The socioeconomic gap between the top earners and the remainder of the population has expanded dramatically in the past few decades. Social scientists have been examining this issue from several theoretical and empirical perspectives. Recently, the observation that the extent and type of current global inequality is paralleling that of medieval feudalism is gaining a foothold. This essay examines this theme through two major and recent publications that, I argue, sacrifice the scientific value of the parallel with the feudalist economy in favor of political mobilization.
KotkinJ (2023) The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. New York: Encounter Books.
9.
LazonickWShinJS (2019) Predatory Value Extraction: How the Looting of the Business Corporation Became the US Norm and How Sustainable Prosperity Can Be Restored. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
10.
PikettyT (2014) Capital in the Twenty First Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
11.
PolanyiK (2001) The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
12.
ThompsonEP (1993) Customs in Common: Studies in Traditional Popular Culture. New York: The New Press.
13.
VaroufakisY (2024) Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism. New York: Melville House.
14.
WeilD (2014) The Fissured Workplace: Why Work Became So Bad for So Many and What Can Be Done to Improve It. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
15.
WuT (2018) The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age. New York: Columbia Global Reports.