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Judging by how many societies were feudal at some point, it almost

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Judging by how many societies were feudal at some point, it almost seems to be the (or at least a form of) natural order. What does /k/ think are the chances of a modern form of feudalism forming after a hypothetical SHTF scenario? Would the classes be the same? What kind of resources would the "Kings" control? What kind of restrictions would be placed on the "peasants?" (Weapon-wise or otherwise.) Sorry if this isn't particularly /k/ related but it seemed like something /k/ommandos would enjoy arguing about . . . I mean "discussing."
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>>33981314
Ever seen mad max?
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>>33981320
First post is the worst post, without any other entries. Try to be realistic, you fuck.
>>33981314
Can you try to draw more of a picture for us?
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>>33981338
Maybe I should have been more specific but I was kind of wondering what circumstances /k/ could see leading to this.

Personally I'm picturing a psuedopolitical terror group or two *cough*antifa*cough* growing to the point that the gubbmint can't stop it and the rest of America is caught in a civil war without much govt. influence.
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>>33981314
Tribal communism would probably be best for small groups just starting off, when survival is precarious.

Feudalism is a good model to move on to after you've expanded beyond the point where pooling resources between a few dozen people is no longer practical and people start wanting capitalism.

Feudalism doesn't make sense for like 100 people. But for 500? 1000? Definitely. It's a good, simple form of government that is proven to work in low tech, low population, moderately unsafe situations like the dark ages. Would be perfect for the second dark age.
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>>33981314
Anon, you seem like the kind of guy my blog might interest. I invite you to go have a look at http://antidem.wordpress.com
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>>33981366
Yeah in what fucking planet is antifa supposed to be stronger than the most powerful military in history?

If anything this will happen because of lack of usable water and immigrants overwhelming the few habitable places...so basically right fucking now
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>>33981314
look at Venezuela right now
the country is in collapse due to oil prices and their own retardation
there are MASSIVE shortages of any imported goods because their currency is worth nothing and less every day
so what does their "president" do?
transfer control of food to the military and basically turns their whole society back to feudalism
food = control
it has for thousands of years
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>>33981378
>Dark ages

Not really there was culture arts religion and still some technological progress albeit slower as Rome fell in the West
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>>33981314
Note that feudalism is not as universal at it seems. Feudalism is a specific phenomena of Europe that was more honoured in the breach than in the observance. Even England post-1066, the most feudal society ever, had a deep integrated non-feudal component to it. Historians call similar structures feudal, but is is only becaused for lack of any better term.
Feudalism grew out of
-agricultural based economies, hence land as a form of payment
-de-centralized power, hence the vassal structure
Really, it is the decentralized and fractal power structure that is the most defining characteristic of feudalism which doesn't have a parallel structure elsewhere. It's just one of many forms of structured despotism.
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>>33981439
It was a similar situation to a post major SHTF scenario- the former society fell apart, smaller local leaders took much more precedence, there was major threat from being invaded and sacked, etc.
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>>33981612
Japan was also feudal for quite some time.
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>>33981400
You must have missed the part where I said growing, as in growing out of control. Not saying this would happen tomorrow.

The second half of your post seems realistic though.
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>>33981314
Tribal society is more logical.

It takes time for someone to secure power like that. Feudalism takes a very long time to establish, starting with a serf that gathers land, collects people to defend it, then slowly though a couple generations amasses enough land to start dividing it amongst sub-leaders and let them run the show while you and the family that follows does nothing but feast and offer advice.

If everything just stopped and leadership was required immediately then a tribal system with groups for each task and a central leader that watches those groups and helps when needed is a far more logical system. Also including the amount of people that would be gathered. Feudalism kicks in when you start to have about a thousand people in your kingdom.
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>>33981412
I agree.
The situation in Venezuela is the most realistic SHTF outcome for semi failed states in the future.
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>>33981439
BTW, I've actually stood in the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna and seen those mosaics firsthand. The whole place is very, very impressive.
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>>33981671
>The situation in Venezuela is the most realistic SHTF outcome for semi failed states in the future.
I'm not sure about that. Venezuela isn't a failed state, in that the state (using this term in the Rothbardian sense) hasn't gone out of business. Quite the contrary, it is actively fucking up its country by trying to make things "better". If the state there simply did go out of business, things would actually get better.
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>>33981314
Economies determine government and philosophy. Economies are determined by resources. Feudalism is only the natural order of things only in the sense that rescources were limited and life was dependent on farmers being able to have a good crop yield lest everyone else starve to death. That's why life was so ordered, because you cannot decide you don't want to be a peasant one day or else people will starve. It's not "innate" to humans any more than capitalism. If anything, hunter gatherer is the innate lifestyle if humanity
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We will never run out of oil, but when the energy returned on energy invested for oil drops below 7 the global economy will go into a downward spiral.

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph240/kumar2/
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>>33981412
>>33981671
>>33981709
>All these faggots talking about any South American country and not acknowledging the destructive influence of the US.
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>>33981314
Any form of centralized government, no matter what its stated purpose (e.g., "dictatorship of the proletariat"), will ALWAYS, without fail, begin to take on feudal trappings.

Hitler? Look at the turf wars between his underlings. Stalin? Same. Best Korea has its own "noble" class of generals and senior officials who have most of what little wealth exists. Cuba? Yep. Venezuela? Ditto.

Heck, look at any example throughout history, and the more power held by the central government, the more that layers of "nobles" formed around that power and fought over it amongst themselves.
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>>33981764
Venezuela has no one to blame but themselves. They democratically elected a communist and then let him become a totalitarian dictator. You can't blame that on the US, only the stupid people who live there.
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>>33981793
Preach brother

A god damn socialist would be dictator is giving guns to his citizen supporters
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>>33981764
>Lets base our entire economy around a single export and never diversify our interests!
>*OPEC purposefully crashes oil prices to flush out competition from North American drillers*
>Economy collapses
>LOOK AT WHAT US IMPERIALISM HAS DONE THIS TIME!
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>>33981750
not if it happens slowly enough or with enough meddling by major powers so that alternative means can fill the gap
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>>33981314
If there's a "natural order" for human beings, it's hunter-gathererism, which persisted for hundreds of thousands of years between the evolution of anatomically modern humans and the development of agriculture.
Feudalism, like all other forms of civilization, is nothing but a flash in the pan in comparison.
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>>33981314
One could argue that the shortage of labor and devastation of noble bloodlines (and thus, normal inheritance) caused by the Black Plague led directly to the shift in economic thought during the pre-Renaissance era, leading to a much more modern society where people's time and labor was worth much more. That in turn helped spurn the creation of a functional pseudo-middle class.

We had a SHTF, the Black Plague, that made a zombie movie look like a county health commercial to wash your hands. Society recovered pretty quickly, and people only went full-on "murder and rape everything" in a few isolated incidents (namely towards jews and remaining pagan enclaves).

The fact is, most humans tend to prefer a loose organization to Borderlands/Mad Max psychotic anarchy.

Feudalism as a system may work in very isolated areas, but farming communes like the Amish or the old frontier towns in the Midwest are probably much more viable and palatable to the American people.
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>>33981764
Venezuela used to send some 90% of its oil to the US before they went socialist. Then they nationalized the oil industry in VZ... including much of the infrastructure, which was owned by American companies...

not surprisingly, we said "fuck 'em" and stopped buying all that black goo.

but now they are collapsing, and sitting on the largest oil reserve on the planet, with an oil infrastructure wrongly taken from the US by force...

Its thin as far as Causus Belli go, but so were things like Vietnam, Spanish-American war, Grenada, and Iraq. Who knows, Mercenaries 2 may be prophetic.
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>>33983476
>Spanish-American war
They blew up the USS Maine, and not only didn't apologize, but had the nerve to deny it.
Toatlly justified.
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This was the plan for that spoopy illuminati castle in the Ozarks but idk if it will happen on this Trump timeline
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>>33981314
Dang, threads like these make me wish there was a /khis/ board (for /k/omun/his/ts)

Anyway, I think that after a certain time from SHTF event, society would go back to something similar to feudal hierarchy, but not quite (i.e. king, priests/scientists, merchants, then everybody else)
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>>33981314
>the nobles give food to the peasants
Well that's definitely backwards.
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>>33981366
>Personally I'm picturing a psuedopolitical terror group or two *cough*antifa*cough* growing to the point that the gubbmint can't stop it and the rest of America is caught in a civil war without much govt. influence.
Pic related.
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>>33981400
>If anything this will happen because of lack of usable water and immigrants overwhelming the few habitable places
>>33981646
>The second half of your post seems realistic though.
OP confirmed for retarded
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>>33981612

>Because India, China, Korea and Japan didn't have any feudal history

Jesus faggot show your ignorance a little more.
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>>33982414

>What is the Monroe doctrine?

We know for a fact that the CIA actively meddles in basically every foreign countrys politics. Is it really so hard to believe that they wouldn't do so in the nation with the largest proven oil reserves in the Americas?
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>>33981314
>Judging by how many societies were feudal at some point
I think you have a misunderstanding what Feudalism actually means, either that or you're retarded and know nothing about history.
It's a pretty narrow term that refers to some societies in Europe that mostly only existed for a few centuries in the middle ages, Feudalism wasn't that common in the grand scheme of things, and it is not a catch all term for despotic societies.
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>>33981314

Zero.

Reason: People are literate nowadays, and most farm work is automated. No reason to have an army of bonded serfs/servants/slaves when your niece can run all the tractors and irrigation from the downstairs closet.

All technology would have to simply end and literacy rates would have to drop below 50% before feudalism could possibly make a comeback. This is enormously difficult to do, even if there was a total nuclear war and plagues the cost of labor would spike such that feudalism (a system based upon labor being so cheap workers choose slavery over a wage) is untenable.

More likely society would regress to the late nineteenth century, where all/most economic activity is subject to railway conglomerates. This is because railways are cheap to operate (cheaper than highways after factoring in labor and maintence) and can move a lot of goods (4+ truckloads per railcar, actually). ARs would remain the standard because they can be taken down (and thus hidden inside a carry-on backpack).

>>33981320

It's a good movie, but not real life.
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>>33987499
Mad Max is a documentary.
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>>33981314
Feudalism cannot withstand the rifle. Make sure the gunsmiths are around and we will be forever free
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>>33986875
>engineers aren't nerds
t. Mech E student
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>>33981314
>it almost seems to be the (or at least a form of) natural order

Its what we'll be going back to after globalized liberal democracy collapses.

>>33981392
>http://antidem.wordpress.com

I know you from northman's nrx aggregator. Good stuff.
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>>33981314
I once read a pretty comfy book about a small town that broke up into a couple different smaller societies after peak oil/ global economic meltdown/ world war 3. There was a communal tribe of degenerates, a theistic abbey of sorts, athe town proper was like a new england charter, and there was a wealthy farmer who basically set up an English manor. He was by far the closest to a fuedal lord, and his community was the most well off, followed by the theistic cult, the degenerates (they ran a good racket excavating the town dump), then the town.
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>>33987678
Or, just make sure that your people are very well taken care of, free to leave, and distracted by work. They will willingly point the rifles at your enemies.
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>>33986953
>feudalism
>despotic
m8.....
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>>33987678
Feudalism can very much withstand rifles.

The primary reasons for feudalism and similar societies are :

- producing food was labor intensive (a lot of man-hours for little food), meaning most people are busy growing all of their own food and not have much surplus.

- traveling (and transport) is difficult, preventing large-scale trade and reallocation of ressources and thus preventing highly centralized organization.

- communications are lengthy, meaning directly managing vast territories is difficult, let alone defend them.

From these, several secondary reasons arise.

For exemple, because travel is difficult and most people are busy in agriculture, most of the population cannot gather into cities, where number alone would be protection against foreign threats.

As the local capacity for defense is limited and reaction time is long for reinforcements, the feudal model starts to look attractive.

That small farming village doesn't look like much and raiding it right after the harvest might earn you a great deal of wealth.
But the facts are :
- carrying that loot will be difficult or at least will be slow.
- it is under the nominal protection of a warlord/city/organization that makes regular patrols
- said patrols are highly mobile / have a way to communicate quickly with their hierarchy
- said hierarchy has a lot of highly mobile, well-equipped and highly trained troops.

Knowing that, chances are that any attack on the village with the aim to loot will be a costly enterprise because, while the attack itself might be easy, getting away with it might not be.

In the same way, a large enough force might just say "fuck it" and throw its luck... or even plan to attack directly the warlord/city/organization.
Said warlord will rely on a bigger warlord to defend him through the implied threath of retaliation.

None of the link of that hierarchy could hope to stand on its own, as they couldn't react quickly enough to local threaths.
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>>33989210
(cont)

Rifles are only a threaths to feudalism in that they make the "trained from birth" warrior-class obsolete.
But nobles were far more than mere warriors : they were administrators or at least place-holders whom their lord could trust.

In an age of rifles but without large-scale fast transport or/and communications, feudalism would still be viable.
It would justify itself through other means but the primary reasons behind it would be the same.

Riflemen might be easier to train than a knight... but the knight and his men can simply pick up rifles and remain a relevant link in the hierarchy
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>>33981750
If it ever came to that,and happened rapidly enough. governments would probably just slapshot energy projects to the front of the line
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>>33991353
God, I hope not.
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>>33987499
But Feudalism wasn't destroyed by literacy, it was destroyed (in the French case) by bad leaders and bad luck. France had a functioning Feudal society up until the revolution.
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>>33988986
But isn't all oppression of the citizenry despotic, no matter if it's a feudal system or a brutal dictator?
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>>33981366
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>>33991464
>French society before the revolution
>functional
Yeah, no. Not if you weren't part of the nobility.

>>33989210
>>33989303
Your points about rifles ignore the fact that the nobility didn't hold power because they were the best administrators, but that they held a monopoly on force.

And noone is going to turn over half their fucking crops to Jim just because he's good at math, after SHTF.

What the rifle does is allow any common farmer to shoot the fuck who's trying to make himself into a king at the expense of him and his neighbors.
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>>33988814
>your people are very well taken care of, free to leave, and distracted by work

That's called capitalism.
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>>33987499
>Reason: People are literate nowadays, and most farm work is automated.
>[...] your niece can run all the tractors and irrigation from the downstairs closet.
Heh, you funny man. I like you.

Most farmwork is mechanised, but definitely not automated.
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>>33983751
>blame the maine on spain
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>>33994422

Not if you work for a big corn grower like I did. The tractors did everything, operators mostly sat on their phones the whole time, except for the burner trucks used to move goods between the harvesters and collection silos.
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>>33981784
>Germans invade Russia
>Hitler is too ill to interfere with the invasion
>German army takes Moscow
>Hitler dies
>3rd Reich cracks into at least three little successor Reichdoms
>they go to war against each other
>thosewhodontlearnfromhistory.png
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>>33994732
is that pic a dog breathing fire?
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>>33994766
Why are you drinking on a Wednesday?
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>>33991464
>France in 1789
>Feudal
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>>33981784
Hell, if you want to push the analogy the Constitution just formalizes it. Certain powers to the Federal Gov, certain to the States, and then certain devolved to the Towns/Cities.

>>33981750
And people argue against nuclear...
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>>33981314
how about the three estates
where 3% of the population could veto everyone else
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>>33994812
this is literally more equal than modern "democratic" societies. Objectively, wealth is more widely distributed here than the modern USA.
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>>33981314
>reactionary bullshit
>in the 21st century
>>33981366
>worrying or caring about antifa

you have to go back
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>>33981750
>no units
this is middle school shit
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>>33981314
Go read the new science. It was written by some Italian guy during the Renaissance and explains the rise and fall of civilizations as a cycle, part of which is feudalism.
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>>33981314
Why is food flowing downward?
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>>33993227
If Jim got a band of 100 dudes with rifles while the village they are "collecting taxes" from has a population of barely 100 people, the food will be handed over to Jim.

Jim repeats the feat with other small villages until he hit a village under the "protection" of some other wannabe warlord called Alex.

Alex and Jim have a little bit of a conflict.
Unfortunately for Jim, Alex has more men, has better equipment, more ressources and is a better commander.
But despite all this, Alex sees no point in waging a total war against Jim, since even a victory would cost Alex a good number of loyal soldiers, which he needs to control the rest of his territory.

So they struck a deal :
Jim is free to keep lording over those villages he already was lording over.
He is doing so "in the name of Alex" and will agree to provide a yearly tax to Alex in food.
He'll also agree to send a fraction of his men to Alex upon request.
In exchange, Alex pledges to not prey upon Jim's "subjects" and even to support Jim if he ever encounter resistance or hostility.

Since the territory of Jim is at the very edges of Alex's own territory, it can take weeks on foot for Alex to send troops there.
So Alex finds the deal great, as he get "free" men and ressources out of a territory he wouldn't have been able to control himself anyway.

Alex does the same with the other external parts of his territory, giving them to loyal and competent sub-commanders to administer.

Over time, as resistance from the villages is weakening out of habit, the sub-commanders delegate a part of their own territory to their own sub-sub-commanders.

This makes them essentially into local garrisons, allowing them to keep in check wandering bandits and other minor threats to the villages... which is good for both the villagers (as they aren't preyed too arshly upon) and for Alex's horde (as it can expect better harvest and thus higher taxes).

(cont)
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>>33999740
(cont)

The villagers COULD revolt.
But most won't because the success chances are low and the cost of a successful revolt might be high.

A frontal revolt, with the village simply saying "fuck you !!" to Alex's men would end up with a gradual answer :
The local garrison would probably just try to round up rebel leadership and shot them.
If that failed, they would be driven out (or killed).
With the tax not coming, the next level in the hierarchy would investigate and then gather troops from all its garrisons for a swift retaliation.

This could be as simple as burning the crops :
- Alex's organization can afford to lose one single village's worth of taxes but the village cannot afford to loose all its crops.
- Alex's organization wouldn't have had that village's taxes anyway so burning it cost them nothing
- It also helps make a exemple for other villages and prevent them to get any ideas...

If that fails, then the next level of hierarchy will be called in, and then the next, then the next... each time with more military ressources.

The message from a feudal lord to rebels isn't simply "my men are stronger than your men".
It's "my men can utterly destroy your whole community and we won't even feel it".

(cont)
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>>33999842
(cont)

Of course, the villagers can also do what you are suggesting :
>What the rifle does is allow any common farmer to shoot the fuck who's trying to make himself into a king at the expense of him and his neighbors.

This is closer to a guerilla :
A lone dude ambush a member of the hostile force when it's vulnerable, doing so with impunity because it can blend in the local population.

This works well when the hostile force won't just apply collective punishment to the local population.
Sure, other villages might take offense of that but it sends a right message :
"-One of you kill one of us, all of us will kill all of you".

This doesn't mean a successful guerilla cannot be waged.
But if the "local population" is just a few dozen families against an hostile force several thousands strong, then gathering enough troops to burn the village and nail everyone on a cross is very doable.

If the "local population" is a country of millions of people where a guerilla can quickly travel from one end to the other and blend in, then collective punishment becomes less efficient and even counter-productive.

But in a setting allowing feudal system (aka slow travel, slow communication, spread out population, labor-intensive food production), it's hard.
Not impossible but hard, as a "national" spirit cannot emerge if the "nation" is only a few autonomous collectivities.
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"The Walking Dead" has it about right. Lots of different forms of government in small communities will pop up, and if some are stronger or more aggressive, they will likely demand fealty from the others.

Lots of types of economy or government will work, until you factor in the raider class. This forces people to either create a soldier/defense class against the raiders, or give away all of their stuff to the raiders at the risk of their own survival.
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>>33999740
>making assumptions about the workings of your bullshit feudalistic fantasy
>despite not explaining how Jim gets his 100 vassals to begin with, just for being good at math
More holes than swiss cheese.
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>>34000028
To elaborate a bit though... Jim is already a king in your example, and in all likelihood he'd have been shot long before he gathered up 100 soldiers and enough non-combatants to supply them, to go around oppressing his neighbors with.

>>34000011
The walking dead assumes that most people have been killed by zombies, and its later seasons are widely considered to have jumped the shark when it comes to how bad things would get.

Not to mention that in the course of fighting the zombies, large amounts of munitions would have been expended
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>>34000028
Once upon a time, there was Jim.
Jim knew 100 of like-minded people before SHTF.
He was a popular guy, though not high on morality and shit.
After SHTF, he and his bros banded together and tried to make a living.
Not being farmers, they had to find a way to get food.

Looting abandonned Seven Eleven only got them so far.
They tried to settle in small farming communities but none would welcome heavily armed city-dudes with an unknown past.
Not when said dudes numbered nearly as many as the rest of the community.
Only option was to give up their guns so they'll be trusted.

Jim and most of his bros wouldn't give up their guns.

They had nothing to trade for food or shelter.
They were too lazy to work the fields.
But they had their guns... and the farmers didn't have many guns.

----------------

Historically, bands of bandits were just that most of the time :
Dudes with some martial experience that didn't have other attractive prospects of making a living... and then found it damn easy to just rob people.
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>>34000208
>I'm one of Jim's friends
>Jim tells me he's going to make himself a king
>I shoot him
The only realistic possibility is a military unit deciding to follow their commander into this bullshit, otherwise some chucklefuck with a lot of friends and math skills isn't making himself king. Because you can fucking bet that at least several of his friends have the same idea.

An oligarchy might be possible, but that just makes it easier for everyone else to force their way into the decision making.
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>>34000277
>I'm one of Jim's friends
>Jim tells me he's going to make himself a king
>I shoot him

You would.

Others of his friends might just go along with it because he is a cool dude and he proved he was leader material in the early days of SHTF.
The process can be more gradual and titles aren't even necessary.

But yeah, let's say you shoot him just because he said :
"-Hey guys !! Let's take the food we need from those farmers who will let us starve outside. We got more guns than them. We could rule that fucking region !! I got a plan. Follow me and..." *BANG*

Either your friends outright murder you (I mean... you killed one of them for little to no reason) or they'll just distrust you.
But one way or another, the group will need a leader and will need food.
There might be other ways than robbery to get it but given the group's assets, it looks pretty attractive.
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>>33987499
erm feudalism does not equal slavery, feudal farmers did have a wage because they werent "paid", they just kept an amount of the crops from the Lord's land, if they had enough from their own land they would sell said crops and thereby get money or whatever else they want
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>>34000357
>Others of his friends might just go along with it because he is a cool dude and he proved he was leader material in the early days of SHTF.
Here's the thing, that doesn't mean they're going to become a bunch of niggers, raping and looting anyone who doesn't bend the knee to Archduke Jim, or that they're going to follow his commands without question. They have no reason to, he doesn't own all the shit they find, he doesn't have all the guns, and they're just as likely to have a bunch of friends they can count on as well. And most people don't follow their friends blindly, and further would recognize that someone with so few ethics and morals is just as much a threat to them, as someone else.

Moreover, it was easier to hold a monopoly of force when sword and bow were still the primary method of killing people, as they took years of training to use proficiently. And while training improves one's skill with firearms, it's just as easy for a rag tag bunch of 'amateurs' to gather enough force of arms to oppose all but the most well equipped and disciplined of forces (which would again, be rogue military units, and not bands of raiders with dreams of grandeur).

And as for issues of pure survival, where you either raid that village or die, that's an entirely separate situation from the one you're describing. Jim isn't a king, he's a fucking bandit, and his friends aren't threatening the village with destruction because of HIS wants, but because of THEIR wants, which are primary focused on survival. Outside of situations where survival is literally a matter of life or death between you and another person, people aren't going to listen to Jim's asshole suggestions about who to extort for this or that.
>>
>>33989210
Yet before (when these factors were even worse) and concurrent with feudalism there were many alternative modes of govenment that worked fine and indeed worked better. Feudalism is not strength, it is weakness of the government, which has to surrender monopoly of force and wealth to outside forces in order to survive.

Feudalism worked because land was wealth and power. In a gun-owning society land is not wealth and power, industry is. Some African madman could force a feudalistic society through the barrel of gun and it would "work", right up to the point it was dirt poor with a worthless military and it gets wrecked by all the surrounding worthless militaries which are still a magnitude better simply because they don't have a basket-case of an economy.
>>
>>34000277
> otherwise some chucklefuck with a lot of friends and math skills isn't making himself king

Here's your problem : you assume those are the only qualities of Jim (or any other feudal lord).

See here :>>33989303
A warrior-class living out of what's basically protection racket would have to be led by more than a "guy good at maths with a lot of friends".
But yeah, being able to organize your people and manage their ressources and skills is definitely a plus.

You say only "a military unit" would behave with discipline... but if SHTF, people will band into small groups where discipline will be key to survival, which means not much different than a military unit, even if lacking the formal training and official hierarchy.

Said training can be replaced overtime with just experience :
Your average congolese militiamen have little to no military training and can hardly be called "soldiers" by modern standards but they still have enough common sense to obey their direct hierarchy because :
a) said hierarchy is making sure there's enough plunder to fil their bellies.
b) said hierarchy will shoot anyone who is too much of a insurbordinate fuck.

In the exemple of Jim, the (b) point wouldn't be enforced from the start for obvious reasons.
But if Jim is really the best leader material among his group, then there will be a point where him disciplining some of his own people won't be seen as a problem IF IT IS IN THE INTERESTS OF THE GROUP.

And the interests of the group is to get fed and sheltered while taking as little risk and toil as possible.
(cont)
>>
>>34000587
>A warrior-class living out of what's basically protection racket would have to be led by more than a "guy good at maths with a lot of friends".
A warrior class is only possible where one group can mopolize violence over the others, again firearms make this impossible.
>>
>>34000451
>Here's the thing, that doesn't mean they're going to become a bunch of niggers, raping and looting anyone who doesn't bend the knee to Archduke Jim, or that they're going to follow his commands without question. They have no reason to, he doesn't own all the shit they find, he doesn't have all the guns, and they're just as likely to have a bunch of friends they can count on as well. And most people don't follow their friends blindly, and further would recognize that someone with so few ethics and morals is just as much a threat to them, as someone else.

Oh yeah, sure, they won't follow blindly.

Could be a ton of reasons... like needing to get food while having no skill or ressources to trade for with the people who have the food.

And the process isn't a instant "bang !! long live the king !!" thing. It would slowly set in. Damn, Jim doesn't even have to be leader from start to end of said process or even to be acknowledge as a formal leader. He's just the face of the group.

>Here's the thing, that doesn't mean they're going to become a bunch of niggers, raping and looting anyone who doesn't bend the knee to Archduke Jim, or that they're going to follow his commands without question. They have no reason to, he doesn't own all the shit they find, he doesn't have all the guns, and they're just as likely to have a bunch of friends they can count on as well. And most people don't follow their friends blindly, and further would recognize that someone with so few ethics and morals is just as much a threat to them, as someone else.

Again, yes, most people would.
Others won't.

And even decent people can just set up a sort-of-feudal system for the best of reasons :
(cont)
>>
>>34000595
No, a warrior-class is possible as soon as a group has an overwhelming advantage in violence capacity over the other.

Even in middle age, you could carry weapons as a peasant (ok, not as a serf but you got the idea).
You couldn't carry a sword, obviously.
But you could have a axe, a spear or a bow and nobody would have a problem with it.

Monopoly of violence isn't necessary for a warrior-class and therefor for a feudal system.
The feudal system is simply a hierarchy of society, when you get down to it... which means some people hold power over others through the implied threath of violence.
Doesn't mean they are the only one who can do you harm... but it means they are able to do you A LOT of harm while suffering VERY LITTLE in return.
>>
>>34000657
(cont)

There might really BE a problem of looters around and maybe some communities did simply funded a militia of some sort.
Then the militia grew in size as more communities joined the effort.
Because communications and transports are still patchy, the militia decentralized command of operation to local garrisons.

As said garrison network and associated mobile reserves eventually form the closest thing to a centralized authority, "national" military command peacefully takes over from "local" civilian government... simply because there aren't much else than military (security ?) matters that are of common concerns for all the villages.
>>
>>34000701
Having a weapon wasn't enough in the middle ages. Peasants spent most of their time farming, while the warrior class spent most of their time training to fight, not to mention their weapons, even when of the same class, were still of higher quality, quantity, and had access to additional resources like warhorses and armor.

And monopoly of violence is essential for any feudal society, because the peasants aren't going to let you treat them like peasants if they have the choice to kill you instead.

You keep stacking assumptions on top of assumptions about this ridiculous theoretical feudal paradise you won't shut up about, and the biggest irony is it started off with a comment about how anything else is just communism... then the first example you give of King Jim's rights and powers as king, and his actions, is him redistributing the people's wealth as he sees fit.
>>
>>34000451
>And as for issues of pure survival, where you either raid that village or die, that's an entirely separate situation from the one you're describing. Jim isn't a king, he's a fucking bandit, and his friends aren't threatening the village with destruction because of HIS wants, but because of THEIR wants, which are primary focused on survival. Outside of situations where survival is literally a matter of life or death between you and another person, people aren't going to listen to Jim's asshole suggestions about who to extort for this or that.

Exactly !!
That's for a start.

But seriously, if you have the choice between :
- Waving a gun around and (maybe) sometime risk your health to put down some (largely) unarmed peasants
- Toiling eight hours a day in a field to feed your family

What would you choose ?
And keep in mind we are talking SHTF situation with :
- no more electricity
- no running water
- no freezer
- little to no medicine
- little to no long-range communications
- no supermarket and large-scale trade
- no large-scale fast transport

A good film to give an idea of the situations might be The Postman :
Basically, after SHTF, people tried to organized a civilized society and they eventually managed to do it.
But in the interval, warlords did emerge and rule in a quasi-feudal way.
>>
>>34000767
>And monopoly of violence is essential for any feudal society, because the peasants aren't going to let you treat them like peasants if they have the choice to kill you instead

And yet there WASN'T a monopoly of violence in the hand of the nobles during the middle age.

>Rest of the answer
But that's precisely my point : a feudal system wouldn't be a paradise.
But, as asked by OP, yes, I think it's likely such system would emerge in some areas... if only because protection racket is something very close to feudalism and it still exists today WHEN WE HAVE GUNS.
>>
All your verbal diarrhea can't disguise the fact that while anything's possible, feudalism is a really far-fetched and shit way to organize a post-smokeless powder society. It will last as exactly as long as a more sane society (which is basically anything, including a chrome-sniffing, hi-octane-worshipping cult) arrives and steamrolls it, even if it didn't manage to kill itself in its own stupidity.
>>
>>33984685
Leftstis are literally retarded, if CIA did anything to fuck with Venezuela it would be secretly being behind their government because it was their retarded policies that fucked the country.
>>
>>34000844

Holy fuck, the knights were professional WARRIORS not 'soldiers'. Who else had that kind of martial ability? The kind that you spend decades of your life doing battle and training and competing in SPORT fights.

Now who paid and fed them?

Yeah, thats what I thought go unfuck yourself.
>>
>>34000868
Feudalism IS a crappy way, yes !!
But people who set up such a system don't care so much about the overall socioeconomical efficiency as about "we don't have to work much and will live very well at the top".

And yes, it will eventually give way to something better once the conditions in my very first post are not met :

>- producing food was labor intensive (a lot of man-hours for little food), meaning most people are busy growing all of their own food and not have much surplus.
>- traveling (and transport) is difficult, preventing large-scale trade and reallocation of ressources and thus preventing highly centralized organization.
>- communications are lengthy, meaning directly managing vast territories is difficult, let alone defend them.

Once you can travel fast while transporting a lot of stuff, it is possible to create a really reactive security apparatus that depends a lot less on decentralization of authority.

Once you can communicate very fast over very long distance, said security apparatus can be commanded and coordinated in real-time (or close to it), which allow for a central political control over it.

Once most people aren't busy every day growing the food they need to eat, you have an excess of man-hours that can be pooled into other projects such as infrastructure and, from there, it snowballs quickly economically.

But between SHTF and that moment, there's a period where people will have to get by at a local level.
Any group with enough firepower and ruthlessness could just seize the opportunity to set themselves in a situation similar to the feudal systems of old.
The reasons why they would set it may vary but, in the end, it would just be because they could and because, once set, it was confortable while it lasted.
>>
>>34000962
Fun fact: throughout history, kings have always prefered mercenaries over their own knightly force. Some even went so far as to summon knights, take their wages, and use that to hire mercs.
>>
>>34001091
[citation needed]
>>
>>34000962
>Holy fuck, the knights were professional WARRIORS not 'soldiers'. Who else had that kind of martial ability? The kind that you spend decades of your life doing battle and training and competing in SPORT fights.

I don't see the word "soldiers" in the post you just quoted.

Still... knights were always in armor.
Not all nobles were knights.
And there were A LOT of people with martial experience that weren't noble.

Hence the "no monopoly of violence in the hands of the nobles".

Damn, fucking flemish merchants had their own troops and that's not even going into the various city-state "republics" in various parts of Europe.
There were whole mercenary companies who had not a single noble among them and yet had enough men to threathen whole regions.
Even disbanded armies had enough punch to disturb the royal authority in France.

As for who paid "them" :

- for knights... they paid themselves ?
It's a feudal system : you got a fief and the people working your field provide you with enough food and various form of revenues for you to focus on running that estate and doing your job as a knight.
You don't get a salary from your liege (though there were exceptions...).
You get a portion of the production from the land you're supposed to protect and administrate.
And you're supposed to protect it and administrate it because your liege was too far away to do so himself on a daily basis.

For the others, they were paid.
Partly in money, partly in food and commodities, partly in access to services and infrastructures.
Mercenaries would take money, mostly, along with a right to loot sometimes.
Early feudal armies would even be paid ONLY in loot (see early frank kingdoms, along with african kingdoms)
>>
>>34000984
So you're just going to ignore earlier times when
-producing food was even more labor intensice
- travelling was even more difficult
-communications was even more difficult
and feudalism didn't exist and was actually a downgrade from earlier forms of government.

Yeah, feudalism "can happen" in the same way that 100m tall mechs "can happen".
>>
>>34001131
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Adn2JCYnwRwC&pg=PA335&lpg=PA335&source=bl&ots=Chw3KlbAXU&sig=pzd7rHxY6X62sm0QO60mRfnlb7E&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiuh8GI0PrTAhUKKMAKHZuLCmYQ6AEIQTAE#v=onepage&q&f=false
The English doing this shit all the time was one of the reasons behind the Magna Carta. Not to mention scutage was eventually reduced to the wages of one mercenary. A majority of knights actually fighting were a flash in the pan, very quickly the holders of a knight's fee a would pay money instead of supplying soldiers.
>>
>>34001091
>>34001131

Not this anon but he is partially right :

Kings used knights and other levies because they were cheap (as in, they already administer your lands, they owe you a number of days of service per years anyway and you only have to pay them a small amount for when you muster them during those days)

But mercenaries ?
They were more reliable.
They carried little to no political bagage, had more actual warfare experience (they are professional soldiers, not just warrior/administrators) and were more disciplined... mostly because they had to if they wanted to be paid AFTER their services.
Also, once they weren't needed, they were (in theory at least) not a political problem.

Now, that doesn't mean they were perfect.
For one thing, they were expensive compared to feudal levies... and they could always betray you if paid to do so.

As soon as the 12th century, the French and Italians would use A LOT of mercenaries (though for France, it wasn't until the end of the 14th century that professional armies trumped feudal levies for good).
And in the HRE, it was a lucrative business too.
>>
How do gun-toting bandits manufacture ammunition in the post-apocalypse?
It took until the late 1800s for brass cases to be practical, and until even later for them to reach a point that they were usable in automatic weapons.
The same question applies to smokeless powder, machine parts, batteries, etc.
All modern technology is built on the shoulders of previous iterations of itself, and if anything were to happen to bring the house of cards down, all the really easy-to-obtain resources have already been exploited.
>>
>>34001143
>feudalism
>a downgrade

What are you, a fucking serf? Feudalism is an excellent form of societal organization for pre-industrial conditions. It might even be the best.
>>
>>33981366
There are no circumstances, read a fucking book for once in your life
>>
>>34001232
In a post-apocalyptic world it is quite possible that there would be no need to produce extremely complicated ites. A single discovered untouched warehouse could supply an good-sized settlement with everything they cannot make themselves. Depopulation is fun.
>>
>>34001232
Well, there still is a lot of resources in said collapsed house of cards, and once they run out, we might see a lot of people using homemade powder and casings.
>>
>>34001249
Laughing Romans, Chinese, Greeks, Carthaginians, steppe nomads.jpg
>>
>>34001143
If you mean the classical period, be careful :

Even the Roman used a form of feudalism through tax farming.
The difference that, instead of a long line of various fealty oaths through various noble titles up to a king, you had the governors and then the Roman State at the top.

Even before that, we got similar exemple all around the mediteranea of, tribes, city-states, kingdoms and empires paying tribute to each other for nothing else than to maintain peace... which is essentially what you pay to your liege in a feudal system : a "no spear in my face" tax.
>>
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>>34001312
Oh, in that case the modern state is also feudalism. After all, everybody pays land taxes in some form or another.
>>
>>34001312
Feudalism doesn't just involve paying tribute.You sure are stretching things mighty thin.
>>
>>34001232
They don't have to.
Not for the first decade at least.

And even after, as the guy in the farm, are you really going to shoot at them in the odd chance that they all run out of bullets ?

Still, you make a valid point :
With no industrial base around, modern guns won't be on the field for very long.

One can imagine that people would slowly lower the technological treshhold as needed.
While the series was average at best after the first season, Revolution had a nice way to show it.
>>
>>34001364
It's a gradual process but at its core, it's a relation of power :

I let you run this territory without pillaging it.
In exchange, you give me something.
>>
>>33996830
It's a dimensionless ratio. Energy produced / Energy used for production.
>>
>>34001347
Sure... but modern states don't let you run your own territory without looking much into it.
Even more so, they do not let you tax the people who live on say territory as you please.
>>
>>34000887
Actually the CIA was definitely behind the 2002 attempted coup in Venezuela, since it used all the same tactics as they did in Chile, and the Bush whitehouse was already congratulating the 'liberator' before things were even over.

Also the guy they had earmarked to take over had, at the time, been responsible for many more deaths than Chavez.
>>
>>34001406
Feudalism is soldiers for land. And some other baggage. I doubt you would find even one reputable historian willing to describe thegreat classical states as unequivocally feudal.
>>
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>>34001312
>Republican Rome was feudalism.

>>34001421
Neither did the feudalistic states.
>>
>>34001465
Fine, but that doesn't absolve Chavez and his sucessor from their retardation, also Chavez himself attempted a coup once, that's just how things roll there.
>>
>>34001467
>Feudalism is soldiers for land. And some other baggage
How would you describe the relation between the Roman State and the various client-states that sent them foederati and similar ?

I agree with you that this is not "unequivocally" feudal but the core idea is the same :
We let you run your land in exchange for alliegeance, military assistance and some other duties.

Feudalism, in some places, has another primary focus than soldiers.
It is a way for an organization, be it a family or a state, to extend its rule beyond what it can effectively control directly.

In Persia, India, Pakistan, Nepal, for exemple, there has been periods were it was a matter of taxation through what was indirect hereditary governorship :
Your family would be granted a land from your lord and you were expected to come up with periodic flat amounts.
As long as you didn't go to far away from the lord's laws, that you could pay the Treasury in time and that the people didn't revolt, you had free reign.
>>
>>33996684
Fuck wealth distribution, if you're too dumb to make money then too bad for you
>>
>>33994812
But the church isn't about wealth and money, it was included to insure the protection of morality in government.
>>
>>33988795
Was it "Empty"?
>>
>>34001689
What is this stupidity? Tributary states is not feudalism. Paying money for land is not feudalism.
>>
>>34004424
Nope, 'World Made by Hand'.
Is 'Empty' any good?
>>
>>34004818
>This is not exactly like French and English feudalism so it cannot be feudalism !!!
>REEEEEEEE !!!

Please provide your exact definition of what is feudalism.
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