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Insane post. Totally disagree.

Posted by mark194 on 2024-April-9 14:31:08, Tuesday
In reply to yes, social mobility is a terrible thing posted by kit on 2024-April-9 05:45:10, Tuesday

Not sure how tongue-in-cheek this is, but I'm just going to respond seriously. If you are joking, egg on my face, I guess.

and which accorded them a purpose in life and a measure of dignity.

I don't see how working the fields on your lord's land affords you more dignity, or more purpose, than, say, flipping burgers at McDonalds. It doesn't seem to me like the serfs had much dignity at all: they spent their lives toiling away at menial labor, and socially, they were considered inferior to the lords. And, as far as purpose, is slaving away at growing crops that your lord is just going to take most of really all that fulfilling? It seems to me like flipping burgers or whatever would be just as fulfilling, if not more so; at least you earn money that you get to keep.

he rich man in his castle (as the hymn has it) knew both the undeservedness of his position and his moral indebtedness to the poor man at his gate

Does it really matter if the rich man in his castle knew these things, if he let the poor man at his gate live in poverty anyway?

This organic social structure was profoundly upset by the advent of industrial capitalism

Wouldn't this social structure have been upset earlier, by mercantilism and whatnot during the renaissance? Did social structures not change at all during the 400 or so years between the sunset of feudalism and the advent of industrial capitalism?

material inequalities ballooned beyond the imagination of our pre-modern ancestors.

If you think significant material inequality is bad, I don't see why you'd be in favor of feudalism, where a select few owned what would now be millions of dollars worth of land and others owned literally nothing.

The toxicity of the liberal capitalist doctrine of merit

I mean, I would agree that it's toxic, and inaccurate, to say that the failures of the poor and the successes of the rich are due entirely to personal virtues or failings, but I don't think "The poors should just know their place" is the answer.

(unified, ideally, by shared obligations to God and to each other)

What exactly do you mean by "shared obligations"? Because to me, "I own all the land, and I'll let you live on it as long as you give me all your crops" doesn't sound like a system of obligation that would bring people together liek you're suggesting it would.

"Crush capitalism; restore feudalism!"

Why stop at that level of delusion? We could go back even further and restore the days of living in tribes and hunting and gathering for survival. This way, there'd be even more unity and mutual obligation.

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