Acceso usuarios
Daniel Burnfin
A growing number of voices have proposed to understand the contemporary political-economic order by comparison with feudalism. Critics like Evgeny Morozov, meanwhile, object that the talk about “neofeudalism” is confused, because it’s still just the same old capitalism. In what follows, I’ll examine the views of Michael Hudson, who has for years spoken convincingly of “neofeudalism,” of J.W. Mason, who criticizes Hudson’s view, and of Evgeny Morozov, who only mentions it in passing.1 I won’t be able to prove that any view of “neofeudalism” is right, but only that, if it’s wrong, it’s not because it’s nonsense or un-Marxian, as these critics contend. There are serious terminological problems which must be resolved before any real debate is possible here, but they’re due to the critics’ own confusions about the fundamental distinction between profit and rent. Hudson uses Marx’s own categories to give an updated account for the present, and something very close to his view can be derived from Marx’s writings
