feudal economy
Lords and serfs
A feudal economy is an economic system where land ownership determines wealth and power, with peasants working the land in exchange for protection from lords.
Production centers on agriculture and local self-sufficiency rather than trade or markets.
The term often appears in discussions of medieval Europe or as a metaphor for rigid hierarchical arrangements: The company operates like a feudal economy, with executives as lords and workers as serfs.
- feudal lordLand-granting medieval ruler
- lordNobleman or ruler
- lord of the manorFeudal estate holder
- manorialismMedieval estate labor system
- feudal contractMedieval lord-vassal agreement
vassal · demesne · tenant farmer · tribute · estate · landed gentry · villeinage · serf · tithe barn · common land · open field · subsistence farming · barter · fiefdom · peasant · peasant revolt · manor · guild
- economic historystock market crash, Industrial Revolution, trade routes, Great Depression, gold standard
- Economic ErasGreat Depression, Industrial Revolution, Gilded Age, Roaring Twenties, Great Recession
- economicssupply and demand, inflation, GDP, GNP, gross domestic product
- medieval trademerchant, merchant guilds, trader, craft guilds, guild
- preclassical economicsmercantilism, scholasticism, Petty, usury laws, trade balance
feudal economycapitalism
Private profit-based economy
market economy · free enterprise · laissez-faire economics · industrial capitalism · socialist economy
feudal economyindustrial economy
Production-centered economic system
knowledge economy · information economy · service economy · digital economy · gig economy