ABSTRACT
Few people would want to return to the material conditions of feudalism. For much of the population, who never achieved the capitalist dream, the feudal sense that they do not have to rely upon themselves as individuals, that they can be part of some greater cause can offer vindication and a path to self-respect. Early capitalists were merchants – often Jews and Gypsies – who were shunned in an aristocratic Christian society which looked down upon usury and working for a living. Capitalists rejected feudal irrationality and substituted science and progress to win workers to their side. Both capitalism and feudalism foster militarism, but while capitalists care more for profit, feudal aristocrats fight more for glory. Capitalism and science are actually twins, both born in the enlightenment of the 1600s and 1700s or the “age of reason,” when tradition was supposed be abandoned and science was supposed to replace faith as the path to knowledge and truth.
