baba@spar.UUCP (Baba ROM DOS) (10/14/85)
I have occasionally reflected on the potentially feudal character of a libertarian society, so I was particularly struck by the following passages from the introduction to Colin McEvedy's "Penguin Atlas of Medieval History": "To escape the rapacity of the Roman tax collector, peasants in later days of the Roman Empire often put themselves under the protection of the biggest of the local landowners. In return for the title to the peasant's land, the landowner guarded the civil interests of his client and as far as possible shielded him from taxes. This seems a hard bargain from the peasant's point of view, for he surrendered his freehold and became a tenant whom the landlord could evict at will; and it is a telling measure of the burden of taxation that in the last century of the Western Empire the freeholding peasantry voluntarily liquidated itself. The landlord gained all round. He tended to take his increasing rent in produce where possible, for the less money there was about, the less the tax-gatherer took. It became necessary for him to live on his land and not in a distant town, and he soon came to administer the everyday life of his estate and its practically rightless peasantry as though the central authority did not exist." "It will be seen that the great thing about feudalism was its cheapness. Though the justice administered within its framework was of a very inferior sort, it did protect the peasant at minimal cost. Ultimately, the peasant depended on the good nature of his baron, and one has to have a considerable faith in mankind to hope for a disinterested decision when, for example, a rent tribunal is composed entirely of landlords. But the later history of the Roman Empire had proved that justice can cost more than it is worth, and the feudal system came as a relief to a poverty-stricken Europe."