A Step Back in Time

A step back in time
It is a mistake to believe that our present is the most progressive stage in human history—rather, we are experiencing a renaissance of feudal structures long believed to have been overcome. An exclusive excerpt from “The New Feudalism.”


Nowadays, looking back at history almost feels progressive. When we remember times when power was increasingly limited in the course of democratic development or when rulers had to resign due to scandals, we get the impression that we do not live in the best of all worlds. Old feudalism is history, and yet we find some of its elements, albeit in a different form, in the present day. Anonymous power structures, social impoverishment, and the dismantling of public goods lead to a powerlessness that is clearly felt in everyday life. Disruption is encroaching on private life and yet, as always, is an expression of the relationship between the rulers and the ruled.

by Hermann Ploppa

[This article posted on 1/7/2026 is translated from the German on the Internet, http://www.manova.news.]


We are being inundated by a tsunami of bad news.

Another new war is being started. Entire regions are being turned into fields of rubble. And even in the region where we live, the somewhat quieter, more subtle destruction of the familiar is darkening our spirits. It is wearing us down.

Another local hospital is being closed. The library can only be kept alive by volunteers. The bus no longer runs to the next town.

We want to call our family doctor. But all we hear is an answering machine telling us that all lines are currently busy. We want to buy cheese. It has gone up by another euro, and the packaging is much bigger than the cheese inside.

Anger builds up and has nowhere to vent. We have to keep functioning. There is a power to which we are at the mercy. However, we no longer see the powerful. Instead, we see demented politicians who have nothing to say and only serve to allow us to vent our anger somewhere. But all we can really do is grit our teeth. Because the structural violence we are exposed to every day is becoming increasingly anonymous.

Ruling like a feudal lord is back in vogue. The rulers in Western countries now see the office entrusted to them as nothing more than a welcome opportunity to divert public funds into the pockets of their own clan. After all, they no longer have to fear punishment. As in ancient times, people who even cautiously criticize those in power are thrown into prison for lèse-majesté. An entire population is locked down. The Anglicism “lockdown” is used to avoid the crude German word “Einschließung” (confinement). On top of that, the elite wanted to force us all to be vaccinated with a substance that is not yet fully developed. The constitutional right to physical integrity? That was once upon a time.

A revolution from above has taken place over the last five years. The actors of this wanton destruction openly cheer what they call “disruption.” To put it less delicately, this means disruption and confusion. No stone is to be left unturned.

We keep trying to track down the actors of this destruction. To decipher the power structure that has become anonymous.

But we are groping in the dark.

But we cannot avoid the effort of analyzing complex realities in a complex manner. That is why I am making the effort to understand what lies ahead of us in a historical tour de force.

History is essentially the story of the relationship between the rulers and the ruled. History is about how people repeatedly cut out far too large a piece of our cake.

A piece of cake that they steal from others, who then have too little. And time and again, over the course of history, we have managed to restore a more equitable distribution.

It is worth learning about this history. Because we learn how the battle for the distribution of the pieces of cake works. We gain a better understanding of where we came from. And how it came to be that we were able to enjoy such a comfortable childhood and youth. In this book, I name the actors who want to take these wonderful achievements away from us again. We need to know where we come from. Then we will have a better idea of where we are going.

I refer to what is currently unfolding before our horrified eyes as “new feudalism.” Of course, the old feudalism will never return. We are no longer in the age of agriculture and livestock farming. But the way the new invisible global elites operate bears a strong resemblance to feudalism. Once again, we are being ruled irrationally in the manner of feudal lords. The new feudal lords rule without legitimizing themselves through service to society. They unilaterally determine the amount of our taxes to the rulers. The new feudal lords are increasingly collecting unearned income from us. The bourgeois principle of equivalence, namely that goods of equal value are exchanged and that rational, comprehensible calculations prevail, no longer applies. In one fell swoop, the rules agreed upon by the community no longer apply. Once again, public space is being stolen from us. Just as the commons were once stolen from the farmers. Everything is being privatized until the doctor comes. We are being plundered down to our shirts. Homeowners are turning into tenants. And at some point, the tent cities of the homeless will arrive. In the US, this is already the case. Thank God, it is not yet the case here.

Hermann Ploppa is a political scientist and journalist. He has published numerous articles on the elites of the USA, including the influential Council on Foreign Relations. In 2008, he published “Hitler's American Teachers,” in which he revealed the previously unnoticed influence of US foundations and authors on National Socialism. His bestseller “The Makers Behind the Scenes: How Transatlantic Networks Secretly Undermine Democracy” continues to spark lively public debate.