>>259875
>How would you tweak Feudalism if you were to implment it today?
Now that is a good question.
Firstly, we need to focus on the head that rotted. The nobility betrayed their people. We all agree that this is a bad thing. So let's fix this in a way that preserves the character of the institution we wish to conserve.
We'll constrain ourselves on maintaining a system where land is not owned directly by people but leased out by a single man or entity in exchange for some sort of contractual obligation. That's feudalism. Oh, also, I guess we need to have this land leased out to this man or entity by the king or other governing institution.
There needs to exist some kind of force that makes the feudal lord accountable to his people. If he is not accountable, what prevents him from literally just turning all the beautiful farmland into a giant strip mall, evicting his people, and forcing them to buy his cheap shit from China and force his peasants to buy it from him at a marked up price?
The thing about feudalism that sounds great is that feudalism theory states that the lord acts as the father of his serfs/tenants. That's great. Fathers are good. I loved my dad.
What a father does NOT do is exploit his sons for profit. A father is... well, like a father for his family. If we want to have feudalism today and make it work, lords that fail to act as fathers must be seamlessly removed from power immediately.
This can be accomplished only two ways. From above and from below. From below is straightforward: A vote of no-confidence removes the lord from his position without recourse. In fact, I believe that his entire family should be banished after his entire estate is confiscated so that the consequences of failure to perform duty result in abject poverty and PAIN for his entire family. That'll give his extended family something to think about lest the lord start acting like an enemy rather than a father.
The second option is from the top down. Some sort of institution that removes (and banishes, confiscates) bad lords from power. The problem is that this invites extreme corruption. What prevents the lord from bribing the king or other institution? Nothing.
I propose a kind of hybrid, radical democracy with no mass elections and no parties. Every 2 years, lottery selects about 5% of the estate's population to meet in a moot or an Althing. Grievances are aired and if the lord is a piece of shit, the Althing has the unilateral authority to oust him by simple majority. Then either they or the king selects a new lord. The previous lord has his bank account frozen, his estate confiscated, and his entire family is reduced to serf status on another manor. Now, there is still the issue of bribery. What if the lord just bribes the Althing? He could, but given the non-political nature of the population, there is a lower chance for systemic corruption. Furthermore, 5% of a large estate could be 7,500 people. That's a lot of bribery and it would get messy. And since bribery is illegal, bribing that many people or even just half of them would absolutely lead to corruption charges and, you guessed it, loss of privileges.
Zero tolerance policy for unfatherly behavior.
>Stop betraying your children. Just stop. It's easy to stop. Just don't do it and you get to keep your money. Stopping requires no effort.
Oh, also, a large factor in feudalism was church land. About half or more manors were owned by the church. So we'll assume the same today. A church claims not just to be the father of the community, but to be the shepherd (we'll ignore the fact that the shepherd eats or sells his flock in the end) and a spiritual steward. That's a lot of nice sounding things. Did they perform them? No.
Therefore, clergymen who fail to pass this basic bitch popular test of pleasing just a majority of 5% of their population will be stripped of title, wealth, bank accounts, and clothes. Then launched via catapult into a lake. Or sealed in a barrel and put out to sea. Or perhaps, buried alive in their own cemetery.
Zero tolerance for treason. Literally just stop seeking profit over your duty as a father. It's not difficult to do so idk what's wrong with you, let's just keep killing lords until they figure out how to behave like moral adults.
There must also be some sort of assurance that the serfs in this society are not evicted from their land willy nilly (for profit).
So each manor will have a citizenship and you may maintain your citizenship in a manor for up to 4 years after you leave. Plenty of time to vote for no-confidence if a lord decides to mass evict people so he can build a walmart.
And there must also be assurances against a lord importing foreigners. So citizenship must be ratified by said assemblies every two years.
And, obviously, since membership in these assemblies is random and only last a few days or weeks, there will never be enough time for this assembly to accumulate corruption itself. It'll be randomly selected electricians, carpenters, welders, and cashiers. Also, citizenship in manors is only for men.