Modern governments tend to be technocratic. Their bureaucracies are set up along non-ideological, non-partisan lines to implement policies, solve problems and protect citizens. Donald Trump, however, was elected as a “new” kind of American president with an apparent mandate, real or arrogated, to reshape the U.S. government. What he is building is not a new kind of government; rather, it is a form of neo-feudalism which is in some ways similar to the neo-feudal system which Trump’s idol Vladimir Putin has constructed in Russia, a hierarchy based on loyalty, and not on competence.
If the coronavirus outbreak develops on a more pessimistic scenario, the Trumpian neo-feudal government will be hard-pressed to respond.
Over the years, Putin has asserted repeatedly that he considers traitors much worse than enemies. Unexplained sudden deaths of former Russian state security officers who had defected and were living abroad prove that he means business.
The old Soviet party apparatus used to be described as neo-feudal and Anders Aslund, a keen observer of Russia, used the same term to describe the kind of crony capitalism that Putin has created. In government as well as the economy, Russia is a collection of magnates loyal to the prince and surrounded by lesser vassals loyal to them. Dmitry Medvedev, who for two decades was Putin’s sidekick, is a stark example of how in that system total loyalty always trumps total incompetence.
Imitation is the highest form of flattery and the Trump administration has been flattering Putin. Trump’s reliance on his useless son-in-law Jared Kushner to fix a variety of problems at home and abroad is Exhibit One of neo-feudal dynastic distribution of offices. Now, the Administration is engaged in weeding out “disloyal” officials, an effort spearheaded by the wife of the infamous Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
The neo-feudalism of the Trump government makes sense in the context of his rise to prominence and the kind of popular following that he inspires. Those blood-red MAGA (Make America Great Again) hats they wear have become a symbol of racism, misogyny, anti-immigrant hate, and other fascist notions, as well as admiration for Putin which is spreading in the Republican Party. However, more poignant, the hats are a mark of class subservience — a kind of shameful brand that signifies the wearer’s acceptance of voluntary serfdom to the class of wealthy swindlers of which Trump is a perfect embodiment.
The thing that impressed Alexis de Tocqueville in America in the early 1830s was “the general equality of condition among the people.” In his description of the United States he sometimes deployed irony in relating how workmen speak to gentlefolk as equals and make a point of showing that they owe nothing to nobody, but he greatly admired this self-respect that imbued the early Americans, regardless of their wealth or social standing.
Of course, it wasn’t so straightforward. At the time America had slavery and even after the Civil War and emancipation African Americans were not allowed to be equal to whites. Other minorities were discriminated against and many women believe that true equality eludes them to this day.
That said, the self-assurance and easy grace of free men was what struck generations of European immigrants when they alighted on these shores. My own experience was similar: having come here from the Soviet Union in the mid-1970s, it took me a while to stop marveling at this quality in blue-collar workers, Southern rednecks and college students.
Surely that was due to the ideals of American democracy. The stirring words of the Declaration of Independence were inculcated into every American from the earliest days — that men were created equal and that liberty and the pursuit of happiness were inalienable parts of life.
However, these fine notions were supplemented by the openness of opportunity in the economy. No employer or a wealthy magnate could fully control anyone’s destiny. Every American knew that, if need be, he or she could tell the boss to shove it. It was an immense country and you could always earn a living one way or another. And you could always invent yourself anew, strike it rich, move into a different social class — or, at the very least, preserve your dignity and independence.
Americans saw themselves as strong and independent. They were rugged individualists who rooted for the underdog and were ready to come to the assistance of the weak.
This stopped being true in the last four decades. While lip service continued to be paid to democracy, an emerging class of the super-rich has turned the country into an oligarchy. The rise of corporations run by accountants and concerned with the production of profits, not goods and services, dehumanized the system. A high-tech surveillance state was built after 9/11 to keep tab on all citizens.
Diminished opportunities sapped the independent spirit of ordinary Americans, creating conditions more similar to pre-World War II Europe. America still lacks titles, but it certainly has social classes in the Marxist sense of the word.
Americans as a nation have become dispirited and poorly organized. They rarely if ever strike and don’t protest. They’re even less likely to create problems for their betters than Russians.
Even American students, who caused such disruption during the 1960s, have had their protesting spirit crushed by the burden of student debt and the need to claw their way to the top of highly competitive corporate bureaucracies.
Economic and social conditions of neo-feudalism give rise to the attitude of subservience to wealth and power and admiration for the grand seigneur. In Pushkin’s novel Dubrovsky, serfs belonging to the richest local magnate take pride in his antics and regularly poach in the woods belonging to his poorer and less powerful neighbors.
Trump is a typical neo-feudal lord. His supporters mostly know him through the reality TV show Apprentice, a quintessentially neo-feudal program in which a bunch of lackeys viciously compete with one another for the favor of a capricious, irascible, Big Boss. The fans of the show admired the rudeness of the Big Boss, identifying with him despite being poor and powerless themselves.
When Arnold Schwarzenegger took over for Trump the show flopped: an Austrian immigrant lacked the lordly presence.
Trump’s rallies feature an audience of self-selected serfs who watch admiringly their Big Enchilada insult lesser mortals. They’re awestruck by his wealth and believe that he has condescended to leave his gilded castle for their sake. They mistake rudeness and brazen shamelessness for strength. They are a mob, a collective; they’re as far removed from rugged individualism as neanderthals are from homo sapiens.
While professing to be “Christians” and aspiring to impose their medieval notions on everyone else, Trump’s admirers see nothing wrong with the philandering of their libertine lord: after all, he is merely exercising his droit de seigneur over his peasants.
“I’m the state,” the Sun King Louis XIV famously declared. Trump has effectively proclaimed the same doctrine: his whims are the new law of the land and the public purse is his personal bank account. This is just fine with his MAGA serfs, as well as with his courtiers in the Senate, the Supreme Court and the government.
Postwar Europe, with invaluable American help, has mostly got rid of its feudal past. America, meanwhile, has become Trump’s personal plantation. Not surprisingly, Trump sees the European Union as the main international threat to the neo-feudal creed embraced by today’s Americans. Whether neo-feudalism is a good fit in fighting modern afflictions such as the spread of the coronavirus remains an open question.
