What do you call a political system where all money and power is inherited, and where taxes lie exclusively on wages and the other earnings of the lower classes?

In my political science education it was called feudalism. Feudalism was the way society organized itself throughout the Middle Ages. Most of the struggles of the Renaissance and Reformation were aimed at ending feudal privileges.

Feudalism, like Communism, finally collapsed of its own internal contradictions. (A good fictional account of these contradictions is given in the 1632 series, by Eric Flint. (There's a large fan site devoted to the concept.)

What got me thinking about this subject was the Bush tax policy.

Think about it. No taxes on inherited wealth, no matter how large the pile. Significantly lower taxes on the fruits of investment than on the fruits of labor. Vastly increased wealth for the upper 1/10th of 1% of the people (the Fortunate 300,000), increased poverty and distress for the rest. And power held in a rather kingly, even absolutist way, by a man who inherited everything he has -- including political power.

What else do you call it?

The bottom line, for me, is it doesn't work. History proves it doesn't work. And it falls in a very, very nasty way -- violently.

In a feudal system, of course, what power isn't held by the Lords is held by the Church. One might argue we're fighting a feudal system in Iraq, so how can we be turning into one ourselves? Then you look at the veto Christian churches are insisting upon, over the teaching of science, and what women do after they're raped or seduced, and in my mind the comparison becomes, if nothing else, clearer.

That's often the way of it, unfortunately. The power of liberty didn't increase in America during World War II, nor during the Civil War. When the society itself is under dire, imminent threat, it can't. And it often changes in the direction of just the people we're fighting. Japanese internment camps in 1942 that could, had the war gone the other, have easily turned into death camps. Forced conscription, a draft, felt to Irish immigrants in the 1860s much like slavery, and they rioted against it.

So perhaps this is all just a temporary reflection of the times we're living in. But it's no way to live. And in the end, the powers in this world that reject this direction entirely will have a much easier time creating economic prosperity, and technology excellence, than we will.

Just a thought...we now return you to your regularly-scheduled tech blog.