Viewing a World Conflict

It is Sidney Lens’s contention that not two but three socio-economic systems confront each other in the world today. They are communism, capitalism and feudalism. The first is present in Russia, its satellites and China; the second in the U.S., England, Germany, Japan and, to a lesser degree, Italy and France. The last prevails throughout the greater part of the globe—its existence gives the lie to all facile references to a “free world.” For, while “feudalism” is not totalitarian in form, it plays a profoundly reactionary role and, unless eliminated by internal and external democratic forces, it will give way to Communism.

By repeated emphasis on the term “feudalism” as denoting the system of large landholdings prevalent in most of Asia and South America, and on “capitalism” as the highly resilient social structure of Western countries, Lens seeks sharply to delineate the essential irreconcilability of the two. The problem of the underdeveloped countries, he says, is not one of poverty, i.e., it is not primarily economic, but social and political. Under feudalism, capital accumulation is hindered since surplus funds flow into luxury consumption. A legal code lackin...