Let's Go Serfing: the case for modern serfdom
The newest Tradlife trend.
Folks, it’s time for a change. As a society, we’re too anxious, too migratory, too divorced from the institutions that should bind us together. We’ve gotten away from traditional values. No one understands the value of hard work anymore. We need a return to the good old days, where everyone was secure in their future, their home, and their job. With the edifice of society crumbling around us like the Roman empire of yore, it’s time for us to do as the Romans did- and revert to feudalism. It’s time to go serfing.
Serf the wave
If you look at the shape of any society’s history; all its violent convergences and divergences, it resembles a wave. Economic cycles of rise an fall that all culminate in a peak of prosperity, followed by a crash into chaos.
Capitalism is collapsing. Congratulations, you made it! We reached peak profit, and it’s a big drop from this historic high. There are two options: ride the collapse, or be sucked under with the churn. As a shitty surfer, I have enough experience to tell you that the former is infinitely more enjoyable than the latter. Let’s look at this expert chart, which will tell you exactly where we are in this cycle
If you’ve somehow ended up reading this in the midst of doomscrolling, you’re likely too late to “catch” the wave and end up as nobility in the new world (bummer). You’ll need to settle for the next best thing: indenturing yourself and your descendants to a propertyholder and their descendants in perpetuity.
This isn’t a new idea- historically, serfs were all the rage in the middle ages (and up until the mid-20th century in some parts of the world). Though they’ve come in a lot of different flavors over the years, the most common arrangement is peasants bound to lands held by feudal lords. Lords might change, but the serfs stay with the land- a liege doesn’t “own” their serfs, just the land that the serfs are permanently bound to; unable to leave by pain of severe punishment or death. Like nobility, serfdom was hereditary and inherited from one’s parents.
“BuT pAuL,” you might say, “I tHoUgHt SeRfDoM wAs BaD?”
You’re right, idiot, it was bad. But this isn’t serfdom; it’s Serfing. Serfing is hip, cool, new, and modern. It’s everything serfdom wasn’t. Let me tell you why:
Better living through serfing
Modern life is hard, and getting harder. We’re constantly looming on the precipice of unemployment, eviction, political violence, and environmental catastrophe. Each day things seem to draw closer to boiling over, and the population experiences that tension as both mental and physical strain. We’ve all got anxiety.
Our society has an anxiety epidemic, and it’s only getting worse. What’s the root of that anxiety? Uncertainty. Our brain is an anticipation machine, and the skyrocketing precarity of our world makes it malfunction.
What if there was one weird trick that doctors didn’t want you to know about? One that could make your anxiety go away entirely? Good news, there is- it’s called serfing.
In one fell swoop, serfing can take away every ounce of uncertainty from your life. No more worrying about where you’ll work or losing your job- you’re there for life! It’s actually a two-for-one, since you live where you work- no more stress over landlords, apartment hunting, moving, and security deposits. No more general anxiety about your future or where you’ll be in ten years- you know you’ll be here, where you belong, toiling for your beloved liege.
Phew 😮💨, can’t you feel all that stress melting away?
Neofeudal kit & caboodle
So what sort of sick gear do you need to go serfing and hang-ten hour workdays? Believe it or not, no gear at all is required for serfing. That’s the best part: you’ll own nothing, and you’ll be happy.
Although you may not own anything, everyone stands to benefit greatly from the serf-patron relationship.
What do serfs get out of the deal?
The Three S’s of Serfing:
Safety,
Stability,
Subsistence!
What do patrons get out of the deal?
The Three P’s of Patronage:
Ownership of your person
Ownership of any products of your labor.
Ownership of any proceeds from the sale of those products!
Doesn’t that sound fantastic? I can’t think of a single thing that could go wrong with such a mutually beneficial relationship!
Now that you’re convinced of the benefits and ease of serfing, it’s time to scout out some hip locales to give it a permanently binding try.
I wanna go serfing
Due to improvements in modern technology, politics, and infrastructure, the new breed of modern serf is more likely to be bound to a company than land, which only means exciting new serfing opportunities!
If you want to have success serfing, you’re gonna need to get up early to be first in the line-up, and have a keen eye to spot a good wave to ride. Here’s a few early serf spots with strong potential to carry your line through the dark times with only mild abuse and total objectification:
Storyliving by Disney: these corporate private communities provide opportunities for residents “looking to write the next chapter of their lives with Disney.” To me, this sounds like the perfect opportunity to permanently put oneself and one’s family under the power and protection of a liege. Once things start going topsy turvy, who knows how long that’ll last! It’s an awesome serfing opportunity, but the fact that it requires an upfront payment for access makes it difficult for many to obtain.
Three stars. ★★★
Amazon Company Towns: Jacobin may report Amazon creating communities entirely dependent on their corporation for survival as a bad thing, but Business Insider and Bloomberg tells it how it really is: Amazon’s New ‘Factory Towns’ Will Lift the Working Class. This is an excellent opportunity, it really is. You could get in on the ground floor of the new Holy Roman Empire. 20 generations from now, your greatest-of-great grandchildren could be working the same spot on the assembly line that you start tomorrow. If that isn’t preservation and continuity of the working class, I don’t know what is. What’s more, this opportunity doesn’t have any of the pesky buy-in or prestige requirements of other serfing communities.
Five stars. ★★★★★
Monsanto Seed Dependence: If you’re still taken by the retro roots of serfing, this might be the option for you. Although you’ll need the land to get started, you can grow food using seeds you don’t own, and be subject to a massive set of bizzare conditions and privacy-violations, just the way we like it. Who knows where this will go in the future, but fingers crossed on it turning out to bring back serfing’s original glory days.
Two stars for uncertainty and difficulty of entry. ★★
Zucktown, USA: Good news, everyone. After initial buzz in 2018 from the NYT and other publications, Zucktown is back on! With homes, offices, retail, and a hotel this 59 sq. acre paradise will be available to Menlo Park employees of Meta. As someone who’s worked in tech, I can’t imagine anything better than making my living situation contingent on my employer. This has all the hallmarks of a perfect cushy serfing spot- long hours, autocratic top-down rule, and housing on premises so you can be born, live, work, and die without ever going more than a mile from your home. However, Meta is extremely picky when it comes to who they hire, so this may be a difficult serfing spot to get to for most getting into the game.
Considering the difficulty of entry, Zucktown gets Four stars from me. ★★★★
The Republic of Samsung: It’s been argued that the Chairman of Samsung is more powerful in South Korea than the nation’s President. With massive developments like Samsung Town, which boasts 20,000 resident employees, the mega-corpo-nation is the stuff of serfer’s dreams. Things are looking good for a future where Samsung and South Korea are synonymous, and now’s the time to hop on that train.
Five Stars. ★★★★★
These are just the tip of the iceberg. Feudal markets are a rapidly expanding economy; many exciting options exist for anyone looking to get in on the ground floor of an organization and never, ever leave!
Serfing USA
There’s a bright future ahead for society- a secure, solid, unchanging- traditional. I, for one, can’t wait- I’ll see you in the lineup…
I’m going serfing.
Nah. The kind of people that gain power under a capitalist system are NOT the kind of people that treat their subjects right under a feudal system.