America's emergence in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries represented a dramatic break from the past. The United States came on the scene with only vestiges of the old European feudal order—mostly in the plantation economy of the Deep South. There was no hereditary nobility, no national church, and, thanks to George Washington's modesty, no royal authority. At least among whites, there was also far less poverty in America, compared to Europe's intense, intractable, multigenerational poverty. In contrast, as Jefferson noted in 1814, America had fewer “paupers,” and the bulk of the population was “fed abundantly, clothed above mere decency, to labor moderately and raise their families.”
Yet in recent decades this country, along with many other liberal democracies, has begun to show signs of growing feudalization. This trend has been most pronounced in the economy, where income growth has skewed dramatically towards the ultrarich, creating a ruling financial and now tech oligarchy. This is a global phenomenon: starting in the 1970s, upward mobility for middle and working classes across all advanced economies began to stall, while the prospects for the upper classes rose dramatically.
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