure, you could rent.
If you rent, can't you avoid being an indentured servant?
Sure, you could choose to be the modern equivalent of a feudal serf. Let's examine how many people "choose" to have this arrangement. According to this article:
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/08/02/as-national-eviction-ban-expires-a-look-at-who-rents-and-who-owns-in-the-u-s/
36% of Americans rent and do not own a home outright or pay mortgage. So, these individuals are living more closely to how Medieval peasants once were, where they take a portion of their harvest (in this case dollars) and pay someone for the privilege of not being locked up behind bars. The percentage of Americans who are renting has been increasing over the years, and it is know that large companies are quickly buying up homes to use as investment properties and rental properties in order to capitalize on the decline in the ability of Americans to be able to afford home ownership outright or to afford a down payment for a mortgage or fulfill credit requirements (credit scores tend to decline when people cannot pay their bills). Someone has to pay to maintain the properties, right? Of course, but, if home ownership was more affordable, then people would not need to rent, and they would be the ones paying for the property maintenance. Economic forces have thrust land-lording into an economically lucrative position. Ok, so let's say you do not want to rent, cannot own or acquire a loan for a home, then what else is left?
Can't you just be homeless if you don't want to be a peasant or servant?
In the United States, the Supreme Court recently made a decision which allowed localities to pass various laws that criminalize acts that homeless individuals have to engage in (sleeping in public, camping, etc). Certain media sources have also been waging a propaganda war on homeless individuals by portraying them as drug-addicted layabouts, or people who are living lives of luxury (all of this info is demonstrably false if one is willing to do a little digging into the matter). Drug addiction does happen in significant numbers on the street, but, what came first the chicken or the egg? Studies in the past have shown that people tend to turn to drugs and alcohol for relief of painful experiences. Is it not worth noting that the recent uptick in homelessness has occurred after economic calamity (2008, and COVID)? Economic malady, not drug abuse, creates homelessness, which is a much more viable explanation than saying something along the lines of a bunch of people all of the sudden decided out of the blue to do drugs and live on the streets because they all of the sudden became lazy. If it were true that some people are just lazy drug addicts, then you would expect to see a certain percentage of these people trickling into the world of homelessness over time, and not massive bursts in their numbers that correlate with economic downturns.
What's the big deal?
The end result of all this: you cannot legally exist anywhere without paying someone else for the privilege of doing so. People may have argumentative ground to stand on when they say that we should be working to sustain ourselves (depending on one's views here), but acquiescing to a system that says you cannot stand somewhere, cannot exist without someone else's permission, sounds a lot like a state of servitude to me. Either you have a right to "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," all of which require that you can legally exist somewhere independent of the grant and goodwill of another, or you don't. What do you decide? It's up to you to choose the rights you and the rest of us should have.
Interesting links:
The feudal system:
Indentured servitude:
Enclosure movement:
Why people left England: https://schoolshistory.org.uk/topics/british-empire/making-of-the-united-kingdom-foundations-of-empire/migration-to-the-americas-in-the-17th-and-18th-century/
What are mortgages? :
Supreme Court ruling on homelessness: