Political Theory

Re: Books on Feudalism

Torsten — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 13:22:18 GMT

Brainpolice:
Seriously, what some of you people are doing is painting a pretty picture of an ugly system and idolizing the past. Romantisizing the past leads in the direction of primitivism.

Except that it doesn't have that much to do with "Romaticizing", there are many periods were people took orientation from older days. The Renaissance is such an example. In a sense the reformation was this, too. Both were not about just copying past eras or cultures. It was about finding meanings and ideas that could be adapted to the present.

The other writers are right in that there is much of disinformation about culture, society and politics of the middle ages - the Dark Ages, if you won't. Actually Dark Ages refers to the period of ~600 to 900 - The reason being the lack of available literature from this time.Well people were rather preoccupied with warfare since the political order had to be reshaped after the Fall of the Roman Empire.

Personally I don't think that feudalism was a more "ugly system" then i.e. our present day democracy. What interests me is the underlying social philosophy and it's inner working. I also get the impression that you are a staunch believer in social progress in the sense that you believe that any era and its social system is always better then the prior eras and their social systems.

Concerning social orders I found an interesting program at econtalk.org: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2007/08/weingast_on_vio.html

Re: Books on Feudalism

Inquisitor — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 03:47:38 GMT

A lot of misinformation is in circulation regarding certain periods (e.g. Industrial Revolution.) Not all revisionism is the romanticization of harsher times.

Re: Books on Feudalism

Bostwick — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 23:53:25 GMT

Brainpolice:
But if you genuinely think that fuedalism was some sort of utopia of freedom

No one has suggested that.

Re: Books on Feudalism

Brainpolice — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 22:16:34 GMT

Seriously, what some of you people are doing is painting a pretty picture of an ugly system and idolizing the past. Romantisizing the past leads in the direction of primitivism. But if you genuinely think that fuedalism was some sort of utopia of freedom, fine, go try to bring it back. But don't complain to me when you find that your attempt fails and that you're wasting your time.

Re: Books on Feudalism

Stranger — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 22:13:38 GMT

Torsten:
Brainpolice:

I hate historical romanticism.
And I hate retardisms

I thought long and hard about the right word to reply to him and I never succeeded at finding a more appropriate quip than retardism. I applaud you.

Re: Books on Feudalism

Torsten — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 20:27:56 GMT

Brainpolice:

I hate historical romanticism.

And I hate retardisms

Re: Books on Feudalism

Brainpolice — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 06:28:39 GMT

I hate historical romanticism.

Re: Books on Feudalism

Bostwick — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 00:07:11 GMT

A good primer about feudalism can be found in Discovery of Freedom by Rose Wilder Lane.

Its important to understand that Feudalism was eventually crushed by monarchies, except for in England.

Re: Books on Feudalism

Torsten — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 18:51:18 GMT

DBratton:

The medieval word was filled with independent political and social authorities whose titles were as good as the king's. The church, the guilds, the towns, various political subdivisions all had overlapping and divided sovereignty. They were willing and able to defend their rights against encroachment even by the king. It was not anarchy; but it was a world in which the monarchs were very weak. These guys didn't have the ability to tax. They didn't have standing armies (or police forces), and they didn't have the power of universal conscription.

The word "ruler" just means judge. This is the function that served a usefull purpose to the nobility. It is the reason why societies throughout history have created and then tolerated Kings.

Thanks for giving this insights into the feudal era.

I also found some interesting works on the political theory of the middle ages:
http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/carlyle/
Political Theories of the Middle Age
Caspar Bluntschli also touches on the issue:
http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/bluntschli/index.html
Carlyle, Gierke, Bluntschli and some others seem to be interesting authors on this. Augustin Thierry is another one:
http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1958&Itemid=28

I can have a look whether I'll find more authors.

Re: Books on Feudalism

DBratton — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 01:23:00 GMT

Brainpolice:
Kings were not strictly speaking rulers until the modern age.

Nonsense. A king is a ruler, no matter how moderate you make kings seem to be in comparison to contemporary rulers.

Under medieval feudalism, the king was only a military executive.

A ruler all the same, no matter how passively so. Medieval fuedalism was not an anarchy. Period.

The medieval word was filled with independent political and social authorities whose titles were as good as the king's. The church, the guilds, the towns, various political subdivisions all had overlapping and divided sovereignty. They were willing and able to defend their rights against encroachment even by the king. It was not anarchy; but it was a world in which the monarchs were very weak. These guys didn't have the ability to tax. They didn't have standing armies (or police forces), and they didn't have the power of universal conscription.

The word "ruler" just means judge. This is the function that served a usefull purpose to the nobility. It is the reason why societies throughout history have created and then tolerated Kings.

Re: Books on Feudalism

Brainpolice — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 23:25:32 GMT

Stranger:

Brainpolice:

Nonsense. A king is a ruler, no matter how moderate you make kings seem to be in comparison to contemporary rulers.

Even the King of Pop?

Mwahaha. Nah, not a ruler, just a weirdo.

Re: Books on Feudalism

Stranger — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 23:24:02 GMT

Brainpolice:
Nonsense. A king is a ruler, no matter how moderate you make kings seem to be in comparison to contemporary rulers.

Even the King of Pop?

Re: Books on Feudalism

Brainpolice — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 23:21:31 GMT

Kings were not strictly speaking rulers until the modern age.

Nonsense. A king is a ruler, no matter how moderate you make kings seem to be in comparison to contemporary rulers.

Under medieval feudalism, the king was only a military executive.

A ruler all the same, no matter how passively so. Medieval fuedalism was not an anarchy. Period.

I even question wether the Icelandic commonwealth truly counts as an anarchy, despite its polycentric nature. It certainly is an interesting thing to study and it certainly counts as a highly polycentric system, but it falls short of anarchy.

Re: Books on Feudalism

DBratton — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 22:21:12 GMT

Stranger:
Kings were not strictly speaking rulers until the modern age. Under medieval feudalism, the king was only a military executive. He did not have the power to make law, and therefore could not tax. He was chosen as the wealthiest noble for his capacity to raise a large chunk of the army, but he did not himself command an army. The army was the nobility. (This is the origin of the institution of buying military commissions, a privilege reserved to the aristocracy in order to reign in the power of the king to use the army against them.) Feudalism went to hell with the reformation, the French king gaining enormous power during the civil wars, which was then used to fuel the war in Germany that created the patchwork of mini-states there. In England on the other hand the nobility overthrew its king in the Glorious Revolution, but enshrined power in a parliament that eventually became a centralized state of its own.

A king was also the ultimate judge in his realm.

I think the black death had more to do with setting feudalism on the path to destruction than the reformation. It transformed the economy of Europe and led to rebellions against the secular authorities, which in turn led to the reformation. I think the reformatin was in the cause-effect chain, but I don't think it was at the root.

Re: Books on Feudalism

Stranger — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 20:26:11 GMT

Brainpolice:
Fuedalism? Market Anarchy? The same thing? Since when is fuedalism an example of a free market (wasn't it the developement of the industrial market that broke fuedalism down)? Sounds to me like a sneaky attempt to sell monarchy (one ruler) as being anarchy (no rulers), which simply makes no sense in terms of the literal meanings of the words. I will say that I agree with Hoppe's criticism of democracy, and indeed monarchy (again, one ruler) is preferable to polyarchy (multiple rulers, which is what governmental democracy really is, simply expanding the amount of rulers if anything) but I find that he overlooks the real-life horrors of monarchy, treating it far too lightly and romantically. Life under monarchy was no apple pie.

Kings were not strictly speaking rulers until the modern age. Under medieval feudalism, the king was only a military executive. He did not have the power to make law, and therefore could not tax. He was chosen as the wealthiest noble for his capacity to raise a large chunk of the army, but he did not himself command an army. The army was the nobility. (This is the origin of the institution of buying military commissions, a privilege reserved to the aristocracy in order to reign in the power of the king to use the army against them.) Feudalism went to hell with the reformation, the French king gaining enormous power during the civil wars, which was then used to fuel the war in Germany that created the patchwork of mini-states there. In England on the other hand the nobility overthrew its king in the Glorious Revolution, but enshrined power in a parliament that eventually became a centralized state of its own.

On Power by Bertrand de Jouvenel and Rise and Decline of the State by Martin van Creveld detail the process of transformation from feudalism to monarchy, but they do not go into detail on the relationships that characterized feudalism. I've always hoped Hoppe would say something about this.