I find it useful to look at history leading up to current day events. “By 1860 the per capita wealth of Southern whites was twice that of Northerners, and three-fifths of the wealthiest individuals in the country were Southerners.“ “[T]he Southern economy was based principally on large farms (plantations) that produced commercial crops such as cotton and that relied on slaves as the main labour force.“ Britannica.com
The social and economic structure of the plantations in the American south resembled the European aristocracy: a small number of people owned land, and the majority of the population were some form of servant class, with few if any rights. Keeping the “nobles“ in power required a societal narrative that gave special rights to “nobility,“ and forced the poor into service.
In current times, “Half of England is owned by less than 1% of its population, according to new data shared with the Guardian that seeks to penetrate the secrecy that has traditionally surrounded land ownership. The findings, described as “astonishingly unequal”, suggest that about 25,000 landowners – typically members of the aristocracy and corporations – have control of half of the country.“ The Guardian Looking at Britain, “Roughly a third of British land is owned by the nobility and landed gentry.[5] “ Wikipedia
The planters of the American south used the aristocracy model to build a pre-capitalist feudal society with planter/owners at the top, low-caste whites as managers and workers, and slaves for labor. This system operated inside the broader capitalist national and international exchange of goods and services. As in Britain, wealth and opportunity were reserved for those already at the top. They promoted a social narrative with three false messages:
1) Rich people deserved to be rich and poor people deserved to be poor because wealthy families were born better. They were blessed with riches for their religious faith or bloodlines. Aristocratic planters regarded poor low-caste whites and slaves as simple mudsills for the benefit of the wealthy.
2) It only takes honest hard work to get ahead. But, if you were poor, it was because you were a moral failure. “Bootstrapping“ said hard work would create a fortune against all odds. Bootstrapping is an American myth to keep the lower castes at work and quiet. Britain discouraged people from changing their social status.
3) Black slaves were not suited to live independently, and needed to be slaves.
By 1860, the tilted landscape of the southern economic structure was chained to the same sort of system that lead to the American Revolutionary War. The planters didn‘t want to live any other way.
The constitution initially counted slaves as three-fifths of a person. Because representative are allocated by population, this gave slave states far more representatives than non-slave states. In current times, this is similar to states with large prison populations who are counted for representation but who cannot vote. The generations of powerful slave-holding planters also held political sway in elected offices and governing institutions. They got their way. They expected they always would get their way.
1861-1865: American Civil War. The planters lost. Feudalism went underground.
1865 saw the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. It took from January to December of that year to become part of the Constitution.
1866 was the year the 14 Amendment was proposed, updating citizenship to include former slaves. It took until 1868 for it to be ratified.
February of 1869 the 15th Amendment, was proposed and ratified a year later. This clarifies that citizens’ right to vote cannot be denied or restricted based on race, color, or because they were once slaves.
August of 1965: the Voting Rights Act became law. It took 100 years to go from the end of the Civil War to a set of laws that final leveled the playing field for citizens to vote. As in the Civil War, people struggled and people died in the effort.
Civil Rights efforts were ongoing for many years fighting Jim Crow laws. In June of 1964, over 700 mostly white people worked to register Black citizens to vote in the state of Mississippi. This became known as “Freedom Summer.“
“Despite all of this progress, the South remained segregated, especially when it came to the polls, where African Americans faced violence and intimidation when they attempted to exercise their constitutional right to vote. Poll taxes and literacy tests designed to silence Black voters were common. Without access to the polls, political change in favor of civil rights was slow-to-non-existent. Mississippi was chosen as the site of the Freedom Summer project due to its historically low levels of African American voter registration; in 1962 less than 7 percent of the state's eligible Black voters were registered to vote.“ History.com Feudalism had been active, keeping black people from voting.
Three men were murdered, and the killers smirked at their trials because they, as the inheritors of the plantation belief system, felt confident they would get off. They did, for a few years. Eventually many were found guilty.
June 25, 2013, the US Supreme Court made a decision that ended the level playing field for voters. In Shelby County vs. Holder, the judgement took a step backward almost 50 years. Feudalism was never gone, just gone underground.
Democracy, in which citizens vote and pay taxes to run their country, requires energy, attention, care and feeding. Let‘s work together to find better options than letting a few wealthy, entitled people make all the decisions for us.
Wikipedia - Freedom Summer Murderers - found guilty.
SUNY - Wealth and Culture in the South
The Guardian , Wikipedia, British Land Ownership
Constitution Annotated -13, 14, 15th Amendments