AI, productivity, and the risk of stagnation

What if the “techno-feudalism” boom is a symptom of our confusion rather than a diagnosis of the age? We sit down with Alex Hochuli (Bungacast, American Affairs) to interrogate the feudal metaphor and make a sharper case: we’re living through total capitalism’s decay, not a return to lords and serfs. That lens helps make sense of platform tolls, anti-market monopolies, surveillance, and institutional rot without pretending we’ve exited capitalism’s basic relations of production.

We trace why the feudal story resonates—unfreedom feels real—then test it against history. Feudalism meant manorial production, oath-bound sovereignty, and overlapping legal orders; our world runs on consolidated states, global supply chains, and platform intermediaries that convert risk into reliable rents. The better comparison is peripherization: practices once common in the periphery now shape the core, from precarious work to state-enabled accumulation. That shift helps explain why labor leverage has collapsed despite rising public sympathy: dispersed service shops, automated production, and logistics-dependence blunt traditional organizing power.

China enters as Rorschach test: state capitalism, social credit, and surveillance make the feudal label tempting, yet the core logic remains capitalist, steered by growth imperatives and legitimacy management. We explore AI’s forked path—job-displacing windfall or costly stagnation—and why care-economy fixes won’t build a livable future on their own. If everyone secretly wants social democracy back, we ask what could replace the vanished conditions that once made it possible.

The conversation ends with “dark hope.” Drop the costume drama, name the system we have, and fight for a directly political project that builds capacity: housing, grids, industry, and public institutions that actually work. Speak against oligarchy in terms a broad public can hear. If you’re ready to trade clever metaphors for concrete ambition, hit play, share with a friend, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show.

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Musis by Bitterlake, Used with Permission, all rights to Bitterlake

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Crew:
Host: C. Derick Varn
Intro and Outro Music by Bitter Lake.
Intro Video Design: Jason Myles
Art Design: Corn and C. Derick Varn

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