By Daisy Luther
What does the future hold for average people?
Feudalism.
And they’ll welcome it with open arms, convinced that they are embracing a smart, fair system that eliminates poverty. The greed, entitlement, and lack of ambition that seems inherent in many people today will have them slipping on the yoke of servitude willingly.
Here’s what I mean.
Have you ever been around people who say things like,
“I can’t afford it, but I deserve it…”
“Having [fill in the blank with a material object] is a basic right…”
“Losing that right is okay with me because it’s for the greater good.”
But the thing is, what we “deserve” is the right to pursue our dreams freely.
- We deserve what we earn.
- We deserve to be secure in our life, liberty, and property.
- We deserve the freedom to go about our lives and decisions as long as we aren’t harming the life, liberty, and property of others.
No one owes us anything other than that.
But quite a few people are ready to give up their freedom so that someone else can take care of them.
A lot of people disagree with that list of rights.
They feel like they deserve a living just for drawing breath. As Gawker’s headline reads, “A Universal Basic Income Is the Utopia We Deserve.”
The idea of a universal basic income for all citizens has been catching on all over the world. Is it too crazy to believe in? We spoke to the author of a new book on the ins, outs, and utopian dreams of making basic income a reality.The basic income movement got a significant boost this week when the charity GiveDirectly announced that it will be pursuing a ten-year, $30 million pilot project giving a select group of Kenyan villagers a basic income and studying its effects. As an anti-poverty solution, universal basic income appeals to impoverished people in Africa, relatively well-off Scandinavians, and Americans automated out of their jobs alike.
Sure, money for nothing sounds great on the surface.
But what would the real result of a Universal Basic Income be?
Feudalism. Serfdom. Enslavement.
UBI would fast track us back to the feudalism of the Middle Ages. Sure, we’d be living in slick, modern micro-efficiencies instead of shacks. We’d have some kind of modern job instead of raising sheep for the lord of the manor.
But, in the end, we wouldn’t actually own anything because private property would be abolished for all but the ruling class. We’d no longer have the ability to get ahead in life. Our courses would be set for us and veering off of those courses would be harshly discouraged.
People will be completely dependent on the government and ruling class for every necessity: food, shelter, water, clothing. What better way to assert control than to make compliance necessary for survival?
(If you’re like me and a life of serfdom is not the future you want, you have to take your independence into your hands. Go here for a bundle of self-reliance downloads, absolutely free, to help you do just that.)
Here’s a quick glimpse at peasant life in the Middle Ages, for comparison’s sake.
The period of history from the 5th to the 15th century was known as the Middle Ages. During this time, the law of the land in Europe was the “feudal system.” This system was the manner in which the upper 10% (the nobility) controlled the lower 90% (the serfs or peasants).
It is estimated that just over 90% of the population of Europe were peasants. Most peasants were basically slaves. They were provided with a small shelter on an inferior piece of land and the “protection” of the noble in charge of that area. In return, they worked for the estate, farming the land with no recompense, paying taxes and having no control over their lives. Some peasants were “free” and had small businesses: blacksmiths, carpenters, bakers, etc. They paid for the protection of the “Lord” with money, goods, and services.
Peasants had few rights. They could be taxed at any time, were obligated to use (and pay for) services of the manor like mills or large ovens, and had to request permission for marriages, change of locations or educating their children.
Each year, the peasant was required to give the best part of his harvest to the lord of the manor. The peasants were not allowed to own things that made their lives easier, like oxen or horses, for example. A peasant did not own the land on which he lived and was therefore obligated to live where he was told, grow what he was told, and farm in the manner in which he was told. They were not allowed to hunt on the lord’s land – poaching was an offense punishable by death. They were not permitted to cut trees for firewood but forced to gather fallen branches to stay warm. A peasant was not allowed to have real, effective weapons – those were reserved for the armies of the nobility, to keep the peasants in line and immediately quell any quest for dignity and independence.
Most of the peasants seemed content with the arrangement because they received security and safety from the Lord. He was obligated to protect them from marauders and barbarians and provide enough land for subsistence. (Learn more about feudalism here.)
People will be trapped into servitude because they feel entitled to a lifestyle.
Over the past years, the education has drummed a sense of entitlement into students. And now, world leaders are counting on using that feeling of entitlement to march society willingly right into a tiny gilded cage.
The World Economic Forum is held yearly in Davos, Switzerland. It is at this meeting where a couple thousand of the world’s top economic and political leaders meet to plot our future.
If you think I’m crazy for the comparison between UBI and serfdom, wait until you see this year’s vision for our future.
Ida Auken, a Danish politician who is a contributor to the World Economic Forum, doesn’t believe we should own things. She doesn’t stop at personal possessions, though. She believes we should eschew privacy in our homes, that cash is unnecessary, and that even our thoughts and dreams are not really ours. You can read about her idea of a perfect future in an article for the Annual Meeting of the Global Futures Council titled “Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better.”
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In her article, Auken idealizes feudalism, and the kinds of people who believe they “deserve” certain entitlements, like the UBI will welcome this loss of individuality and freedom with open arms.
Watch the video below. I couldn’t make this up if I tried.
For more information about a futuristic feudal society, watch the documentary Obsolete, available for free with an Amazon Prime membership.
Daisy is a coffee-swigging, gun-toting, homeschooling blogger who writes about current events, preparedness, frugality, and the pursuit of liberty on her websites, The Organic Prepper and DaisyLuther.com, where this article first appeared. She is the author of 4 books and the co-founder of Preppers University, where she teaches intensive preparedness courses in a live online classroom setting. You can follow her on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.
I think your view is too Black & White!
Raising Social Security to a sustainable level is important to raise basic quality of life, hense a better state of well being. It is an earned assurance.
Living in shacks, poverty doesn’t necessarily inspire those on wellfare including those unable to work, strive for a better life. It does insure a deeper class divide that impedes the social abilities to rise above the disconnect.
All the gray area in between is resolved by man’s nature to create, compete, learn & improve the quality of life for ourselves, loved ones & others we touch.
The problem is the system is designed by Democrats that didn’t want blacks to assimilate. Rehabilitating Liberal Democrats would be more productive!
Consider, Marx omits or ignores that creditors/savers are by defacto haves, and debtors/spenders are by defacto have nots…
Further consider Socialism has been an advocacy for public-private partnerships since Otto Von Bismark catalyzed Bismarkian Policies by public-private partnerships.
Public-Private Partnerships are the catalyst to both Wealth Effect and Wealth Redistribution.
Historically, governmental fiefdoms is the foundation of Oligarchy, public-private partnerships Kleptocracy, and public-private mergers advocated by national socialism being the foundation of Plutocracy. Long established Plutocracy’s become Aristocracy.
Absolute Authority as Authoritarianism/Totalitarianism is parallel to an Absolute Monarchy.
Historically:
Oligarchy=Barons/Lordships
Kleptocracy=Nobles
Plutocracy=Royalty.
Try not to focus on the paradigm as much as the historical significance of political maneuvering for the benefit of political expediency that results in historical figures and statistics…
The UBI is designed to prevent revolution. If you can’t buy food, transportation, or housing, because you can’t get employment your going to revolt. If too many people start thinking the same thing at the same time you have a major problem. The UBI will keep the masses happy. It might even work IF government, regulations, and taxes are reduced at the same time. You would have to transition to a sound money as well, because it would bankrupt a debt based money system.
The author is making all the wrong assumptions – that people wouldn’t seek work or start up their own small business if they had a basic guaranteed income; that the ideal of owning a home or whatever would disappear; that people are generally lazy, etc.
Fact is, that paid jobs are disappearing and that this trend will accelerate in the near future. THAT would lead to serfdom, as those without jobs would be willing to sell their organs, their daughters or themselves for a cup of rice.
How does the author propose society should adapt to the inevitability of our no jobs future?
Decades ago, some clever people already foresaw this future scenario where the world would and could be run by around 20 percent of the people, while 80 percent would be out of work – cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Global_Trap
There IS a case for the UBI, even from a libertarian perspective:
https://www.cato-unbound.org/2014/08/04/matt-zwolinski/pragmatic-libertarian-case-basic-income-guarantee
If we don’t need much labor anymore to produce what we need, great. But why should 20% work, and the others free-ride? Split up the work so everyone will do a little.
All those things peasants were not allowed or had to ask permission for is already here, like weapon limitations and permission to marry, private asset forfeiture, toll roads and every move/action regulated and or licensed. Not a problem for the oligarchs though.
You deserve what you earn ? so the ultra wealthy deserve their wealth ? rubbish ! The universal basic income (UBI) is not a “courtesy” of the rich in exchange for obedience like in feudalism, it is the just sharing of the PIB between us all.
Why should ambition and greed and capital be rewarded, are you so attached to those so-called american “values” ? the UBI has nothing to do with the abolition of property or the replacement of property with services or with ueberisation, that’s the capitalist way, that is what is already occuring. The UBI can go a neo-marxist way and will free the humanity from the burden of servile work for a corporation, giving time and freeing minds for a new age of creativity and true social links (instead of the virtual pseudo-links proposed by the internet giants of the military industrial complex like arshbook or googueule)
THANK YOU for bringing this article back around to today’s world. We aren’t peasants and never will be. That doesn’t mean there aren’t trade offs–there always are. Bottom line…we could make this work.
“You deserve what you earn ? so the ultra wealthy deserve their wealth ? rubbish!”
Anyone who have lawfully made their wealth in consensual relations with others have earned it.
99% of whom paid off government agency welfare employees for the public wealth contracts that made them wealthy, or paid off corrupt politicians for laws that made them wealthy, etc. etc. Let’s not be naive when our the freedom of future generations is totally at stake. In the past 25 years, we’ve seen the Middle Class eliminated, or weren’t you looking?
Your undocumentable “99%” claim is not proof of anything and if corruptable state employees facilitate the problem as you claim, then state is the problem, not the guy with the wallet. “Christian” also didn’t narrow his “the wealthy” label down to your “health care provider” niche. Stop altering the statements of others to help them rake their chestnuts out of the fire.
Like you know anything about how 99% of “the rich” made their money. Your undocumentable claim is not proof of anything and if corruptable state employees facilitate the problem as you claim, then violence monopolizing state enforcing for oligarchy via order-following automatons is the problem, not the guy with the wallet.
This is a blog forum, not a thesis. I am always happy for those who work hard or create great and reap the benefits, but that’s not what I was talking about based on how the .01% make the big bucks, and I think you must know that cheap labor also is key to profit making. If getting Congress or State legislatures to pass tax breaks and credits wasn’t profitable to the rich, then why do so many of the rich pay to play?
I know, but it doesn’t mean people can just throw around wild claims and not have to deliver. I am not saying that SOME rich people do not bribe officials, of course they do, I’m saying the guy with the wallet is not the bigger problem, the one taking the bribe and thus abusing state power to the detriment of the people is.
The Clintons and their foundation with it’s “pay to play” principle is a great example here. If oligarchs can manage to pay their way into using the US army as their own private baseball bat against the rest of the world to have their way and state officials take the money and so reduce the state to nothing more than a transparent tool of organized monopolised violence for the payers’ own ends, the corrupted party and their statist gang of order-followers is the bigger problem, not “the rich guy”. Don’t forget how the FED came into being: corrupt officials in congress passing the FED-bill in clear violation of the constitution after nearly all the non-corrupt officials in congress had gone on Christmas holiday.
I think it’s rather clear what the main problem is. Criminal politicians and an apathetic population who cannot be driven to give a damn large-scale even if their own lives depended on it. Nasty minded oligarchs are powerless with the state, until someone takes the money and starts to act in servitude. As long as there is centralized power with monopolized violence at the hands of mindless order-followers centralized in state, this will always be a problem. Collectivism as a political paradigm has to go or doom is inevitable.
Yes, we are “on the same page” with respect to most of what you write. The Clinton’s Pay to Play schemes were the most visible of the world of corruption and bribery, all made possible when the US Supreme Court sanctified bribery in their famous decision Citizens United making it Free Speech. There are other such cases coming out of this current SCOTUS. Since bribery is legitimate as Free Speech, then all politicians will follow suit, so the folks most responsible for this easy climate of corruption are the justices/judges.
Statistics show as many as 80% of the Fortune 500 paying little to no taxes, and the amount of corporate profits the remain offshore and not subject to taxation exceed $4 Trillion. 40 years ago, chief executives in corporations seldom made over $1 Million/year. Care to check out how much of corporate revenues goes into the pockets of executives? 40 years ago there were dozens of lobbyists. Today there are hundreds and hundreds. Who is buying who? I read that if a corporation that uses bribes, oops I mean Free Speech, to get what they want doesn’t make 130% return on their money spent or more, then they consider it a failed bribe.
Name me one state that generally abides by the principle “do not do unto others what you would not like done unto yourself”.
Money kept away from criminal states is money these can’t spend on (war)criminality and general despotism against the population of the land.
They are all involved in large-scale racketeering and ponzi scheming and they all operate by general mafia conduct. The most common cause of death among humanity is democide – death by state and this is only possible with tax revenue used to pay order-followers and other forms of state employed henchmen. This is all possible because people have accepted the notion of “the god state”; the state who’s employees are exempted from the law that all other citizens have to obey.
The overwhelming majority of humanity is caught up in a massive stockholmsyndromistic relationship with the state-employed of the world. Free your mind, stop feeding the malignant parasitic servant class and their rulers.
You may be right that Oligarchic wealth in many cases is gained by crime and corruption however all Communist redistribution and Feudal U.B.I. is a trap for fools as outlined above.
Re: comments here: The Borg is alive and well.
I’ll agree with first 2 things we deserve but when one accumulates much more money (power) than his neighbor, the basic instinct among those types is to use that power to deny the first 2 things to others and then to control them and move forcefully against the next accumulator to take his stuff. There is already enough resources in the world to provide food, clothing, shelter, education and entertainment for all. Once these basic NEEDS are met, then we can promote the things that will produce a more perfect union. The worship of the unbridled accumulation of power and things is the worship of evil.
Entertainment? Really?
Absolutely! The Devil finds work for idle hands and minds.
Globalism (so-called free trade) has served only the corporations and government lackeys who have their stocks in those corporations.
Perhaps buy the book on Amazon and read it to gain a real understanding of its general gist.
No.
UBI for some is feudalism. UBI for all is feudalism where everyone’s royalty. It’s not for nothing that in a democracy, the people are supposed to be the sovereign.
But yeah, people deserving access to nature and our societal inheritance, where would we get if that was a reality? Even if they can’t ‘pay’ for it?
Wait, pay who for that? You say you want a UBI for some but not all, derived from unearned incomes that people need to pay when they want to access things they could reason to freely use, in a less coercive society?
Whether people will be trapped because they feel entitled to ‘a lifestyle’, or be sovereigns, because they feel entitled to the wealth of this planet and our forefathers, that’s something time will tell. A UBI is essential as expression of the individual’s sovereignty in democracy, either way. Ideally much more than a UBI. But hey you gotta start somewhere.
tl;dr: people are, and should feel, entitled to much more than a petty lifestyle, today.
People are entitled to be making economic micro and macro decisions, to properly express to each other what is societally beneficial. How else would we figure out what it societally beneficial, what jobs should pay a lot and what should go away? It’s in this free market process, that is only enabled by the presence of people who can spend money, that an ever more productive future lies for mankind. And in people who understand their duty to demand sovereignty, in such a process. Both as providers of the incomes of each other, and as the people who deliver on that customer spending, as one sees fit to capture such opportune incomes.
“We deserve what we earn.
We deserve to be secure in our life, liberty, and property.
We deserve the freedom to go about our lives and decisions as long as we aren’t harming the life, liberty, and property of others.”
Just curious, how do you get to obtain property to begin with? Put your name tag on something where nobody thought of putting a name tag yet? Original appropriation sure is fun, if you come first.
It’s worse now than feudalism already. Many people can’t even “work the land” because they live in a box with no land to grow food on for themselves but they still have to pay taxes. Try growing food in your small yard if you have one and it’s either toxic already from lawn chemicals or they fine you and tell you youre not allowed.
I have a basic right to water. Do you think that is unreasonable or selfish? I can’t legally collect rainwater though, even though it’s toxic crap. I have a basic right to not be poisoned. Is that unreasonable? I don’t get that right though. I walk outside, breathe the air and I’m poisoned, just like that, from all the toxic crap evrrywhere, like vented laundry chemicals, weed killers and chemtrails.
We do have some “basic rights.” Money is not one of them but we are already being denied many.
I disagree that money is not a basic right, because in the past we could have taken everything we needed from nature, but we have been pretty much robbed of that right. The idea that you have to get everything you need via money and work has been around only for a very short time in human history.
Money may be a newer thing, but work is not new. People have always had to work to survive. Go out to the wilderness and see how long you can live without working.
I know, but “working” in the wilderness is different to having to work a job where you can easily be fired and be expected to do XYZ in a precise time and way. Also depending on which kind of work you do, the kind of things you can have are dictated by the amount of money you make, and often its not even enough to be comfortable. Whereas working in the wilderness, you work to get exactly what you need and do not have to go via money.
I detest the modern way of working to be honest.
I am not saying we did not always have to do some form of work, but this new style of work is a very recent thing in human history.
Have you ever watched Life Below Zero? There are some people on that programme living a somewhat modern day version of what Im taking about, and I can see why its better in a lot of ways.
I’m living without plumbing right now in winter and no woodstove, very minimal electricity, not enough to run my oven. I’m constantly trying to get work done before cold/dark, struggling to wash dishes clothes in cold water, my hands turning red from cold because laundrimats are too toxic for my asthma, digging plumbing ditches and holes to crap in out in the woods in the snow and I can tell you that you are spoiled and ignorant due to your luxurious lifestyle of perfumed shampoo, refrigeration and instant hot water.
There is no guarantee a hunter will succeed. No guarantee that crops will not fail. No guarantee EVER in life. There has never been a guarantee and never will be.
“No one owes us anything other than that.” Wrong. We used to be able to hunt and gather whatever we wanted from nature, and have security in the sense that nature would provide for us anything that we needed, but that security has been gradually taken from us. It has come to pass that certain individuals and organisations have claimed they are now the sole owners of the land, which is impossible since it was there before there were even any humans so either allow us to take whatever we needed from nature for free or give us compensation.
“We deserve what we earn.
We deserve to be secure in our life, liberty, and property.
We deserve the freedom to go about our lives and decisions as long as we aren’t harming the life, liberty, and property of others.”
Just curious, how do you get to obtain property to begin with?
Put your name tag on something where nobody thought of putting a name tag yet?
Original appropriation sure is fun, if you come first.
To me, it seems like the fast track to an injust system is to talk about having to earn things from a small group of people who never earned a significant portion of what they own.
I have to wonder how one’s supposed to be free in their life, and free to go about their life and decisions without harming the property of others, if all of nature and a lot of idea space is pre-owned for no philosophically consistent reason?
To pick up on this again:
“We deserve what we earn.”
Who do we earn what from? Access to nature and our societal inheritance is something we arguably earn as a birthright, since we’re equal enough people to support the notion that we all could appropriate such, devoid of others who put their name on such in a prior process without there being representation of our interests when that happened.
If we have to somehow ‘earn’ access to such from other people first, then one has to wonder who those other people are and why they are extra entitled to own things that used to be freely available to all, at a point in time.