Capitalism vs Feudalism

In economics, there are two related models that have shaped standards of living and social
classes today. These are Feudalism and Capitalism. In fact, renowned economists like Karl Marx,
would recognize some correlation in the two constitutions such that in both structures, the power
of the dominant class is based on the exploitation of the subordinate class. Despite the said
similarity though, a great deal of differences exist between Feudalism and Capitalism.

Feudalism is a political and military system between a feudal aristocracy (a lord or liege), and his
vassals. In its most classic sense, feudalism refers to the Medieval European political system
composed of a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations among the warrior nobility,
revolving around the three key concepts of lords, vassals, and fiefs. The group of feudalism can
be seen in how these three elements fit together. The obligations and relations between lord,
vassal and fief form the basis of feudalism. A lord granted land (a fief) to his vassals. In
exchange for the fief, the vassal would provide military service to the lord. The land-holding
relationships of feudalism revolved on the fief. There were thus different levels of lordship and
vassalage. In a typical feudal society, the ownership of all land was vested in the king. Servicing
him was a hierarchy of nobles, the most important nobles holding land directly from the king,
and the lesser from them, down to the seigneur who held a single manor. The political economy
of the system was local and agricultural, and at its base was the manorial system.

In the manorial system the peasants, laborers, or serfs, held the land they worked from the
seigneur, who granted them use of the land and his protection in return for personal services and
for dues. Throughout the medieval years, increase in communication and the concentration of
power in the hands of monarchs in France, Spain, and England broke down the structure and
facilitated the emergence of burgess class. The system broke down gradually and was eventually
replaced by a more contemporary approach to resource management, which is Capitalism.

Capitalism is one of the most influential factors that define economic classes today. It is a
structure in which the means of production and distribution are privately owned and operated for
profit. Capitalists are conventionally composed of private entities that make and implement
market decisions regarding supply, demand, price, distribution, and investments without much
intervention from the public or government bodies. Profit, the major goal of any capitalist, is
distributed to shareholders who invest in businesses. Salaries and wages, on the other hand, are
paid to workers employed by such businesses. Capitalism, being an influential and flexible
system of a mixed economy, drove the main means of industrialization throughout most of the
world. There are different types of capitalism. These are anarcho-capitalism, corporate
capitalism, crony capitalism, finance capitalism, laissez-faire capitalism, late capitalism, neo-
capitalism, post-capitalism, state capitalism, state monopoly capitalism and technocapitalism.
However varying, there is general agreement that capitalism encourages economic growth while
further extending disparities in income and wealth. Capitalists believe that increasing GDP (per
capita), the main unit in measuring wealth, is set to bring about improved standards of living,
including better availability of food, housing, clothing, and health care. They deem that a
capitalist economy holds better practical potentials in being able to raise the working class
income through new professions or business ventures as compared to other types of economies.
Unlike Feudalism though, it doesnt maintain lords and serfs. Rather, it recognizes corporations
and businesses to be the ruling body above the working class. What makes it distinct from
Feudalism is that the subordinate class has freedom to demand from its employer and the
employer hold limited authority, mostly professional in nature, over the subordinate.

Summary:

1) Feudalism involves aristocracy and vassals while capitalism is privately owned and operated
for profit.

2) The obligations and relations between lord, vassal and fief form the basis of feudalism while
profit is the main goal of capitalism.

3) Capitalism doesnt maintain lords and serfs.

4) In capitalism, the subordinate class has the freedom to demand from the employer.

Identify the changing nature of economics geography and rise of global economy?

Economic geography is the study of the location, distribution and spatial organization of
economic activities across the world. It represents a traditional subfield of the discipline of
geography. However, many economists have also approached the field in ways more typical of
the discipline of economics.

Economic geography has taken a variety of approaches to many different subject matters,
including the location of industries, economies of agglomeration (also known as "linkages"),
transportation, international trade, development, real estate, gentrification, ethnic economies,
gendered economies, core-periphery theory, the economics of urban form, the relationship
between the environment and the economy (tying into a long history of geographers studying
culture-environment interaction), and globalization.

A major change has occurred in the nature of economic geography with the inclusion of the
theme, spatial variation or areal variation. Alexander and Gibson (1979) and Hartshorn and
Alexander (1988) in their book Economic Geography have stated that economic geography is
the study of areal variation on the earths surface in mans activities related to producing,
exchanging and consuming wealth.

In pursuit of that goal the economic geographer asks three basic questions:

(i) Where is the economic activity located?

(ii) What are the characteristics of the economic activity?

(iii) To what other phenomena are the economic activity related?

According to Loyod and Dicken (1972), As a behavioural science with spatial dimension of
economic system, economic geography is concerned with the construction of general principles
and theories that explain the operation of the economic system.

A major change in the study of economic geography has been in the form of behavioural
approach and systems analysis. Behaviour denotes the actions of individuals or groups, it follows
that economic phenomena in some way reflects individual and group values, policies and
decisions.

While system is a set of identified elements so related together that they form a complex whole.
Systems analysis means considerations of such a whole as a whole, rather than as something to
be analysed into separate parts.

Economic geographers utilise the system concept in order to better understand the component
elements of some part of reality, and the relations between them. In fact, economic geography
now has grown as a developed branch of geography with specialised branches having their own
status and importance.

Q#3 Discuss interlinks b/w demography and migration with reference to Europeans society?