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I am a design person among other things. Design has played an important role in my life, so much so that it has become a part of my identity. This is my first blog. This blog is a means of understanding the landscape of technology, the individual, software and observations. That would be a general description, do stick around to see it develop.
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A series on Artificial intelligence, human development, the individual, freedom and systems. Featuring Image by Sebastian Kanczok on Unsplash
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Yes, feudalism tends to be detrimental to technological progress, especially compared to more open, market-driven, or meritocratic systems. Let’s break down why and how that happens:
In a feudal society, power and opportunity are inherited, not earned.
Serfs and peasants — who make up the vast majority — have no chance to move up or innovate freely.
That means brilliant minds are stuck farming fields rather than building machines, inventing tools, or developing new systems.
Imagine if someone like Elon Musk were born a medieval peasant — no schooling, no labs, no internet, no chance. That’s feudalism.
Technological progress thrives on questioning norms, experimenting, and collaborating.
Feudal systems suppress that by design — innovation threatens the rigid hierarchy.
Inventing something new (e.g., a better plow) might disrupt landowners' control or power structures.
Invention isn't just about ideas — it’s about being allowed to try, fail, and share.
Under feudalism, production is for subsistence or the lord, not for a dynamic market.
There’s no competitive incentive to increase efficiency, because there’s no reward for doing so.
Markets create pressure to innovate; feudalism creates pressure to maintain the status quo.
Lords and monarchs often hoard knowledge, capital, and tools for fear of rebellion or loss of control.
Institutions like the Church also censored or restricted knowledge, especially anything that undermined their worldview.
Galileo was persecuted for a scientific truth. Now imagine that times 10 across centuries of feudal rule.
Feudal societies are built on survival, not ambition.
Serfs can't afford to take risks. There's no "garage startup" culture when you’re worried about the next harvest or plague.
Lords don’t want disruption either — they're already at the top.
The European Dark Ages (roughly 5th to 10th century) were dominated by feudal structures — and had very slow tech progress.
The Renaissance and Enlightenment emerged after feudalism started declining, when trade, science, and ideas flowed more freely.
China’s Song Dynasty, which had proto-capitalist markets and merit-based civil service, saw more innovation than contemporary Europe.
Sure, some innovations did happen — like the heavy plow or crop rotation — but they were:
Slow to spread.
Often met with resistance.
Not systemic — they didn’t catalyze large-scale industrial or scientific revolutions until after feudal structures weakened.
Feudalism is fundamentally a system designed to conserve power, not to challenge or evolve it. And technological progress is all about challenging, changing, and improving systems.
So yeah — feudalism throttles innovation. Not because people weren’t capable, but because the system actively worked against it.
Let's explore how post-feudal systems unlocked innovation, and how similar patterns (good and bad) still show up in the modern world.
As feudalism collapsed, trade and towns grew.
People could sell goods, earn capital, and reinvest — a feedback loop feudalism lacked.
The merchant class (bourgeoisie) gained influence and funded invention, art, science.
Innovation finally had economic fuel — inventors could profit from their work.
Intellectual freedom grew. Institutions like universities and salons replaced monasteries as centers of knowledge.
People were free to experiment, challenge dogma, and share findings across borders.
Printing press (15th century) spread ideas like wildfire — knowledge became scalable.
Capital, labor, and innovation converged.
Feudal lords gave way to capitalists who, for better or worse, reinvested in productivity.
Steam engines, factories, railways — all born from a system that rewarded invention and risk-taking.
Feudalism as a system is gone — but feudal-like dynamics still crop up:
Rigid top-down companies often kill innovation at the lower levels.
“Just do your job” cultures mimic serfdom — no room to question or build.
Talented employees stuck in silos = wasted potential.
That’s why agile teams, flat hierarchies, and startup culture can feel like revolution — they unlock dormant innovation.
Control information flow, suppress dissent, discourage risk.
Innovation exists, but it’s often narrow, state-driven, and focused on control (e.g. surveillance tech).
Contrast: Open societies like Taiwan or Estonia punch way above their weight in innovation.
Overly hierarchical institutions may gatekeep progress through credentialism or tradition.
Feels feudal when you need a PhD just to get heard, even if your idea is solid.
The real accelerators are open-source, collaborative networks, where merit > titles.
To avoid neo-feudal stagnation in any system — nation, company, or community — you need:
Where ideas win, not status.
The more minds solving problems, the faster we evolve.
Innovation thrives where people are free to fail and iterate.
Stagnant power structures rot. Systems that evolve with input from the ground up stay alive.
Every major leap in history came when power structures loosened and allowed people to think, question, and create. Feudalism shut that door. Our job now is to keep it open — or better yet, rip it off the hinges.
Great question — while feudalism overall stifled innovation, there were pockets of progress that emerged within or around feudal systems. These were often not because of feudalism itself, but because of pressures, loopholes, or adjacent developments that broke feudal constraints.
Here’s a breakdown of what factors inside or alongside feudalism triggered bursts of technological progress:
Feudal societies were obsessed with defense and conquest — and war is a brutal catalyst for tech.
Castles → led to innovations in fortification design and siege weaponry.
Knights → spurred development of better metallurgy, armor, and horse breeding.
Longbows, crossbows, and eventually gunpowder (from China via the Mongols) all emerged under the pressure of staying alive or gaining advantage.
War didn’t care about class. If it gave a lord an edge, it got funded.
Even a rigid system like feudalism had an incentive to increase food output — more crops = more rent/tax.
Three-field system: Rotating crops to preserve soil.
Heavy plow: Made farming more efficient in Northern Europe.
Horse collar: Allowed horses to replace oxen, speeding up transport and plowing.
These changes weren’t revolutionary, but they did enable population growth and surplus — which indirectly fueled cities, trade, and later innovation.
As some serfs bought freedom or escaped to towns, proto-capitalist urban centers emerged inside feudal territories.
Guilds: Controlled quality and trade of crafts. Not always pro-innovation, but did preserve and refine techniques.
Artisan networks: Cross-pollinated ideas, especially through pilgrimage or crusade routes.
Some cities became semi-autonomous (like Italian city-states), breaking free from strict feudal rules.
These urban centers became incubators for early science, banking, and invention — think Florence, Venice, or Ghent.
Paradoxically, the Church sometimes preserved knowledge and sponsored innovation, especially through monastic libraries and cathedral construction.
Scholars in monasteries copied classical texts.
Gothic cathedrals drove advances in engineering, geometry, and optics.
Church calendar management spurred astronomical observation.
But remember: this was filtered innovation — anything that threatened dogma was suppressed (e.g. heliocentrism).
Feudal Europe wasn’t isolated — Crusades, Viking trade, and contact with the Islamic world and Mongol Empire brought in:
Greek philosophy and science (via Islamic scholars).
Paper, algebra, gunpowder, compass, and printing (originating in Asia).
Exposure to superior tech from the East challenged the West’s assumptions and pushed them to catch up.
External pressure and exposure to better systems is often what shakes a stagnant one awake.
The 14th-century plague decimated the population — which shattered the labor economy.
Serfs could demand wages due to labor shortages.
Landowners adopted more efficient, less labor-intensive practices.
It weakened the feudal grip and gave birth to a proto-middle class in some areas.
Out of chaos came leverage — and out of leverage came change.
| Factor | How It Helped Tech Progress |
| War | Pressured innovation in weapons, transport, and defense |
| Agricultural surplus | Freed some labor for crafts/trade |
| Towns and Guilds | Created alternative economies and knowledge hubs |
| Church patronage | Drove architecture, engineering, and record-keeping |
| Cultural contact via trade or war | Imported foreign knowledge and tech |
| Plagues or disruptions | Broke old systems, forced adaptation |
Feudalism didn't drive innovation. But the cracks in its system, or pressures it couldn't control, sometimes allowed it to happen. True technological jumps required disruption, decentralization, or external influence — forces that undermined the core of feudal power.
The highest peak of technological progress in human history (so far) is widely considered to be the late 20th to early 21st century — roughly from the mid-1900s to today — often called the Information Age or Digital Revolution.
But to tie that back to feudalism, we need to look at the long arc of how escaping feudal structures enabled that explosion. Let’s break it down:
Exponential computing power (Moore’s Law).
Global connectivity (internet, satellites).
Space exploration, genomics, renewable energy, AI.
Democratized access to tools, education, and capital.
Instant global knowledge-sharing (open source, social media, online learning).
This era has outpaced any previous period in both scale and speed of technological change.
To understand the peak, we need to understand the valley — feudalism — and how humanity systematically escaped its constraints over centuries:
The Renaissance (~14th–17th century) was a reaction against feudal stagnation.
Triggered by wealth from trade, rediscovery of ancient texts, and weakened feudal lords after events like the Black Death.
Humanism replaced divine hierarchy with the idea that humans could shape their world — huge for science and art.
This was the first major step out of the long shadow of feudalism.
Thinkers began applying reason, observation, and experimentation instead of relying on inherited or religious authority.
Institutions (Royal Societies, Academies) formed to document, test, and share knowledge.
Printing press broke the monopoly of elite knowledge — a tech that literally democratized ideas.
Steam, mechanization, and mass production turned inventions into economic engines.
Feudal-style land ownership systems were replaced by capitalist markets and wage labor.
Urbanization broke the rural, land-bound chains of feudalism.
WWII forced massive R&D investments (radar, nuclear, computing).
After the war, global peace (relatively), massive investment in education, and globalization triggered decades of explosive growth.
This period saw the total dismantling of anything resembling feudal power structures in most of the world.
| Period | Key Shift | Impact |
| Feudal Era | Hierarchical, static society | Minimal innovation, no mobility |
| Renaissance | Human-centered thinking | Rediscovery of classical knowledge |
| Enlightenment | Reason > tradition | Scientific method, tech logic |
| Industrial Revolution | Mechanization + capital markets | Scale, speed, and applied tech |
| Information Age | Digital, global, networked | Accelerated and decentralized innovation |
Each stage chipped away at centralized, inherited power, and replaced it with:
Meritocracy
Access to tools
Freedom to experiment
Open collaboration
These are the conditions that supercharge technological progress — and they're exactly the opposite of what feudalism offered.
The most intense burst of technological progress didn’t just happen — it was the result of centuries of breaking down feudal-style constraints. The faster a society sheds hierarchical stagnation and empowers curiosity, mobility, and experimentation, the faster it innovates.
If you’re imagining future societies — utopian or dystopian — this gives you a formula:
Tech booms where systems reward ideas. Tech dies where systems hoard power.
