Feudalism is defined as a societal structure that works by having land exchanged for labor.
Now this is definitely possible under anarcho-capitalism, but by no means will it be the only type of payment. And also note, that if done voluntary, there’s nothing wrong with feudalism. For example, a man might sign a contract to work for 20 years for McDonald’s in order to be given a certain piece of land which was previously owned by McDonald’s.
Does this situation seem familiar?
It should, because it is, in principle, no different from paying a mortgage. Under feudalism, you work for whoever owns the city, and they give you land in return. In modern society, you go find a job, get a loan from the bank and buy a house, and then work to pay that off. If you think about it, its not different. You work for a decade or two to accumulate resources in order to purchase a piece of land for yourself.
Those who believe anarcho-capitalism leads to feudalism believe that one large entity, a corporation, will own a city completely, and will enact a feudalism like system, as I described before. However, this is only one of many ways of organising a city. What if there’s a city which is funded by its citizens voluntarily, where there is no total owner of the town? What if the owner only owns the infrastructure, not every single house and piece of land, making it impossible for feudalism? And, what if the neo-feudalist system is actually beneficial for some of the workers?
They would have contracts guaranteeing job security and would get paid in land which they would have to buy anyway using a mortgage. And if there is an abusive city, with a crazy feudalist dictator, the people can just leave, because competition will ensure only the systems that are the fairest to the average person are the ones that will prevail.
Rothbard claimed the feudal lords of that time were illegitimate ‘land monopolists’ who stole the title to the land through coercion and ‘sold’ it back to the rightful owners. Therefore, the only reason medieval feudalism was bad, was because it incorporated the use of force via state power.
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