Energy Climate and Sustainability

9b: Feudalism Capitalism and Feudalism

work@mishavelthuis.nl

Thu 10 April 2025

Course overview

So far

Part 1

Environment in crisis:

science and politics

Part 2

The economics of

the energy transition

The original plan

Part 1

Environment in crisis:

science and politics

Part 2

The economics of

the energy transition

Part 3

Individual versus

systemic change

Part 4

Degrowth

The new plan

Unsustainable pasts

Capitalism

Colonialism

Backlash against attempts to address systemic unsustainability

Possible futures

Ecofascism

Degrowth

Strategies for change

Individual vs collective action

Violent vs non-violent protest

Today

Part 1

From feudalism to capitalism

Part 2

From capitalism to feudalism?

But first …

Basic negotiation theory

Simples negotiation: exchange.

Two parties.

One wants to sell.

The other wants to buy.

The seller wants the price to be as high as possible.

The buyer wants the prices to be as low as possible.

There is a point at which the buyer says: "that price is too high, I prefer to not buy it: I prefer my "best alternative to a negotiated agreement" (BATNA).

There is a point at which the seller says: "that price is too low, I prefer to not sell it: I prefer my "best alternative to a negotiated agreement" (BATNA).

Within the two BATNA's there is a "Zone of possible agreement": the ZOPA.

Applied to the image:

The left-end of the bottom bar shows the price that the buyer wants, the right end shows the price that buyer would be maximally willing to pay. That point (or slightly above it) is the buyer's BATNA. If the price gets any higher than that, the buyer prefers an alternative to this negotiation.

The right-end of the top bar shows the price that the seller wants, the left end shows the price that buyer would be minimally willing to accept. That point (or slighly below it) is the sellers's BATNA. If the price gets any lower than that, the seller prefers an alternative to this negotiation.

Everyday life is full ZOPA's and BATNA's. Once a ZOPA opens up, where do you end up?

Very complex. And interesting. Social factors. Psychological factors. Tricks.

The world is full of actors.

Individuals, sure.

But also groups.

They negotiate individually, or as groups.

How to get a better deal?

Worsen your the other party's BATNA!

Example 1: present a common front to prevent your exchange partner from finding a better alternative.

Companies colluding (consumers will pay more, because there is no alternative company that sells for less)
Labour organizing (employers will pay more, because there is no alternative workers that sells labour for less).
Exporting countries setting up cartels (importing countries will pay more, because there are no countries that export for less).

Example 2: Worsen (or destroy) your exchange partner's BATNA:

Employers preventing workers from building up savings: make workers live from paycheck to paycheck, is a great way to make them accept otherwise unacceptable working conditions.
Taking people's land so they have no choice but to sell their labour to capital -> the origin story of capitalism!

Part 1:
From
feudalism
to capitalism

Feudalism and capitalism

How did this happen #1

Separation of labour and capital

How did this happen #2

Marx: this is naive. The ZOPA has been violently forged: primitive accumulation.

Hickel: before capitalism took root, "commoners" western Europe experienced remarkable autonomy, liberty and welfare. They would never have submitted to the hardship of the factories in the early industrial revolution if they would have had this alternative to defect to. It had to be destroyed. Their BATNA had to be destroyed.

Varoufakis tells this story of Thomas Peel, who sailed to Australia in 1829, with machines, animals, seeds and 350 workers. But when he arrived in Australia, the workers didn't work for him. They decided to simply walk away and work for themselves. The land was "practically" empty to them, meaning that they did not need "powerful men" like Thomas Peel to violently carve out and defend their "new land" against the resistance of indigenous people.

You acquire power over people when you make them dependent on you. The "commanding power" of capital depends on the active impoverishment that came before.

The systemic effects of capitalism

Systemic effect #1:
cost reduction

How do you reduce costs?

Exploitation of partners

Break resistance labour

Break resistance (colonial) trading partners

Exploitation of nature

Take more than a system can sustainably yield, and move on

Technology

Better, newer products.

Deskill labour

Wage war

Systemic effect #2:
Need for growth

Who consumes the growth?
Labour or capital?

Who consumes the growth?
Domestic or foreign
consumption?

Systemic effect #3:
State - capital
linkages

Systemic effect #4:
Collective
action problem

Part 2:
from
capitalism
to feudalism

Fighting (the) competition

Nobody wants
to sell commodities

Entry barriers

"natural" entry barriers

predatory
platform economies

The return of feudalism?

Varoufakis:

"In your youth, you dreamed of a time when labour would shake off the yoke of the capitalist market. So did I. Alas, something more like the opposite happened: it is capital that has shaken off the yoke of the capitalist market! And while capital is taking its victory lap, capitalism itself is receding."

Varoufakis:

Amazon:

A platform like Amazon has no real competition
It grants rights to vasals (companies) to sell on its platform.
These vasals are allowed to (have serfs) exploit the land and take the fruits of it, in exchange for a percentage.

Social media:

We are allowed to use the digital pastures of the platforms.
We work it for ourselves, but we pay in free labour to the landlord
Because of the network effects,
- … it is hard for competitors to join (amazon)
- … it is hard for users to leave (social media)

Different kind of "commanding power": rather than depriving people of their BATNA to force them to work your land/machines, you change their preferences.

(N.B. These ideas are debated/ controversial among marxist political economists).