Medieval Europe

C. Derick Varn

Welcome to no Royal Road . We are discussing Rodney Hilton's class conflict in the crisis of feudalism , specifically his essay . Two French words I can't say .

Chris N.

Tell David and seniority .

C. Derick Varn

Yeah , which is feudalism or seniorism , which would be how we probably translated a feudalism and Sirism .

Chris N.

Or seniority , in the Anglicized pronunciation .

Jason N.

Yes , seniorism and seniority . Seniorism is a different ideological project .

Chris N.

Seniorism is like is that like men's rights , but in Spanish , yeah .

C. Derick Varn

That'd be machistaism . Actually , machismo or machista ? It actually always confused me about Spanish that the word for overly masculine asshole is feminine grammatically it's machista , not machista . It's always kind of used the shit out of me and take that for those who think that we need to get rid of grammar and language because somehow it relates to gender and real life .

Chris N.

Yeah , it doesn't . I mean , as a German , a student of German , I can tell you it has nothing to do with you . Know , girl is neuter .

C. Derick Varn

In German yeah .

Chris N.

It's very confusing and when you first started learning German , you're just like , okay , you try to figure out . You're like , okay , I'm going to figure out a system . These kinds of words are masculine , these kinds of words . No , you literally have to memorize them all , and that's insane . That's not a way to have a language Germany .

C. Derick Varn

Yeah Well , the German language , running up against the romance languages in their incompatible gender systems , is why , during the period we're talking about right now , to actually tie in our conversation , we dropped gender from our language , because we couldn't get the two systems to work , that's right English number one . Yeah , english , we're a pigeon language , absolutely .

Chris N.

We're incoherent in so many ways that don't have anything to do with the gender of nouns .

C. Derick Varn

Yeah , so we dropped the gender of nouns because we couldn't figure out how to make the French and the German get along , which actually somehow seems accurate , and about a bunch of things .

Jason N.

We're still trying to figure that out .

Chris N.

Yeah , Honestly , I think at this point it's about time for France and Germany to go to war again . I think that would spice things up in Europe quite nicely .

C. Derick Varn

Well , depends on what happens in that selection anyway , Although I was sort of like . Well , what happens if both the ADF and the Le Pen government become the Le Pen government ? But the Macron government is unviable and the Malachon government can't replace it , which I think is going to be likely ?

Chris N.

Yeah , so Europe is like a forest right . What happens if you don't have forest fires every generation or so to clear out all the underpreciates ? It starts to choke off and die . That's what needs to happen in Europe . Is another war , another continental war to clear things out nicely , right .

Jason N.

Yeah , and within the political confines of Europe . Today , not like technically in Ukraine , there's a European war where it doesn't count .

Chris N.

Ukraine is in Europe . It basically has to be between France and Germany .

Jason N.

That's what .

C. Derick Varn

I mean Particularly now that the Isles don't matter anymore . Yep , sorry , england All right . So , speaking of England , the Greinerland-O'Neill aristocrats of medieval England lay in a Clusias school , remarkably real , documented , because they were obsessed with themselves and run all the shit down about themselves . I would love if there was some smart ass Lashian scholar who was also a medievalist , who decided to talk about the English lords as the original culture of narcissism .

Chris N.

There's a niche that is not being filled right now and there is a dissertation topic and y'all can have that for free .

C. Derick Varn

For real though . So if some medievalist in intellectual history wants to make that jump , go ahead . Not so much in their relationships with their free vassals , but in regards to their internal structure of their estates and their manners lordships jurisdictions was composed of . They wrote everything down because they wanted to keep track of what they owned , and we deal with the lower ranks of aristocracy , which are knights , which are well known in spite of the detailed , painstaking and rather boring compilations of local genealogists . That's real fun . I hate to say that one of the things about reading Rodney Hilton is that he's funny , because he's only funny if you read a lot of medieval history .

Chris N.

but he is funny . He's funny if you're a nerd .

C. Derick Varn

Yeah Well , I mean , we're doing a podcast on a Marxist show with a subset dealing almost solely with European medieval history and historiography , in specific because that's not the most nerdy thing ever .

C. Derick Varn

So we established last time , just to remind people , that ironically the specific Norman relations of scenery led to a strong state in England . That was specific not just because of their relationship to the French state , which was weak , but their relationship specifically of how the Normans organized themselves , which makes them strong , particularly in England and Sicily , and that that's why the English state was more unified , faster , right , yeah , and this gives us to explaining the differences . And now we get to why there's a difference in the development between England and France on the Knightley class , and by Knightley class , which we mean aristocrats , but we basically mean something akin to aristocratic serial killers , yeah , Aristocrats that have just enough land to be able to outfilt themselves with weapons and money to go and do violence on behalf of their Lord .

Chris N.

They exist solely to do violence . That's it .

C. Derick Varn

I mean it is kind of interesting that the consolidation of the Norman state actually sort of immediately leads to the established Knightley class being sent on crusade almost from like a century in . It's just like we got to get rid of these fuckers somehow . They're going to kill us . Go have them .

Chris N.

kill the infidel Like that seems to have been that is part of , like a serious , important part of the motivation behind the crusades .

Knights and Chivalry in England and France

Chris N.

Like no joke .

C. Derick Varn

Yeah , we got all these warlords that we've been building up . We now have these strong centralized states , at least in England and France . Well , the French state isn't actually that strong , but it's got to pretend like it is , so it's even more important that it sends people away . What are we going to do with these people ? Well , let's go have them fight the Kurds , so . But this leads to an interesting thing , because there's a difference in the power relations between French Knights and English Knights , and Hilton is making a big deal out of this . Because , for things that make sense like and I'll read part of this is striking time like which England and France has been revealed into development of the nightly class , though this may not have been so much due to a lack of precociously in England as much to the political , social and cultural break in 1066 . For the pre-conquest English things , who are analogous to the continental Shevalier .

C. Derick Varn

Shevalier , thank you , I was about to say shevo . Yeah , shevalier , we're already regarded as nobles in the 10th and 11th centuries , whereas many of the post-conquest Anglo-Norman Milites , as we have seen , are by no means conformed the traditional picture of the local aristocrat endowed with the Fidon Milites . So basically , in England because you have a subject peoples that already had a nightly class , even though we don't call them that , we don't refer to things as knights because we think of them more in Viking terms , frankly , but that's what they are . They're cavalry soldiers with the right to have arms and they're small landholders . But it's interesting because the Norman military system has a whole lot of non-aristocratic military functions . Apparently , I think that's what Hilton's implying .

Chris N.

The Anglo-Saxon one does too , in that it raises when you go to war , the Thane would be the only one who has decent military equipment , and then his immediate retainers would as well , because he would arm them and then everyone else would bring their sharpened fire , hardened stakes , in order to go to war . If you go to war in Anglo-Saxon England , you very likely lose all your serfs and don't have anyone to bring in the harvest , so battles were small . The Norman system allows for an expansion of military service and the creation of a much larger fighting class of people and I think we'll get to Minot Arms who are like a step down from knights , and I think that that's in the next section .

C. Derick Varn

Right . So we get into it . But he discusses the knights because the knights are landholders , but their states are actually small and they're homogenous , so there's not like you know , you could be a knight and basically a winemaker , or you could be just the landlord of a group of tenants , or you could be , you could actually be the person overseeing the lord's mill . So those are actually very different forms of income , right , and they have different functions in the economic order , but you would still , those people would still basically be expected to be able to arm themselves , maintain a retinue , etc . So there's going to be pretty big . You can see how this could lead to internal competition . You don't want pretty quickly , because if you're a knight who's just a landlord versus are basically the head peasant of a bunch of . You're not a peasant , but you get what I mean . Your job is to bring in the line Versus the mill owner . You're at a distinct disadvantage .

C. Derick Varn

So , but a knight's income could exist just from rents , or he could also be proto-bougeois and that's interesting . So , plus , they could also there's ways in which this is tied into monastic orders and church property , whereas the English landholders were also not , as we're not homogenous , but they were more so because they're mostly just large estate holders with farmer tenants . That's pretty much what they are . So it's interesting because it says , like that the English system , actually their knights , were even poorer than the French system , but then that leads to the need for men at arms , which are I guess we don't talk about this class of people which are people that are maintained by larger aristocrats to stay as a kind of permanent renaissance but are not technically knights .

Chris N.

Not landholders . Not landholders , not necessarily aristocrats , but could be aristocrats that are armed and trained in knightly combat all the same , everything that else that a knight would do , but less likely to be on horseback , because if you're , they could be foot soldiers as well , because those are also important , but in England anyway .

C. Derick Varn

So this leads to , I guess , chivalry , as we think like the kind of myth of it , but what it was as an actual system ? Am I correct ? Is that Hilton's argument here ?

Chris N.

Yeah , like chivalry in France is an actual system and then it sort of permeates outwards .

C. Derick Varn

Like it's a myth in England , doesn't actually ?

Chris N.

it doesn't actually use . You can use chivalry just to to talk about nightly virtues as well , not as a system . Or use chivalry as a To talk about the like it . If you wanted to say that all the French knights that amassed at the Battle of Vezion Corps , you could say the amassed French chivalry . Right , so it's . It's a . It has multiple uses , but in France it is certainly a system .

C. Derick Varn

Yeah , it's a it's . It's an interesting sort of it's , a system , but it's also one that is distorted . History Like this is not so much in the essay , but we know it's a sort of historiographic , historographically , because it becomes idealized after it no longer exists , just like Bushido in Japan , like you know , yeah , like basically three or four centuries later right , yeah , for a long time I actually just thought chivalry exclusively referred to a kind of the , the ethical kind of code of English knights .

Jason N.

I didn't even know it was a system .

Chris N.

And people use it these days to talk about like being nice to girls .

C. Derick Varn

Right , I mean basically you just see concept drift to the point of absurdity , but like that's how we do . We , we see we . One of the reasons it's shivery so hard to talk about is like Our codification and understanding of it actually is pretty much happening after it's dead . And that's true , and it is Japanese , which is a little bit closer to us . Modernly Japanese Bushido is similar in that Bushido is certified like after the samurai system is largely defunct .

C. Derick Varn

You know it's not yeah , as important um , and so shivery is interesting in that , like when you see the consolidation of the French state in the 14th century it's it is like an idealization of a prior feudal order , more or less right .

Jason N.

Right and one that didn't operate that way when it actually existed , yeah yeah , and then we have 18th century Versions of that to then further garble and idealize .

C. Derick Varn

You know , because Well , I like Walter Scott doing that as a way to extend you know , there's the nation state backwards . It's interesting that there is some kind of acknowledgement at almost a reptile brainway in 18th century romanticism that they need to go back to the beginnings of the nation before it's actually a nation and Romanticize it to make it more like a nation and then extend that further and further into the past , like that's when our theory Anna really gets crazy . And you know , because I mean our theory Anna's really fine because you're , you're obstinately not even talking about a Christian King who Wasn't English but probably , if said it existed with Welsh , was Welsh .

Chris N.

Yeah or no ? Romano Celtic .

C. Derick Varn

Yeah , so yeah , you're not even Welsh .

Jason N.

Well , and the thing about that kind of mythology is like there's a value to it and there's even a , there's even a basic truth to it , and then it just gets incredibly overblown . But then the criticism of that kind of history , that kind of myth-making , he's also a disservice , because it's just like , oh , that's all crazy and nations were Exclusively the invention of the bourgeoisie , in a very cynical move and I was like , well , that's not true either .

C. Derick Varn

No , no , I mean one of the things that I think Hilton makes clear is , like France and England , our idea of where nations come from , because they're also where our dear feudalism comes from , and the one does actually Kind of develop into the other , our feudalism's . I mean , one of the things I think we can see here is there are two different systems this , the Seniorary system and the feudal system that are both real and overlap but are not the same thing , and so you know , marxist have trouble with this , because we like nice clean modes of production , like pretty much a Nice clean modes of production is pretty much a capitalist phenomenon which Marx kind of knew . I mean Marx actually , yeah he actually talks about it .

Jason N.

Yeah , I mean In fact the entire , the entire , the entire thinking behind it is that , like , as history progresses and as a certain Economic system comes to dominate , it simplifies Things . The , the idea there , the input , the implication there , of course , is that before that motor production Started to simplify things , things were not simplified Right . I don't know why . That's hard to understand also .

C. Derick Varn

Well , it's also because I Was just reading an anarchist essay that was making , making this point defending Marx that Marx realizes that quote forces of mode of economic relations and , like Mark says that , but no people just bracket that out like as if when you're talking about the economy , you're never talking about war .

Chris N.

Yeah , war . Does that anything to do with the economy ?

C. Derick Varn

or it's epi phenomenal , and actually one of the things that Marx would say is , like well , capitalism is really good at hiding the force relation . That's the whole like , that's why it's so advanced , just because it hides the force relation . But it's not like it was all . It's always there . And you know , no , the bourgeoisie didn't come out and be like okay , we let's impose the nation state . No , there's stuff that happened materially , that led to it . And one of the things this gets to is yeah , but you know , the whole liberal thing about the demographic collapse of the 14th century Actually is important , like it really .

Chris N.

Yeah , actually , he actually mentions that in here right .

C. Derick Varn

In fact , I'll skip ahead of that , because I think we kind of yeah what do you ?

C. Derick Varn

make of this bastard feudalism comment , chris , this is what this is , right before that , because this is actually something that I haven't seen in other places and I'll just read it . That important subject the rise and fall of chivalry as a way of life and a symbol of aristocratic Pusneage should not deflect our attention from the most important and interesting phenomenon which affected Fidelity , feudalism and scenery in the late Middle Ages the economic and social crisis of the late 14th and early 15th century . One can discuss bastard feudalism , the replacement of the ten year old by cash links between Lord and vassal , aka the entire thing that Colin drumstice , literally what his dissertation is on .

Chris N.

Oh , and also this this kind of like , that sort of bastard feudalism is where Chris Wickham starts with the transition to feudalism . Yeah , right , yeah this is like a transition into and transition out of . I .

C. Derick Varn

Mean , this is what I get from Wickham is like feudalism is a thing , but basically it existed to go away . Yeah , with the soonest

Feudalism as a Sidestep to Capitalism

C. Derick Varn

. As soon as feudalism is coherent enough to talk about a thing that you can actually talk about as one thing , it's already dying , right . I mean it's a side .

Chris N.

It's a sidestep is how we we understand feudalism . Right , it's not necessarily an advancement out of the classical mode of production . It is a sidestep into something that made capitalism possible right . Well , in that sense , in that sense it is an advancement sure to that Understanding but it's not you want to be teleological , which sometimes I think is okay .

Jason N.

Yeah , but it's it's not an advancement Over the classical mode of production by itself .

C. Derick Varn

You know like right right Like , if you look at more classically oriented empires , you know Tribute what you know Samara mean . We'll call the tributary modes production . Right Like the Islamic eight world , the Chinese world . You don't want to live in the feudal world over the Chinese world , you really don't . I don't care but what ?

Chris N.

The way it is an advancement over Roman , the Roman civilization , those model is that it allows for .

C. Derick Varn

The slaves .

Chris N.

Well , fewer slaves means more necessity for invention , which means technological advancements that couldn't have happened under slavery right Because you got .

C. Derick Varn

You got little . I Mean one of the things that makes my I think when I talk about chattel slavery it's like one of things that makes modern slavery so shitty by modern we mean here like American slavery is that it actually figured out how to like combine Capitalist innovation and slavery , which was kind of unique .

C. Derick Varn

Usually high periods of slave or not , they're not very Innovative , like there's a reason why we think of , for example , a lot of the , the advanced Technology , not the wealth , but the technology of the Roman Republic is from the Republican period and not from the imperial period . Right there's a reason why , and in so much that there is technological gains in the imperial period , it's them taking over , like other technological societies , like , as a friend once asked me why is it that the Greeks have so much better mathematicians than the Romans ? And I was like , well , because they got the Greek mathematicians to build their acrobatics .

Jason N.

Yeah .

C. Derick Varn

They don't have to do it anymore . Um , anyway , so this gets us to interesting , because this basically argues it like I Mean . What I think is interesting about this is what if , if you pair this with Wickham , wickham and Hilton you know I guess they come from similar schools which is the British Marxist historiography school , but that Wickham basically sees feudalism is is a sidestep , that it then enables capitalism to get you out of , like these competing subsystems , and this actually seems to argue something similar , but that , like , actually the competing subsystems , was what feudalism was , you know .

Chris N.

Yeah my ?

C. Derick Varn

am I understanding the difference fairly here ?

Chris N.

Yeah , I think so that sounds right .

C. Derick Varn

All right , um , I . So this brings us to the 14th century , where shit gets fucked .

Chris N.

Yes , the calamitous 14th century .

C. Derick Varn

Without which the modern world is impossible .

Chris N.

Right . What happens in the 14th century is that sort of brush fire that clears out Europe and allows for capitalism to grow .

C. Derick Varn

One of the interesting things I love from Brunel and the kind of annual school and the regulation school people , both those is that you see capitalist technologies develop in feudalism really early , like you do , but they can't take hold . They're like in monasteries and like city-states or whatever .

Chris N.

Like Northern Italy . We've mentioned this a few times .

C. Derick Varn

During the 14th century . In the beginning of it , there's like the beginnings of capitalist relations from monasteries to start selling shit .

Chris N.

Like .

C. Derick Varn

I don't know Czech beer , for example . I don't know enough about Czech economics in the 14th century to feel totally safe saying that .

Chris N.

Yeah , all my training was in Norman and Northern Italian feudalism . I don't know much about the Holy Roman Empire .

Jason N.

The only source from my knowledge of Central Europe during this period is I can't even think of his name now Otto Bauer . He wrote something very detailed and very helpful , but I don't think he really talks about brewing beer in monasteries .

C. Derick Varn

Well , I mean , otto Bauer's concern is how the Holy Roman Empire leads to the nationalities . It is different . One of the things that I find that has effect now when people talk about imperialism is , like when you start imposing nation-states on places like Africa or the Levant , or communist countries in Asia , you're dealing with societies that don't have this history and don't have national groupings in the same way at all . Yeah , like at all , yeah , and hence the mess . Well , if you want to understand why it's a mess , understanding feudalism is actually somewhat useful for that , and this , also to me , is why I've become increasingly convinced that , like , marx understood that he was Eurocentric because he wasn't trying to talk about the whole world except that communism would make the entire world get able to not deal with this shit , but , like , because he sees capitalism as an end result of this specific process and it doesn't happen everywhere , yeah , although he goes back and forth from where he thinks it should happen everywhere .

Jason N.

I mean he was going to write , you know , another volume of capital specifically to deal with the rest of the world , or at least parts of the rest of the world . He didn't understand and he didn't do it , but like right , and the acknowledgement was like this is a window into a very small part of the world and the very small part of human experience and also the predatory nature of this economic system as it is coming into being is going to eventually render a study of the rest of the world . I mean not exactly moot , but like it's going to put in second place . And he's not saying that that's good , it's just saying that that's what is and that is what has happened .

C. Derick Varn

And I think it's a capitalist one , but ironically , it's the communists that gave the victory to them .

Jason N.

Well , yeah , oops .

C. Derick Varn

Just to make all of our listeners profoundly uncomfortable .

Jason N.

It should make them feel very uncomfortable .

Chris N.

Yeah , if you're a leftist and you're comfortable , like with our in our prospects then .

C. Derick Varn

Well , you are leftist , you just be stupid .

Jason N.

You might . You might represent what some people call the left wing of capital .

C. Derick Varn

Yeah , which is a . It's not , anyway , not necessarily always a bad thing . It is right now , though .

Effect of Famine, Plague, War on Feudalism

C. Derick Varn

So we get famines and plagues , and mouth who's in calculus is . For those of you who don't know , mouth who's in calculus is done applied to the modern world because of industrial production , but they do actually applied to the pre modern world . Malthus was just a dick bag who tried to use , you know , pre modern calculus is to justify letting a bunch of poor proletarians die . Nonetheless , you do see , like , basically , the 14th century follows those logics pretty well . And then one of the things that Hilton says is it is like you would think that that the plagues and the famines would actually lead to English and French feudalism going in different directions , but ironically , no , this is when they're the most similar . Right Like every dissection After the famines and the plagues , that might seem that the English and the French feudalism would follow different paths , given the French was subject to the devastation of the English armies and the pillaging of the rooties , leading to the literal destruction of the village communities .

C. Derick Varn

Following the English peasant revolt of 1381 , english peasant communities continued successfully to exercise pressure on their lords for dominion of rents and the relaxation of dues and for services for 70 years .

C. Derick Varn

Did the jacqueries of northern France , the Mestif central and elsewhere have the same effects ? Or was it simply that the French lords have to make concessions in order to restore the spoiled land ? In any event , from bullet to linear , I think , money rents declined , as did the proportion across demand for rents , and kind the peasants above English and France found more fruits of their support labor in their own hands . The productivity of labor , reflected also in rising wages , was enhanced and the foundations were laid for economic revival minutes . It's interesting because he's saying like it doesn't make sense that the English and French look end up doing the same thing because the English peasant communities were devastated and I think which the French peasant communities were devastated and the English weren't . So the English were able to , like you know , get their pitchforks and tell the Lord to go suck it . Literally they did that , but ultimately it worked out the same way in both places the peasants got more powerful , even even though they didn't have the same communal base in France .

C. Derick Varn

And that's interesting , that's interesting .

Chris N.

The 100 years war , I mean , was incredibly economically devastating for the French . Like the entire war , was fought on French land and a favorite English tactic was the chevalier , which would be just to scorch earth everything in their path .

C. Derick Varn

Yeah , constantly just burn shit all the time .

Chris N.

Yeah , kill livestock , kill and steal livestock , kill peasants if they could find them , burn down all the villages . You know it's great idea for a land that you're attempting to become the ruler of .

C. Derick Varn

Yeah , just Sherman's march to the sea . So why do we think because this essay doesn't go into this here , but what do you think ? What do you guys think who know more about France in this time period ? The French peasantry ended up just as powerful as the English peasantry , even though they were crushed in the 100 years war and didn't have their communities anymore . So there's no like basically like there's kind of a peasant commune For lack of a better term in England I've really fucked with the lords but there isn't in France , and yet it ends up the same way . Why do we think that might be the case ?

Chris N.

I Am not sure , but I could hazard a guess , and that would be that the French Aristocracy was also decimated in the Hundred Years War .

C. Derick Varn

Yeah , that's , that's my say . I was late , but , and plague is not a respecter of class , right ?

Chris N.

right , absolutely . And the plague , I think , if I understand correctly , I think plague hit France harder than it hit England . And so if you look , if you just combine , like Kressy , soison and asian core , like how many French nobles died at the hands of , like British longbowmen and , like you know , minute arms , compared to how many English nobility died in those three battles , you've got a pretty lopsided Depletion of your aristocratic stock . That happens there .

Jason N.

Yeah , I mean there's a , there's a , there's a , an apocryphal , kind of like fictionalized version of the way that Henry VIII talked about the relative Importance and power of England versus France , and he would say that's because the flower of French jibbery was stamped out by Henry .

Chris N.

V . I mean that's not even that . I mean it might be apocryphal , but it's not far off from accurate . Like I think that I read a book about asian core whenever I was doing my what I think was a may , when I was an undergraduate , either that , or , like my first year in graduate school , they talked about how there was hardly a French family that didn't lose somebody in the battle of asian core . You know right , like when I say lose somebody , I mean like lose somebody at the top of their pyramid . You know so that second and third sons have to step up and take over families and some families that were stamped out altogether mean this is something I think people also .

C. Derick Varn

I Think people misunderstand population scales too , because I think I don't . I don't think people realize how , like , less Populated the world is before the 19th century . Yeah , yeah , because I'm like yeah , you can kill 20,000 people and that's like I don't know a fifth of a fucking country . Yeah and , like today , that's like a city block , so it's .

Jason N.

Yeah , like right now , and like the casualties . The estimates for the English side of the battle of asian core is 600 people , 600 deaths total . It's like that's . That's like a couple of a couple of seconds in today's modern warfare . Yeah , I'll say today I mean anytime in the last 200 years .

C. Derick Varn

Yeah , I mean you think about , like , the number of people dead . Let's just pick everyone's favorite stupid fucking battle , the the battle of Normandy . Right , right right how many people die an hour and that battle compared to this . And it's also , I think , another thing that we forget that , like relative technological and or tactical advantages were huge before modern technological warfare . So , like you know , think about the hunt all you needed some fucking hortra ushers and they like take over the half the goddamn planet , like you know very quickly too .

C. Derick Varn

Yeah , and it's , it's like a small . It is a small technological advantage If you think about the English longbow , which is an impressive fucking weapon but like , like the English longbow , as opposed to even a crossbow , not even getting to modern guns , you know yeah it doesn't seem Like . It doesn't seem like that huge an advantage .

C. Derick Varn

Yet it completely changes the time of the war and people go oh , guns , I'm like no , guns were not , guns were shitty until , like the 17th century , like yeah like , honestly , if I'm betting on a gun versus a crossbow and in like the 15th century , I'm betting on the crossbow because it's like blow up , why , yeah , during the English Civil War .

Jason N.

Like the standard During the English Civil War , like the standard parliamentary formation was you know a pike and shot and like Pikes were the actual weapons that you know the shot like kind of confuses and makes some disarray on the other side , but the pikes are what actually kills people and also what actually defends people . Yeah , yeah , like the archibos took . Takes how long to reload and the shot is wildly inaccurate . It's a short yeah , but smooth bore like weapon .

Chris N.

Yeah , you fire a long time .

Jason N.

Yeah , think about indigenous battles in the United States before the .

C. Derick Varn

Indian Wars , like in the in the 19th century . If I'm gonna deal with , say , sue horse archers versus people with With with a front-bore muskets , how do you think I'm ? Who do you think I'm putting the money on ?

Jason N.

I'm putting it on the horse archers until , yeah , but a modern of modern wife , worry right and really like a it's , it's , it's after the Civil War , whenever the , the , the , the military , starts to actually have rifles , and it's like that's the reason why the Indian Wars become so Well , lopsided , yeah , lopsided and very effective on the on the , on the American side , because before that you know , unless you have like six times as many troops , you're not gonna inflict very many casualties , unless your enemy stands still .

Chris N.

Well , the way the , the way that the Well the way , the , the way that the Americans , or the British and then the Americans , defeated the natives Was through a war of attrition . Yeah , they would constantly attack them at their bases , you know their , their villages . They would kill Anybody they get their hands on . They burn down their , burn down their villages , take their crops , destroy their crops and Then new people would come from over the sea to replace the colonists that died . So it was . There was no decisive defeat of the natives . It was a like century , couple , centuries long war of attrition that eventually , like the , the white people came out on top and Even do .

C. Derick Varn

That was smallpox .

Chris N.

Well , and I think that the technological advantage that Allowed for the you know colonists to win was trade more than anything else .

C. Derick Varn

Yeah , it wasn't guns .

Jason N.

It's a reason why , like you know , in 1915 you could go and buy a pamphlet of like a little storybook for your child . That's like when grandpa fought the Indians , because it was yeah , it took a very long time yeah .

C. Derick Varn

Yeah , I mean it's . I think this because both I think we tend to , we tend to see indigenous societies is less developed than they were , and Also that like there's a bunch of historical conditions to life . For example , the North America is not , say , africa Because , like , you might have subsumed those populations , but eliminating populations is really hard to do unless you have biological warfare help , and by biological warfare help I mean the Spanish bringing smallpox Devastating one , one fifth of the indigenous population of the East Coast of North America . Before the British even got here right , and we only know that's true from genetic evidence , we used to assume the British lied , we originally they didn't encounter these empty places , but they did yeah they did .

C. Derick Varn

The genetic evidence backs it up like basically , smallpox hit hit North America actually harder than it has Central America , which is also weird for me to think about .

Chris N.

I don't know why that's the case , but like yeah , I think that whenever the the pilgrims landed , the native population there was almost completely decimated , which is why the natives let them land , because they're like , okay , cool , fresh stock , maybe we can make these people our vassals right , you know , and occasionally , as what probably happened at Croaton , indigenous people would just absorb entire settler stocks , just right , because they were down so many people .

C. Derick Varn

So that's what . That's what probably happened at Croaton . We don't actually know that , but you know , all those blue-eyed indigenous people in the East Coast seem to come from somewhere .

Chris N.

The working hypothesis is that right now , like that's the generally accepted , just because there's like there's a name that was written down that . What was the name that was written down ? Croaton that was the . And that is a native settlement that was nearby so it's likely they just got subsumed into the native settlement .

C. Derick Varn

Right and some of the indigenous groups in that area are paler and bluer-eyed , say , like the many people in Canada , but I don't think there's been extensive genetic research on the like prove that .

Chris N.

I think that that's what they're teaching the kids in school and like a first-year US history courses . Is that that hypothesis ?

C. Derick Varn

Yeah , I mean , it seems the most likely , particularly when you understand . Anyway , this is not . Varan talks about indigenous stuff , even though I'm fascinated .

Chris N.

But it is peripherally related . Peripherally related to when we were talking about demographic die-off , yeah .

C. Derick Varn

Yeah , it is because , like , it's interesting to think about One of the things that happens that I mean , once you get to the end of the 15th century , you have the beginning of the early modern period and you have the beginnings of nation states , the beginning of the world imperial system , the transatlantic trade routes , the development of the transatlantic world , the Contista Dwarf system . This is all about the the fuck . Like the whole idea of whiteness even is about to come out of this . Yeah , right , like race not necessarily invented , right , right , what I mean it is Like no joke , it is , it's , it's not an eternal category .

C. Derick Varn

Like there are , like if this is actually the time here we're talking about is where the metaphors that are used to build the racial system come out of that , but they're metaphors no one's actually thinking about , like white people and fucking 1390 . They're just not a king all right .

C. Derick Varn

And in fact you don't even get people talking about Europeans until fucking Byzantium falls to To the Seljuks and into the Ottomans . So , so , france and england , um , this is interesting to me and I'm going to read this part to you because For a less than 10 page essay oh my god , is this this dense did the 15th century see the parting of the ways between england and french feudalism ?

Concepts of Capitalism, History, and Maoism

C. Derick Varn

Enormous enormity . The paris basin , leanné and elsewhere in France , the seniorial structures were restored with remarkably little change in their essential character . What happened to the English manner ? It too had a long history yet to come . After all , the copyhold tenures were not abolished until 1922 . Talk about not finishing your Brugeswell Revolution , no fuckers .

C. Derick Varn

But there were distinctive fingers of the English development which relate to the particular character of the English land of aristocracy . During much of the course of the 15th century , the English manner court was drained of its jurisdictional power over persons . Part of this is related to the Reformation . This does not mean that the power of local aristocrats was diminished . In fact , their jurisdictional power over local communities was increased , particularly a reference to the control of labor , by the power given by the government to the elite of the country , gentry , who were appointed by the royal courts as justices of the peace . Basically , they become the sheriff system .

Chris N.

The sheriff system is decentralized .

C. Derick Varn

This is the end of the sheriff system in the beginning of the Lord as court judge .

Chris N.

Right , it was actually more decentralized earlier , which is strange because it simultaneously becomes more and less centralized in this period .

C. Derick Varn

One thing I think I wish Marxist would have a more robust understanding of is centralization is not unilateral .

Chris N.

Yeah , I mean it should develop since it's in starts . I think that we've got a very I don't know just one dimensional view of history as Marxists . Yeah , yeah . What I mean more about history is actually should shake your childish understanding of the way that it develops . For a lot of Marxists it doesn't , yeah .

Jason N.

I don't like that at all . Even concepts like to combine an uneven development should make the reader think , oh , that's an interesting feature . I wonder how often that happens .

C. Derick Varn

How about all the time ?

Jason N.

Yeah , all the time , everywhere , and everywhere is a little bit different .

C. Derick Varn

An important element of developing out of the Richard Peasantry , the Yeoman Tree and some of where the Grazias , the other arable farmers , represented the indirect weakening of the manner , aka the classes , that would make up the American Revolution . Yeah , seriously , though , like the Yeoman settlers become a problem .

Chris N.

I wonder if Charlie Post's book on the development of American capitalism holds up . I haven't read it . I mean I'd never actually read it . I bought it and went to his talk at socialism in like 2010 or something like that , and I like the premise of it . I wonder if I'd still agree with it now .

C. Derick Varn

I think it's interesting . One of the books I really like , the similar to that is Theory is History by Jairus Banerjee . I think I said his name a thousand different ways over the last decade .

Chris N.

It'll be fine , it's okay .

C. Derick Varn

But my issue with that book actually is that his next book extends capitalism all the way back to the end of the antique period .

Chris N.

Yeah , that's right and I'm like no .

C. Derick Varn

We're not talking about Roman imperial capitalism . What the fuck are you on ?

Jason N.

Libertarianism .

C. Derick Varn

Yeah , I mean , not on purpose , but basically the idea that , whatever the if market relations are the predominant part of capitalism , which I think is wrong . Actually , I don't think capital , I think that's a libertarian thing that confuses you . Markets are not the predominant marker of a capitalist society . Markets all over the place , yeah right .

Jason N.

Markets predate capitalism and the argument is that markets will still exist afterward . People are still going to come up with ways to exchange and whatever , and that's not even a problem . The problem is how things are owned and whether or not you have to work .

C. Derick Varn

Yeah well , our markets used to accumulate capital , or not , Right , Like that's a different thing and by capital we don't meet . Capital is not just like do I have money ? It means the ability to control labor power through means of production . Do I own the right to other people's labor ?

Jason N.

Right , right .

C. Derick Varn

All right , although some of the land was held by no longer servile version of the Villein tenure copyholding , mostly held by Freehold , in particular the Leeshold , the beginning of Lees rentierness , which is what inspires Adam Smith to get all pissy .

Chris N.

Yep , you don't like it .

C. Derick Varn

You don't like this feudal holdover of landlords .

Chris N.

And neither do I .

C. Derick Varn

Yeah , fuck them , the relationship with the landowner began to look a lot more like that of the capitalist farmer of the future , rather than simply the well-to-do menorial tenant . What was needed to make them into true agrarian capitalists was a wage labor force , and that was yet to come . Wage labor is the distinction combined with the ability to store and sell capital . That's what makes capitalism Not fucking markets Anyway .

Jason N.

That was a big part of our argument when we were in the ISO about state capitalism . But there's obviously another part which is abstracted away , but at least that part we had right .

C. Derick Varn

I was just reading Wayne Price , who's an anarchist who comes out of the Hildreper tradition , the IS independent socialist tradition , as opposed to the international social although they're related . Like the American IS tradition , was draperite before it was cliffhide , weirdly .

Jason N.

They fold into each other , and the only person that doesn't stick with it is Draper himself . The draperites all become cliffhides , and the draper just goes off on his own and writes stuff worth reading .

C. Derick Varn

Yeah , draper just puts himself in exile and hangs out with Maoist . Actually it's very strange . It's not a bad idea , really .

Jason N.

I mean at the time .

C. Derick Varn

And yeah , one day we have to go back to our long and pissing everybody off history of sectarian movements . I just can't get people to talk to me about history of Maoisms because , like Because it's insane . People don't want to touch it .

Jason N.

It's extremely confusing and it's a huge bummer if you have a stake in any one section of it , because everybody is only going to disappoint you .

Chris N.

You should just do an episode where you focus on the fact that Maoism comes to America because the FBI is fucking with the CPUSA and trying to get to break up and see who comes out of the woodwork willing to defend American Maoism , and see what they have to say .

C. Derick Varn

I did sort of actually talk about the RCP , which comes out of a split , which comes out of that which one of those guys had to be we don't know which one , but one of them had to be co-intellipere for us to even know some of the stuff because it got leaked but also that the Sino-Soviet split was part of American foreign policy and that completely destroyed the possibility of a third route to development of modern communism and ends up being real bad people .

Chris N.

It's a bummer .

C. Derick Varn

Well , it's always weird to me , because when you look at where I'm sympathetic to the Chinese and the Sino-Soviet split , it's actually all when Stalin's still alive . But that's the part that no one wants to talk about anyway , like nobody , including the Chinese themselves .

Jason N.

Yeah , because the Sino-Soviet split didn't start . It's not supposed to have started until after Khrushchev had proven himself to actually be the big deceiver of the working class , despite the fact that actually it goes back kind of a long time before Khrushchev .

Chris N.

It goes back to before Mao .

C. Derick Varn

It does . Yeah , Like it's .

Chris N.

Honestly , stalin is almost solely responsible for the bad blood that exists between China and the Soviet Union , and he gets none of the blame for it .

Jason N.

Yes , it's very weird and it's very upsetting .

Chris N.

To be fair , though , to be fair to Stalin , though , after he's dead , mao really could have just not but continued to deepen the divisions by his own personality deepen divisions between China and the Soviet Union .

C. Derick Varn

Absolutely . Even when I'm sympathetic to why he's doing it , I'm also like well , eventually this is going to lead to them undermining Soviet aid to the developing world and inciting with Cambodia and Kissinger . Yeah , Anyway .

Chris N.

Okay , let's boil it down to it's worst incarnation , which would have been China siding with apartheid , South Africa against the communist Nangola .

Jason N.

Right yeah , against the MPLA and also the Cuban expeditionary force .

C. Derick Varn

Yeah , they spoke with Cuba too . Yeah , it's very easy .

Jason N.

Any competition in the last century , whatever side Cuba was on . That's the good side . That's how easy it is to figure out .

Chris N.

So they side with apartheid , south Africa and the United States in that , and then later the Gonzaloites actually bombed the Cuban embassy , because the Gonzaloites actually still are siding with Mao , even long after he's dead , and hating Cuba .

C. Derick Varn

Well , it's just like today . You will meet all these Neo-Maus Dungists who are also fucking pro pot defenders , which is bizarre , yeah .

Jason N.

I guess it doesn't make any sense at all .

Chris N.

I had one of the Kasama guys in my replies one time back in the day defending pro pot to me and I thought that was weird because Kasamas like at least one of the least insane of the Maoist formations .

C. Derick Varn

Yeah , Well before the Dungists won everything .

Chris N.

Right .

C. Derick Varn

Anyway , this is an interesting side track , but we're almost done , so let's finish .

Chris N.

Let's move on .

Historical Progression and Revolutionary Potential

C. Derick Varn

In spite of real and important differences , it would be unwise to ignore the common features of the development of future society . In medieval France and England , the evolution of the economy , society and institutional forms were often out of phase , france seeming to become more more precocious in development than England . Backwardness , however , could turn into its opposite , and not merely because the English devastated France and preserved their own towns and villages and village intact In the end . It may be relative weakness of the English manner as compared to the French and Uri . It gave scope for the spurt and development that enabled the English to anticipate , by nearly a century and a half , the destruction of feudalism , not to speak of feudalism that is , not only of Fidel is may , but also Fidel Fio del del te .

Chris N.

Fidel it . Thank you , not merely the destruction of feudalism , but of feudalism , because we don't translate those two words differently in English .

C. Derick Varn

I guess here is not merely the destruction of the ideology , but also of its actual legal basis , the legal basis and the structure of feudalism . Man .

Chris N.

Which is ? This is super interesting because I've never thought of it this way . I always thought of the dichotomy between the simultaneous centralization and decentralization of England in the late medieval and early modern period . I always thought it is just one of those sort of dialectical paradoxes , which it is , but at the same time it is what gives England the fertile ground for the development of capitalism .

Jason N.

Well , yeah , because it's not just a dialectical paradox , it's also I mean , it is that , but it's not just a weird curiosity Backwardness could turn into its opposite , and it actually needed to , and it did .

Chris N.

Well , it's like I was saying earlier about the backwardness of the feudal period being , you know , fertile ground for the technological and economic developments that lead to capitalism that were not possible in the supposedly or technically more advanced ancient mode of production .

C. Derick Varn

Right , which is interesting to me because basically , this is why Wiggish history is stupid . Yep , but it does actually indicate that there is real progression in history , even if it comes out of places you don't expect it to . So , for example , right now , maybe something crazy up ends all of society doesn't come out of anywhere that we think it's going to come out of the United States , britain , I don't know , russia , china , but it comes out of . India or some weird place because of something we're not seeing . It requires innovative development very quickly .

Chris N.

Hinduvada fashionism is going to accidentally develop . I mean , that's how it has happened .

Jason N.

That's how it happened . In the last century . Nobody thought that Russia was going to set a new standard and a new tone for anything . Everyone thought that Russia would eventually catch up to Germany and Germany would be the one that did whatever world historic things . And then Russia did instead , just like how England did instead of France , and so on . So it turns out that Hegel's right . Yeah , I mean , it might turn out that Hegel is right in the long run , but right now it doesn't seem like it .

C. Derick Varn

Right now , I've now become dark Hegel . I'm just like Hegel's right , but he was all bad . The world spirit's evil .

Chris N.

The world spirit . The demiurge is that who the world spirit is .

C. Derick Varn

Yeah , it's just like he was hermetic but not Gnostic enough . I don't know .

Jason N.

I mean like that's why right now , for me it goes Hegel and then Marx , and then De Boer , and then Hegel again , because of the fact that Marx led to De Boer rather than to something else . So basically , we're just like in a weird , we're in a weird loop . We need a new hero to enter the world stage and articulate the will of spirit , because whatever the proletariat is not going to do it .

C. Derick Varn

I think actually .

Jason N.

Basically , it's an argument for lasallianism .

C. Derick Varn

Well , most Marxists are lasallians anyway , this is the thing that I realized . I went back into why people are like oh you're ranting on this out because left comms do it annoyingly , and we all know how annoying left comms can be . But they have a point when they keep on pointing out that most Marxists actually ignore what Marx says .

Chris N.

It's a critique of the growth of the program Like entirely .

C. Derick Varn

It's just like guys , you did literally the opposite of everything he said for us to do . But it's interesting to me in that , One of the interesting things about the 20th century , if I had to really look at it . And this is going to make people really uncomfortable but every fucking class , but the fucking proletariat was revolutionary , Like even the petty bee .

Chris N.

Well , who leads the revolutions of the 20th century ?

C. Derick Varn

The petty bee and the peasantry Really Are the large bees Wazee , but the large bees Wazee can have subsumed themselves . And what worries me is , when you look at the conditions of labor today , like the industrial proletariat , and this is not just in the developed world , people I know people that go oh , this is only a developed world . No , it's not . The conditions are atomized pretty much everywhere , like large scale . Production is less and less large scale all the time .

Jason N.

I think the Bolivian proletariat really makes a name for itself and first steps on to the stage of , let's say , the stage of history , like back in the 30s .

C. Derick Varn

The Bolivian proletariat .

Jason N.

Yeah , there's like a very concentrated and very industries concentrated in a couple of cities .

C. Derick Varn

Oh yeah , okay got it .

Jason N.

It follows a really similar model to what happens in Russia , you know , with Petrograd and a couple of other places , but it's just not talked about . Because I mean Che Guevara , he's trying to like start a , he's trying to basically win a war or whatever . And then the Bolivian miners are like , hey , we'll join you , we just need weapons . And he just tells them to go you know , go away . Basically Because , yeah , because he just can't even fathom that the Bolivian proletariat is actually the repository of the revolutionary spirit .

C. Derick Varn

Well , this is an interesting thing to , for example , like when you look at I did this whole thing on the not the English of war , the Mexicans of war , and discussing where the , the quote libertarian socialist , the McGonest , who are workers , basically where they end up . They start with the , they start with the , with the petit bourgeoisie against the peasantry and , ironically , the peasantry actually eventually wins and gets what it wants , which is land reform , and the and the proletarians get shit . They don't get anything .

Jason N.

Yeah , that's a common feature of American , and when I say American , I mean from Canada all the way down to Argentina American workers . At the time it's like the proletariat is going to be the class and the peasantry is is an outdated class and it's just going to disappear , and also that that kind of thing is also applied to farmers and whatever . So like across the board . There's never . There's never a time in which the working class places itself either in service of or in the lead of a movement . With peasants they're always separate , and in Russia they don't do that and they win . So right .

C. Derick Varn

What's interesting ? Because in the United States they do it for about 30 seconds and then . But that I mean like there's the People's Party period which liquidates into the Democrats with William Jennings Bryant .

Jason N.

But yeah , it does not merge with the socialists instead .

C. Derick Varn

No , the socialists emerge as a separate form , basically , like you have this in CoA . But also to be fair , to be fair to that , I'm also pointing out the people , but the also the sharecropping base of the People's Party went away , like like you got to have . You kind of have to deal with that too .

Jason N.

That's true , yeah .

C. Derick Varn

But it's interesting to think about , because when you , when people go well , why doesn't America have , you know , have a revolutionary proletariat ? They always go . Jay Stakai is on us . Even someone like and there's truth to that , that land was an offset . That's not just to talk about that . Like Mike Davis points it out , in prisoners of the American dream .

Chris N.

But there's not . And the permanent , permanent , second , second permanent underclass of black populations .

C. Derick Varn

Right , but the issue that you have is that's not unique , that developmental problems not unique to the US is unique to the Americas . Right , it's not just us like so , and it's also interesting that I point out the people , and I don't never get a good answer to this why were , why was the black ? You know , if the Jay Stakai narrative of the world is true , which it isn't just .

C. Derick Varn

Absolutely not I don't know if I'm going to get that out right , but why is ? Why is the black and the indigenous forces always at odds ? They until the 20th century . They are , like it's like , consistent when you study American history and if it's just because of , like white settlerism , you can't explain that like it's . There's something more complicated going on there . So also I never understood why Jay Stakai didn't consider like Corvay labor of Chinese people on the East Coast settlerism .

Chris N.

Because it's ridiculous and it doesn't make any sense to this incoherent and it's completely laughable and you can just ignore it .

C. Derick Varn

Well , I don't think you should just ignore it , because it keeps on coming back .

Chris N.

Yeah , yeah . Well , you could ignore it If it didn't keep coming back though .

C. Derick Varn

The idea that one of the one of the problems I have with it is , like it assumes that all these racial groups and ethnic groups are already nations like 16th , 16th and 17th century , which which and this is why it's relevant to what we're talking about right now Because no , they weren't like and there's a very long historical reason why they weren't . And it's not because , like , indigenous people were somehow less technologically developed than Europeans . I mean , they were in some ways , but not in others . And some ways they were more advanced , like , particularly getting Mesoamerica . They can do shit that you're just like Europeans can't do that Like you're like . Why do the conquistadors beat the Mexica ? And it's because every fucking other tribe hated the Mexica . It wasn't because , like , the conquistadors overpowered them . It was because the conquistadors got most of the other tribes to fight the Mexica as settlers themselves .

Chris N.

The African , the conquistadors were like less than 1% of the army that destroyed the Aztec Empire .

C. Derick Varn

Right , and and also it wasn't guns , it was still swords . And the fact that the , that the Mexica , aka the Aztecs , didn't kill their captives , they took them for sacrifices . And the and these , the Spanish led indigenous armies , did kill their cat , I mean , did kill warriors because , like they didn't need them for sacrifices , fucking kill them now Our Spain into New Spain . And so you know that leads to certain things , and one of the reasons I think we have to study feudalism , you know , when we're talking about this stuff , is we tend to talk about like , oh , just settlers and whatever is all this is just discrete categories and you can't understand the , the settler pot , like why does , why do the underpopulated , dangly bits off Asia start sending out people to take over the goddamn world ? Like what it's ? It's not that like you would be like today if , like , fucking Malaysia took over the planet . Like it's a very similar kind of dynamic . It is no , if you're from anywhere else in history outside of Europe , that is in no way obvious .

Jason N.

Yeah .

C. Derick Varn

I mean , particularly if you're like sitting in a like Islamicate caliphate somewhere , what you're just like , what ? Well , like you know , if I'm , if I'm in the Ottoman Empire or the Abbasid caliphate or something , like I'm not worried about Europe , like I'm just not until they start , until , until until the reconquista happens , I don't really I'm not really that concerned about it and ironically , the reconquista doesn't happen until Christendom's crush . That's another thing .

Chris N.

Yeah .

C. Derick Varn

What's the ?

Chris N.

the cusp of like . I guess that that's happening as Christendom is falling apart Like the concept of Christendom .

C. Derick Varn

This is something I think we have to deal

Feudalism, European Society, and Christendom's End

C. Derick Varn

with . About the feudal period Maybe I think the Marxist don't go into enough is the end of the idea of Christendom , like because what replace that is like Europeanness and stuff and it shows up on like racial studies , but I actually don't see it and talking about this time period . Maybe it'll come up in this book , but it's like it does seem like like the Pope needs an idea to hold European society together after their start , like during this time period other than Christendom , because it's not you lost , but the , the , the Byzantine , the fucking imperial chairs gone , even though they've been in schism there , at least like that's still like Rome , man . Well , it's gone now .

Chris N.

So you have the collapse of the Byzantine Empire in 1453 . Right , right is 1453 . Yeah . And then you have the recon quista is completed by 1492 . Right , and then the reformation happens in the 1530s .

C. Derick Varn

Right and also like that's also when all the all the transatlantic stuff starts , like at that very moment . This is why it's so hard to like disentangle capitalism from race , for example , even though they're not the same thing . It's because they both are created by the , by these dynamics .

Jason N.

Right , yeah , they are both co-constituative of modernity .

C. Derick Varn

Yes , Right , and that happens with the end of Christendom , the beginning of a trend of trying to secularize the transatlantic trade , because we got to justify buying Christians and that's really hard to do . Yeah you can't do it under canon law Like you can't just like Christians under canon law .

Chris N.

Peeps Like yeah , which doesn't affect the Protestants .

C. Derick Varn

Yeah .

Chris N.

And then the Spanish have to do some serious casuistry in order to get around the Great Commission while simultaneously exploiting and enslaving people .