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kae3g 9985: American Feudalism 2025 — Credit Union Knights and the New Peasantry

Timestamp: 12025-10-06–rhizome-valley
Series: Technical Writings (9999 → 0000)
Category: Economic Analysis, Social Structure, Agricultural City-States
Reading Time: 25 minutes

"The Master said: 'When the Way prevails in the world, the common people do not discuss politics. When the Way does not prevail, they discuss it constantly but cannot change it.'" — Confucius, Analects 16.2

"No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money." — Gospel According to Jesus (Stephen Mitchell)

For Guardian Garden PBC: Understanding the extraction system is the first step to building alternatives that don't replicate it.

Prelude: Why Vikings and Monasteries?

The period 800-1100 CE in Europe was defined by:

Sound familiar?

In 2025 America, we have:

This essay maps the feudal structure of contemporary America, with special focus on agricultural city-states (Sebastopol, Truckee, wine country, ski resorts) where the extraction is most visible and the new peasantry most vulnerable.

Part I: The Feudal Hierarchy of 2025 America

The Divine Emperor (Washington D.C. / Federal Government)

Medieval Parallel: The Pope / Holy Roman Emperor
Function: Distant, theoretically supreme authority that everyone acknowledges but few actually obey when it's inconvenient.

Power:

Weakness:

Relationship to Peasants: Abstract oppression. You owe taxes you'll never understand, fought in wars you didn't declare, and live under laws you never voted for. But the real extraction happens closer to home.

The Regional Kings (State Governments)

Medieval Parallel: Kings, Dukes
Function: Control large territories, set laws, collect tribute, theoretically constrained by Divine Emperor but often autonomous in practice.

Power:

California as Example:

Relationship to Peasants: You need their permission to work (occupational licenses), live (housing regulations), or move (vehicle registration, professional licensing across state lines). They extract wealth through property taxes, income taxes, sales taxes, and endless fees.

The Armored Knights (Credit Unions, Regional Banks, Investment Funds)

Medieval Parallel: Knights Templar, Feudal Lords with Armies
Function: This is where the real extraction happens. Control capital, wage economic warfare, extract tribute through interest, shape local economies to their benefit.

THE CREDIT UNION KNIGHT MODEL:

Credit unions market themselves as "community-focused," "member-owned," "not-for-profit." This is the equivalent of feudal lords claiming to protect peasants out of noblesse oblige. In reality:

Structure:

Economic Warfare Tactics:

1. The Civic Investment Gambit (Sebastopol / Truckee Model)

How It Works:

Who Benefits:

Who Pays:

The Barlow, Sebastopol — Case Study:

Truckee, California — Case Study:

2. The Agricultural Land Grab

How It Works:

The Numbers:

Who This Serves:

Who This Destroys:

The Monasteries (Universities, Medical Systems, Non-Profits)

Medieval Parallel: Monasteries, Churches
Function: Control knowledge, healthcare, and salvation narratives. Extract wealth through "education" and "healing." Accumulate land and capital under guise of serving the poor.

THE UNIVERSITY MONASTERY:

Medieval monasteries owned vast lands, charged for education (if you could afford it), and extracted labor from peasants as "tithes." Modern universities do exactly the same.

Structure:

The Student Debt Knight's Lance:

Student debt is the most perfect feudal control mechanism ever invented:

How It Works:

  1. Tell children from age 5: "You must go to college or you'll be a failure"
  2. Charge $200,000-$300,000 for 4-year degree (room, board, tuition)
  3. Loan is guaranteed by federal government (no risk to lender)
  4. Interest rates: 5-8% (compounding)
  5. Cannot discharge in bankruptcy (only debt with this "feature")
  6. Repayment starts 6 months after graduation
  7. Average monthly payment: $200-$500 for 20-30 years
  8. Total paid over life of loan: $300,000-$500,000 (on $200,000 borrowed)
  9. Miss payments: wage garnishment, tax refund seizure, credit score destruction

Result:

The Monastic Landholdings:

Universities own vast real estate:

This is a monastery owning half the village.

THE HEALTHCARE MONASTERY:

If universities control salvation through education, hospitals control salvation through healing. And like medieval monasteries that charged for prayers and relics, hospitals charge for healing—except the prices are literally deadly.

Structure:

The Healthcare Extraction Cycle:

  1. Get sick or injured (inevitable)
  2. Go to hospital (no choice in emergency)
  3. Receive bill: $50,000 for appendectomy, $150,000 for childbirth complications, $500,000+ for cancer treatment
  4. Insurance pays portion (if you have insurance)
  5. You owe: $5,000-$50,000+ (deductibles, co-pays, out-of-network, "not covered")
  6. Cannot pay (you're a peasant)
  7. Payment plan offered: $500/month for 10 years (= $60,000 paid on $30,000 debt due to interest/fees)
  8. Miss payments: collections, credit destruction, lawsuit, wage garnishment
  9. Result: medical debt is #1 cause of bankruptcy in US

The Numbers:

The Feudal Parallel:

Medieval peasant gets sick → goes to monastery → monks "heal" them (maybe) → peasant owes monastery labor/crops for life → cannot leave until debt paid → debt passes to children

Modern peasant gets sick → goes to hospital → doctors heal them (usually) → peasant owes hospital money for life → cannot escape (wages garnished) → debt affects children (can't help with college, inheritance reduced)

This is the same structure with better medicine and worse accounting.

The Peasants (Workers, Farmers, Service Industry)

Medieval Parallel: Serfs, Tenant Farmers, Villains
Function: Produce all actual value. Own nothing or almost nothing. Bound by debt, not by law, but the effect is the same.

THE NEW PEASANTRY DEMOGRAPHICS:

The Agricultural Peasant (Farm Workers):

The Service Peasant (Restaurant, Retail, Hospitality Workers):

The Knowledge Peasant (Educated but Indebted):

The Gig Peasant (Uber, DoorDash, Instacart, TaskRabbit):

THE BINDING MECHANISMS (How Peasants Are Kept in Place):

Medieval peasants were bound by law (couldn't leave manor without permission).
Modern peasants are bound by debt and necessity:

Debt Chains:

Total Debt Service: $2,300-$5,000/month before food, utilities, phone, internet, childcare

To afford this, you need:

This is bonded labor with extra steps.

THE HEALTH CRISIS AS CONTROL MECHANISM:

The healthcare system isn't broken—it's working exactly as designed to keep peasants bound.

Why:

Example: The Diabetic Agricultural Peasant

This is a chain made of insulin vials instead of iron.

Part II: The City-State Model (Where Extraction Is Most Visible)

The Agricultural City-State (Sebastopol, Napa, Sonoma, Healdsburg)

Medieval Parallel: Italian city-states (Florence, Siena, Venice)
Structure: Small, wealthy urban center surrounded by agricultural hinterlands that feed it but don't benefit from it.

SEBASTOPOL, CALIFORNIA — CASE STUDY:

1970s-1990s: The Old Order

2000s-2020s: The Transformation

Phase 1: Wine Country Expansion (2000-2010)

Phase 2: Civic Redevelopment (2010-2020)

Phase 3: Complete Gentrification (2020-present)

The Extraction Mechanism:

Credit Union Strategy:

  1. Finance civic redevelopment (appear as community investor)
  2. Loans to businesses at 6-10% (interest income for 10-20 years)
  3. Hold mortgages on properties (leverage real estate appreciation)
  4. As area gentrifies, property values increase (their collateral appreciates)
  5. Original businesses fail (can't afford rent) → new businesses financed by credit union
  6. Cycle repeats, always extracting

Municipal Strategy:

  1. Grant development permits (appear to support economic development)
  2. Provide infrastructure (roads, water, sewer paid by all taxpayers)
  3. Property tax base increases (can fund more services for wealthy residents)
  4. Sales tax revenue increases (wine tourism, high-end retail)
  5. Working-class residents leave (priced out) → tax burden shifts to remaining wealthy (who can afford it and demand more services)

Who Wins:

Who Loses:

The Resort City-State (Truckee, Tahoe, Squaw Valley/Palisades)

Medieval Parallel: Pilgrimage towns (Canterbury, Santiago de Compostela)
Structure: Economy entirely based on serving wealthy visitors, with permanent underclass to maintain infrastructure.

TRUCKEE / NORTH TAHOE — CASE STUDY:

Historical Function (1900s-1990s):

The Transformation (2000-present):

Phase 1: Resort Consolidation

Phase 2: Real Estate Development

Phase 3: Workforce Housing Crisis

The Numbers (2024):

The "Solution" Offered: Workforce Housing

Resorts build "workforce housing":

This is a company town. This is feudalism.

Why It's Feudal:

Medieval peasant:

Modern resort worker:

The Extraction Cycle:

  1. Resort pays $18-$25/hour
  2. Resort charges $1,500-$2,500 rent (extracts $18,000-$30,000/year)
  3. Worker's takehome after rent: $18,000-$22,000/year
  4. Worker must buy food, transport, clothing, phone, healthcare from this
  5. Worker accumulates debt (credit cards, car loans)
  6. Worker cannot save to move elsewhere
  7. Worker is trapped

And if they organize for better wages?
Fired. Evicted. Blacklisted from other resorts (small industry, everyone knows everyone).

This is why they built it this way.

The Credit Union as Armored Knight (Deep Dive)

Why Credit Unions Are the Perfect Feudal Lords:

1. Legitimacy Through Branding

Credit unions market themselves as:

This is like feudal lords claiming to protect peasants out of nobility and honor, not extraction and control. The branding obscures the reality.

2. Tax Exemption (Like Medieval Church Lands)

3. Local Presence Creates Captive Market

4. Economic Warfare Capability

Credit unions can:

Example: Redwood Credit Union (Sonoma County)

This is an armored knight offering "protection" while looting the village.

THE PARTNERSHIP WITH MUNICIPALITIES (The Real Power)

When credit unions partner with cities/counties:

Credit Union Provides:

Municipality Provides:

Result:

Peasants:

This is the lord and the bishop conspiring to divide the village's harvest.

Part III: The Wealth Distribution (Quantifying the Extraction)

National Picture (United States 2025)

Medieval Comparison:

The Breakdown:

The Divine Emperor Class (Top 0.1%):

The Regional Kings (Top 1%):

The Armored Knights (Top 10%):

The Monasteries (Non-Profits, Universities, Hospitals):

The Peasants (Bottom 50%):

Agricultural City-State Wealth Distribution (Sebastopol Model)

Top 5% (The Lords):

Middle 25% (The Knights and Merchants):

Bottom 70% (The Peasants):

The Disparity:

Resort City-State Wealth Distribution (Truckee Model)

Even more extreme because wealth is seasonal/absentee:

Top 5% (The Absentee Lords):

Middle 15% (The Local Merchants):

Bottom 80% (The Peasants):

The Extraction:

Part IV: The Crises as Control Mechanisms

The Healthcare Crisis (The Monastery's Extraction)

Design, Not Accident:

The US healthcare system is the most expensive in the world ($4.3 trillion annually, 17% of GDP) and produces middling outcomes (life expectancy, infant mortality worse than peer nations). This isn't failure—it's the system working as designed to extract maximum wealth and control labor.

The Extraction Mechanism:

For the Peasants (No or Minimal Insurance):

For the Workers (Employer-Provided Insurance):

For the Knights (Good Insurance):

The Control:

Healthcare tied to employment = cannot strike, cannot quit, cannot organize, cannot freelance, cannot start competing business. You are bound.

The Wealth Transfer:

Who benefits: The monasteries (hospitals), the lords (insurance company shareholders), the knights (executives)

Who pays: The peasants, in money and in health (delayed care due to cost = worse outcomes = more extraction later)

The Student Debt Crisis (The Monastery's Bond)

Design, Not Accident:

Student debt is the most perfect feudal control mechanism modern society has created. It binds young people to corporate employment for 20-30 years at the exact moment they might otherwise challenge the system or build alternatives.

The Mechanics:

Total Outstanding: $1.7 trillion (more than credit card debt, more than auto loans)

Borrowers: 45 million (1 in 6 Americans)

Average Debt:

Interest Rates: 5-8% (compounding)

Repayment Terms: 10-30 years

Cannot Discharge: Student loans CANNOT be discharged in bankruptcy (unique among all debts—you can discharge credit cards, medical debt, business loans, even taxes, but not student loans)

Why This Was Designed:

1976: Bankruptcy Code Amendment

The Effect:

Annual Cost of Debt Service (for average borrower):

What This Prevents:

This is bonded labor.

Who Benefits:

Who Pays:

The Compound Crisis (Healthcare + Student Debt + Housing)

The Triple Bind:

Modern young person (age 25-35):

Total minimum expenses: $3,850/month = $46,200/year

To afford this (30% housing rule, etc.): Need $65,000+/year income

Median wage age 25-34: $52,000/year

Gap: $13,000/year

Result:

This is not an accident. This is the system binding peasants so they cannot organize, cannot build alternatives, cannot resist.

Part V: Resistance and Alternatives (What Is To Be Done?)

The Failure of Electoral Politics

"Just vote for better politicians!"

Why This Fails:

1. Both Parties Serve the Knights

2. Local Politics Are Captured

3. Structural Constraints

This doesn't mean don't vote (vote for harm reduction), but it means voting alone will not free the peasants.

The Guardian Garden Alternative (Building Parallel Systems)

The Strategy:

Don't beg the knights for scraps. Don't try to reform the system from within (you'll be captured or expelled). Build parallel systems that make the extraction system obsolete.

The Components:

1. Land Trusts (Remove Land from Speculation)

2. Cooperative Enterprises (Worker Ownership)

Instead of working for the resort/winery/restaurant and having surplus value extracted:

3. Mutual Aid Healthcare (Exit the Monastery)

4. Alternative Education (Exit the Monastery)

5. Voucher Systems (Local Currency)

6. Seed Libraries, Tool Libraries (Sharing Economy)

THE SEBASTOPOL ALTERNATIVE (What Could Have Been):

Imagine if in 2010, when The Barlow was being planned, the community had done this instead:

Alternative Structure:

Result:

Why This Didn't Happen:

But it IS possible. And it's being done in other places.

THE TRUCKEE ALTERNATIVE (What Could Still Happen):

Resort workers could:

Why This Doesn't Happen:

But it IS possible. Immigrant farmworkers have done this (see: National Farm Workers Association, which became UFW).

The Role of the "President's Son" (Returning to 9986)

If you're reading this and you're someone with inherited wealth/access (the target of essay 9986), here's your role:

Don't try to reform the credit unions or the system from inside (you'll be captured or expelled).

Instead:

1. Fund the Alternative Structures

2. Provide Technical Assistance

3. Use Your Platform

4. Take the Heat

This is how you transform your inheritance from extraction to regeneration.

Conclusion: The Choice

We live in a feudal system.

The monasteries (universities, hospitals) extract through debt bondage.
The armored knights (credit unions, banks) extract through interest and partnerships with municipalities.
The lords (developers, landowners) extract through rent and land appreciation.
The peasants (workers, farmers, service industry) produce all value and own almost nothing.

This is not a metaphor. This is a precise description of how wealth flows in 2025 America.

You have three choices:

1. Pretend It's Not Feudalism Keep working, keep paying, keep hoping it gets better. It won't. The extraction accelerates.

2. Try to Become a Knight Hustle, grind, exploit others, accumulate enough to join the extractive class. Some will succeed. Most will break themselves trying. And even if you succeed, you've become what you hated.

3. Build the Alternative Exit the extraction system. Build land trusts, cooperatives, mutual aid, local currency, parallel institutions. It's hard. It's slow. You'll be opposed by the knights and the monasteries. But it's the only path to actual freedom.

The Guardian Garden Project (essays 9989-9990) is the blueprint for Option 3.

Not reform. Not revolution. Exodus.

Build so well, so sustainably, so joyfully, that the peasants stop working for the knights and start building their own gardens.

When enough people exit, the extraction system collapses—not through violence, but through irrelevance.

This is how feudalism actually ended: Not through peasant revolts (most failed), but through slow accumulation of alternatives (guilds, free cities, trade networks) that made feudal obligations unenforceable.

We're in the early stages of that now.

The question is: Which side are you on?

Are you a knight, extracting?
Are you a peasant, being extracted from?
Or are you a gardener, building the alternative?

Choose.

Released to Public Domain.
No copyright. No ownership.
Copy, share, organize, build.

For all who see the extraction system and choose to build something better.
For Guardian Garden PBC and the peasants becoming gardeners.
For the commons we're reclaiming, one acre at a time.

🌱⚔️🏰

Timestamp: 12025-10-06--rhizome-valley
Iteration: 9985 of 10000
Remaining: 9915

Previous: 9986: Letter to the President's Son
Next: 9984 (to be written)

"The Master said: 'The gentleman understands what is appropriate; the small person understands what is profitable. When the way prevails, serve. When it does not prevail, build your own way.'"
— Confucius, Analects 4.16 (adapted)

"No one can serve two masters. Choose."
— Gospel According to Jesus (adapted)

The feudal system is not inevitable.
The alternative exists.
Go build it.

Copyright © 2025 kae3g | Dual-licensed under Apache-2.0 / MIT
Competitive technology in service of clarity and beauty

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