A Neo-Feudal System

Modern economies are re-feudalizing into a hierarchical rentier system where wealth, property, and power are reconcentrating in the hands of a corporate elite while the majority exists in a more precarious and dependent state.

The increasing corporatization of housing and the widening homeownership divide is creating a neo-feudal system with an entrenched class of renters serving a landed property owner class, undermining economic mobility and democratic ideals.

The increasing consolidation of property ownership by large investment firms and the rising costs of housing are indeed leading to a concerning stratification of society into property owners and perpetual renters, reminiscent of a neo-feudal system.

Large investment firms like Blackstone, Invitation Homes, and others have been buying up huge numbers of single-family homes, becoming the biggest landlords in many markets. This concentrates property ownership in the hands of a few corporate entities.

Home prices have skyrocketed in recent years, pricing out many prospective homebuyers and forcing them into renting, often from these corporate landlords. The median net worth of homeowners is over 40 times higher than that of renters.

This trend threatens to create a class of property owners who can build wealth through home equity, and a renter class with little ability to accumulate assets and achieve financial security.

Historically, dispersed property ownership among the middle class has been a hallmark of democracy, while concentrated land ownership by a few was a feature of feudalism.

Rising rents make it harder for renters to save for a down payment on a home, delaying homeownership and the ability to build home equity wealth.

High rents relative to incomes means more households are "cost-burdened", spending over 30% of their income on housing. This reduces disposable income and consumer spending power, dragging on economic growth.

This can exacerbate the wealth gap between homeowners and renters, as homeownership has historically been a key path to the middle class.

A Neo-Feudal System

A neo-feudal system refers to the theorized re-emergence of policies and socio-economic structures reminiscent of feudalism but manifesting in modern times.

• An elite ruling class consisting of powerful corporations, oligarchs, and a "new nobility" that accumulates massive wealth and property ownership.
• A stark divide between this elite class and the majority of the population who lack property and wealth, akin to feudal lords and serfs
• Citizens becoming dependent on corporations for employment, housing, services - recreating relations of feudal vassalage.

The neo-feudal model depicts an economic system and social order where wealth, property, and power are highly concentrated among a small elite class, while the majority exists in a state of insecurity, dependence, and lack of social mobility, mirroring feudal hierarchies.

• Traditional Feudalism: Power was held by an aristocratic landed nobility and monarchy.
• Neo-Feudalism: Power is concentrated among large corporations, tech oligarchs, and an elite "clerisy" class that dominates institutions like media and academia. Hierarchy is based on control of capital, intellectual property, data and technology rather than just land. Corporate capitalism, "serfs" are the precarious renting class without property/assets.

(clerisy ? \KLAIR-uh-see\ ? noun. : intellectuals who form an artistic, social, or political vanguard or elite: intelligentsia.)

Despite the media’s obsession on gender, race and sexual orientation, the real and determining divide in America and other advanced countries lies in the growing conflict between the ascendant upper class and the vast, and increasingly embattled, middle, working, and lower classes.

There is an increasing concentration of wealth, property ownership, and control of capital among a small elite class consisting of large corporations, tech giants, and the ultra-wealthy.

Today’s neo-feudalism recalls the social order that existed before the democratic revolutions of the 17th and 18th Century.