Winter Is Coming - America's Transition To a Feudal Economic System

America is on the verge of catastrophic decline. Alright, what exactly does that mean? In this presidential campaign it is clear many Americans believe this, but it is also clear that, depending on your world view, and political persuasion, this dire warning is based on different perceptions of what is wrong with our society, and reflects different expectations of how our country should look in the future.  

I agree with Senator Bernie Sander's focus on the role Wall Street banks have assumed in our society, and his focus on the relationship wealth and corporations have with our federal government. 

"The problem is, corporations and the wealthy control what happens in Washington."

That is why we are no longer a socially mobile society. That is why the 400 wealthiest people in the country own more wealth than the bottom 150 million. That is why incomes have been stagnant for over 30 years. 

I googled the statement above, one which I've heard Bernie say many times in stump speeches and television interviews, and here were the results: 

About 105,000,000 results (0.94 seconds) 

How Corporate Lobbyists Conquered American Democracy ... www.theatlantic.com/business/.../04/...corporate.../390822/ The Atlantic Apr 20, 2015 - Business didn't always have so much power in Washington. ... and its typical problem not the influencing of Congressional votes but finding the .... Young, rich tech engineers are investing their millions differently than the rest of .... Virgin Islands, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Who Rules America: Wealth, Income, and Power - UCSC.edu www2.ucsc.edu/.../power/wealth.htm... University of California, Santa Cruz This document presents details on the wealth and income distributions in the ..... of wealth, such as stock ownership, can be used to control corporations, .... tax issues from its offices in Washington since 1979, provides the information we need. ..... the three or four CEOs from other companies who will make sure it happens. 

Who Rules America: The Class-Domination Theory of Power www2.ucsc.edu/.../class_domination.... University of California, Santa Cruz Members of this upper class control corporations, which have been the primary ... institutions, are able to dominate the federal government in Washington. The rich, and corporate leaders, nonetheless claim to be relatively powerless. ... We know it means "clout" or "juice" or "muscle" or "the ability to make things happen. 

America is an oligarchy, not a democracy or republic ... www.washingtontimes.com/.../americas-oligarchy... The Washington Times Apr 21, 2014 - ... who exert total control over the general population — an oligarchy, ... One finding in the study: The U.S. government now represents the rich and powerful, not the ... which pitted the corporate overclass against debt reduction efforts. ... fix the problem except distort the unemployment numbers and refuse to ... 

The rich and the rest | The Economist www.economist.com/node/21564418 The Economist Oct 13, 2012 - Washington's superzips are full of the rich: people in the top 5% of the income ... How this happened is a story in three acts. ... In primary and secondary schools the problems are partly financial but mainly organisational. .... The wealthy, in this logic, control the political system and rig it to their advantage. 

Stacked Deck: How the Dominance of Politics by the Affluent ... 
www.demos.org/stacked-deck-how-dominance-politics-affluent-b... Demos However, each of these problems was mentioned as the most important by only 11%, ... Only 19% of the wealthy say that the government in Washington ought to “see to ... taxes—with strong support from wealthy voters and corporate interests. ..... which helped secure GOP control of the House of Representatives, as well as ... 

Who rules America? | TheHill thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/civil.../214857-who-rules-americ... The Hill Aug 12, 2014 - The analysts found that rich individuals and business-controlled interest ... University, examined survey data on 1,779 national policy issues for which they ... in Washington and to fill the campaign coffers of political candidates. .... the government takes from us and gives to the wealthy and corporations. But ... 

Goodbye Middle Class - Washington's Blog www.washingtonsblog.com › Business / Economics Oct 21, 2015 - How will most of us make a living when that happens? ... I do not believe that it is wise to pin your future on a corporation that could ... of living, but would avoid a much larger problem down the road. ... Extreme wealth accompanies extreme poverty. ...... You know, who does control the money supply? 

Wealth and Generations - The Washington Monthly www.washingtonmonthly.com/.../wealth_and_gene... Washington Monthly Yet there is a big problem with that conclusion: these are not the same people! ... What happens when we use statistics that treat these very different people as if they .... But for today's prime-age men, corporate downsizing, low wages, obsolete job .... do rest squarely within the realm of political economy and public control. 

How the cult of shareholder value wrecked American business https://www.washingtonpost.com/.../how-the-cult-of-s...The Washington Post Sep 9, 2013 - The Washington Post .... While it was this new “market for corporate control,” as economists like to call it, ... One practical problem is that it's not clear which shareholders it is whose interests the corporation is supposed to optimize. ... who as it happened created more wealth for more shareholders than any ... 

Clearly, social science communities all over America have been investigating this problem. This of course includes economists.

This image was taken from a Huffington Post article titled Is American Economic Growth Over? (Thoughts on Robert Gordon's New Book)  




I first heard about the new book by Robert Gordon titled The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War in a PBS Newshour segment by +Paul Solman. 

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The best days of American are behind us because the United States will not see technological advances that will fuel economic growth and broad prosperity on the level of

any one of the five Great Inventions that powered economic growth from 1870 to 1970: electricity, urban sanitation, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, the internal combustion engine and modern communication.

That summation of Professor Gordon's thesis was made in +Paul krugman's review of the book. Robert Gordon's argument was so compelling to Gregory Clark that he titled the critique he delivered of the book at the Annual American Economic Association meeting this year in San Francisco Winter Is Coming: The Future of Technological Advance. 

Yes, the title was a reference to George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones. 

I titled it that way because I was struck when I looked at the future of the U.S. economy, how much it was going to resemble the medieval economy in terms of the types of jobs that people now are doing. Gardening. Food preparing. Serving. Cleaning. Brick laying. Carpentry. You can get someone from 1400, put them on the job and in two hours they'd be perfectly functional.

This is one view of how America's decline will look. But I believe the truly feudal nature of our governance will be related to the lack of social mobility and the increasing dominance of a smaller and smaller number of individuals in this country.