NapoleonXIV
Banned
Plausibly, have feudalism survive to the present day. The world must be as modern as our own. Any POD, anytime, multiples allowed.
AH challenge, Surviving Feudalism
- Thread starter NapoleonXIV
- Start date
Modernity without the Westphalian nation-state? That's unpossible!
Seriously, though, you're going to need to define "modernity".
Svartekaptenen
Banned
Sark? is that not on of the British channel islands? This you have to tell me more about.
The hacienda system in Latin America is basically feudal. Parts of India and Southeast Asia, as well as regions of Africa where state control is weak, have systems that are basically feudal.
You could argue that in some places politics in the United States, particularly urban areas, where and continue to be, feudal. The urban machine of, for instance, Richard Daley (of '68 Convention fame) was quite feudal, offering protection in return for service. The whole idea of "patronage politics" is feudal politics. So really, feudalism continues to the present day, just without the overt legal and social framework of Middle Ages' Europe.
Though examples like Sark and areas in developing nations exist, I think he means as a major force ie the Developed World (Sark is technically part of it but I view the Isle of Man as barbaric because it has Corporal Punishment for Homosexuals so a Feudal Lord is hardly a plus IMO)
You'd need Europe to take England's lead by seeing Magna Carta-like agreements to appear rather than Kings developing absolutist sysems like in Austria and Spain. Here, a Magna Carta agreement in the Holy Roman Empire, solidifying it as a feudal confederacy would be extremly important to maintaining feudalism as a mjaor political/economic force.
However even then society would have to freeze about circa 1500 for feuadalism to survive as a mainstream, Western force. Much as the free market has replaced marchantilism, feudalism would ultimately be repalced unless major social upheavals took place ie Mongols conquer Europe before collapsing, Black Death wipes out 70% of the population (actually even that would probably lead to a more industrial orientated society leading to a commercial middle class eventually )
Feudalism could have easily lasted longer but unless you involve ASB, theres no way it would lasted until the modern age, let alone created modern affluence
no reformnation or stronger and more succesfull counterreformation would help
a stronger, longerstanding set of apsolutist monarchies
french revolution killed off by forein reactionary forces
stronger cultural hegemony, with religion being more important and near total media control by the state
basically apsolutist monarchy surviving WWI like the japanese one did, olnly with a biger piece of the cake going to "midlle class" nobility, to keep them from going all civil war every couple of decades, or just parliamentary monarchies, in a world without the french revolution this would mean feudal noblemen as members of parliament and some religious representatives, with practicaly no regard for the citisens, or representation of same, but a lot of taxation
you shouldnt worry about modernity much, the economy would be somewhat diferent but technology would be more or less the same, olnly the whole mass use, user friendly thing would not be as widespread, that is not so much popular consumerism, for instance no personal computers, but still a wide network of big supercomputers and many smaller ones owned and controled by the monarchy or some other entity within the establishment
generaly less desing and less refined industrial products, exept for the military, wich would get the most of the industrial effort and the best of all industrial products
all this would take a huge effort to maintain the military and the propaganda machine to keep the ordinary citizens from revolting after technology advances enough to give them the means to inform themselwes and eficiently opose the goverment
another less happy scenario would be some kind of balkanification of large world regions, leaving a lot of small feudal states in constant competition with each other, each with a sistem to small to create the posibility of an eficient revolution, but all together creating a complex sistem that alows for economic and technological development, while still keeping the people in ignorance and serfdom
religion would play a big role in a world like this
a stronger, longerstanding set of apsolutist monarchies
french revolution killed off by forein reactionary forces
stronger cultural hegemony, with religion being more important and near total media control by the state
basically apsolutist monarchy surviving WWI like the japanese one did, olnly with a biger piece of the cake going to "midlle class" nobility, to keep them from going all civil war every couple of decades, or just parliamentary monarchies, in a world without the french revolution this would mean feudal noblemen as members of parliament and some religious representatives, with practicaly no regard for the citisens, or representation of same, but a lot of taxation
you shouldnt worry about modernity much, the economy would be somewhat diferent but technology would be more or less the same, olnly the whole mass use, user friendly thing would not be as widespread, that is not so much popular consumerism, for instance no personal computers, but still a wide network of big supercomputers and many smaller ones owned and controled by the monarchy or some other entity within the establishment
generaly less desing and less refined industrial products, exept for the military, wich would get the most of the industrial effort and the best of all industrial products
all this would take a huge effort to maintain the military and the propaganda machine to keep the ordinary citizens from revolting after technology advances enough to give them the means to inform themselwes and eficiently opose the goverment
another less happy scenario would be some kind of balkanification of large world regions, leaving a lot of small feudal states in constant competition with each other, each with a sistem to small to create the posibility of an eficient revolution, but all together creating a complex sistem that alows for economic and technological development, while still keeping the people in ignorance and serfdom
religion would play a big role in a world like this