Feudalism vs. Free Market

How Accurate is Monty Python's Anarcho-Syndicalist Peasant Scene?

By the High Middle Ages (about 1000–1250 C.E.), Western Europeans had developed the system of feudalism. Feudalism provided people with protection and safety by establishing a stable social order.

Under this system, people were bound to one another by promises of loyalty. In theory, all the land in the kingdom belonged to the monarch (usually a king, but sometimes a queen). A large amount of land was also owned by the Church. The king kept some land for himself and gave fiefs (FEEFS), or land grants, to his most important lords, who became his vassals. In return, each lord had to supply the king with knights in times of war. A lord then enlisted lesser lords and knights as his vassals. At times, these arrangements were written down, and some of these contracts even survive to this day in museums.

At the bottom of the social system were peasants. Lords rented some of their land to the peasants who worked for them. However, some peasants, called serfs, were “tied” to the land they worked, which meant that they could not leave the lord’s land without permission and had to farm his fields in exchange for a small plot of their own.

Why did Feudalism work?  What choice did the peasants have?  Was it fair?

A key figure in the British Enlightenment was the Scottish philosopher Adam Smith. His book The Wealth of Nations laid the foundations for modern economics. Smith believed that a free market was driven by competition and individuals' self-interest. These drivers serve as an "invisible hand" that guides market activity to the benefit of society as a whole.

It is his own advantage, indeed, and not that of the society, which he has in view … He intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.

—Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776

However, Smith also argued that a successful economic system must help the poor. As he wrote: "No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable."

Answer these questions after our in class Feudalsim Activity:

1) Who became wealthy?Why?
2) Who struggled? Why?
3) Did wealth depend on:Your original social class?Your economic decisions?Luck?

4) If you played the game over again what would you do differently?  Why?

5) Compare and conntrast Feudalism to Capitalism.  Which is a better system?  Why?