Medieval Life — Feudalism

“The King was in com­plete con­trol under the Feu­dal Sys­tem. He owned all the land in the coun­try and decided who he would lease land to. He there­fore only allowed those men he could trust to lease land from him. How­ever, before they were given any land they had to swear an oath to remain faith­ful to the King at all times. The men who leased land from the King were known as Barons, they were wealthy, pow­er­ful and had com­plete con­trol of the land they leased from the King. ” — His­tory on the Net

If you change the titles around, does this sound like where you work?

I believe that we are slowly tran­si­tion­ing to a 1099 work­force (the entire coun­try) and it makes a lot of sense. Cur­rently, we have a very old model feu­dal­is­tic sys­tem in place where most peo­ple are at the mercy of the employer for things like ben­e­fits and train­ing and largely they do not own their careers.

It’s not really a smart approach.

The days of look­ing to an employer as a provider and almost parental fig­ure in our lives are dimin­ish­ing. Stand­ing loy­ally at a machine for 40 years in exchange for a pay­check and health care is likely to be a thing of the past.

“Villeins, some­times known as serfs, were given land by Knights. They had to pro­vide the Knight with free labour, food and ser­vice when­ever it was demanded. Villeins had no rights. They were not allowed to leave the Manor and had to ask their Lord’s per­mis­sion before they could marry. Villeins were poor.“

This reces­sion has cre­ated the impe­tus for an increase of micro­pre­neur­ial ven­tures, co-working arrange­ments, solo­pre­neur con­sul­tan­cies, free­lanc­ing and multi-career employ­ment. In my opin­ion, this trend will con­tinue. As health care reform emerges and indi­vid­u­als have portable insur­ance poli­cies they can choose to own no mat­ter where they are or what they do in life, they will also be paid through a pay­roll ser­vice who will be autho­rized to invoice the com­pany for ser­vices per­formed by their client.

Work­ers will own their careers. Land­ing a job will become even more highly com­pet­i­tive as peo­ple bid on projects for any­thing above min­i­mum wage, nego­ti­at­ing rate, sched­ule, time off (unpaid), etc. Work­ers will be paid at higher rate because taxes and ben­e­fits will be their own respon­si­bil­ity and not a cost for the com­pany who will be known as a client.

Per­haps it’s time for another peas­ant uprising.

What are your thoughts on a new employ­ment model or are you happy the way it is?