Mutated Feudal America
FACT: To be part of present "Civilized Society" you have to have money yourself or access to someone willing to pay on your behalf.
This fact didn't really press on me until a few years ago when I started making an effort to minimize my dependency on money. It made me more aware of money's impact on society, and its politics; how even maintaining your ability to prove you're you, costs money.
It made me realize we're living in a mutated version of Feudalism.
As a born and raised American, I can only speak truly for the observations in my country, though I don't doubt you can find these correlations everywhere.
The Government are our Lords, to whom we pay taxes and rely on for protection of our lands (country); though we, the Surfs, do not give up our personal, individual goods, we're tasked with joining the working class to keep the profit wheels spinning on the fruits of our collective labors and skills; not doing so is the equivalent of being part of the dregs/worthless class.
The Corporate leaders are the Kings and Confidants who move the Lords like pawns to maintain their claims and financial strength-- even military strength.
These Kings and Confidants conquer laws like land, manipulating gains in their favor by any means necessary. Playing the Surfs like peasant fools fed only the information needed to fuel the cause-- save the few independents who seek the all-truth. Some Lords fight it but how much sway can the Lords have when they rely on the Kings and Confidants to maintain their station?
The Surfs are lead to believe their support matters in the decisions of Lords, Kings and Confidants... but as individuals such support or lack of support means nothing. The Surfs remain hard working peasants fighting to obtain the luxury and wealth they see in those stationed above them. They are the majority but balancing the every-day woes of such a class leave little time to take note, much less set aside the differences for the sake of the similarities in goals-- to band together and change a nation, their nation.
The Surfs who do know, are aware and speak up to educate the others, are often persecuted like Protestants fighting Catholic rule in the 16th Century. As if their claims or actions are treasonous...
In this mutated version of Feudalism, the Kings and Confidants do not rule out in the open, they fill the ranks of an umbrella of companies and their subsidiaries all employing the working class and providing them goods the Lords deem fit, at the behest of said Kings and Confidants-- those who have influence on the Kings and their inner circles.
The peasants are usually the last to know the all-truth of any given situation, and often do their best not to disrupt the current balance and make things harder than they already are-- failing to realize they're otherwise already on a slow decline giving a portion of their lives and well being to the Kings and Confidants every time they buy their products, use their services and/or accept what they say and do as the all-truth.
These Surfs may not have their houses and land burned down but they get foreclosed, evicted and just as ruined for decades to come. Lords in this regard, aren't much different, often having families to threaten, titles to strip and favors to take back as punishment; when execution isn't covertly ordered sometimes as easily as a Surf, though rarely in as high a number.
As the lowest rung of the social-economic ladder, this working class of people take the brunt of the bad in the way shit runs down hill. They may live beyond their means because they've grown up believing they have to appear ready for where they want to be before they get there. Indebted they're at the mercy of the Lords and their chain of command. Slaves to the wage standards of worth set by the Lords and their High-Minded overseers.
For perspective... the only constant, the control factor between all three tiers in this scenario is time.
TIME
24 hours a day, 120 hours for a 5 day week, sleeping 8 hours a day (40 hrs a 5 day week) leaving 80 waking hours of time per person.
A person, a low-end Surf if you will, paid the minimum wage of $7.25 and hour, is likely to sell at least 40, half, of their waking hours to the holdings of the Kings and Consorts, just to make the proverbial ends meet. A mere $290 a week, before paying taxes, insurance and securities to the Lords of their country.
On such wages for their time, they may work for more than one proprietor the full extent of their waking hours to provide for themselves, their families, and or to maintain previously stated appearances in reach for more than they have. A whole $580 a five day week, before paying their Lord-commanded-dues.
The Kings, Confidants and Lords who do care for the Surfs they financially live so far away from, often barely blip the radar field full of those who'd kill thousands of the Surfs just to boost their coffers, and start a war to pave the path to invasion. Making it difficult for the Surfs to even know they have such support, and harder still for those Supporters to navigate the mine-field of selfish will, finance, and influence determined to maintain underhanded control.
It's a grim world, one that will require the collective efforts and awareness, of the majority, to change it.
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