The Moscow Times has an interesting piece on the development of what might be called Feudal Capitalism in Russia. Rather than the gangs of several years ago, it is now increasingly Putin's bureaucracy that runs the show. Moscow Times

In America property owners in Oregon are fighting back at the Growth Management bureaucrats who, getting rid of notions of strict liability, attempted to control land use — the fundamental basis of the old Feudalism. If there is a need to allocate land in Oregon, it has been to force the federal and state government to disgorge some of the 55% of the land which they control there.

Florida, where several academics were in the vanguard of the development of Growth Management nationally, is in a similar situation. The irony is that Florida Trend magazine, a leading business journal, has recently selected one of these, Prof. Lance DeHaven-Smith of FSU, as one of the State's precious academic assets.

In China also, the city government bureaucrats are in the process of taking land from the farmers. New York Times

William Marina - 12/9/2004

Thanks for the additional example.
Bill Marina

Max Swing - 12/8/2004

I might add, that there is another incident in Germany, where the federal government of Hamburg wants to built an extended landing-lane for the airbus factories and thus has to take away land from several farmers along the planned square miles.

In Germany there is still the ancient feudal rule that allows government to take away land after they tried to buy it from the farmers, in order to built what ever road/highway or official structure they are pleased with.