Why didn't the Spanish colonies in the Americas and Philippines develop? Everywhere the Spanish empire exported the social structure of Spain itself - one of the least developed countries of Europe, after the economically active Muslims and Jews had been expelled in 1502. Spain itself had scarcely emerged from Feudalism.

The aristocratic landowner on his estate could live well from the labor of the serfs who were paid almost as little as slaves. He had no incentive to improve their position or productivity. If he encouraged them to be educated they would be less willing to work for him for nothing. If they increased production he couldn't eat the excess and would have to let them keep some of it. There were few consumers with money so there was no market. If they grew richer they would become independent of him.

This had been the case in Russia before the abolition of serfdom in 1861, and in eastern Europe generally where serfdom lingered on long after it was abolished in much of western Europe. (Collectivized agriculture of the Stalinist pattern may have been a form of serfdom).

In the United States and Canada serfdom or its equivalent did not become established except in the southern states of the old Confederacy. Small independent farmers and craftsmen gained any results from innovations they might make. On the empty lands opened up by the expulsion of the Indians there was no room for serfs when any laborer could move on and get himself a farm. They had the incentive to pay for education.

Until the rise of large corporations the worker had the expectation of bettering himself. In recent times apparently independent farmers in the United States owe such large sums to the banks, which they can never repay, that a form of serfdom may have been reestablished. We can note that sharecropping, a form of serfdom in which the landlord expects a payment in kind of a proportion of the peasant's produce from the landlord's land, followed the abolition of actual slavery in the southern states of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Georgia and some other areas. These areas did not develop a modern economy until the mid 20th century when the sharecroppers had escaped to the north to form the labor force of the mass production industries.

In much of Latin America the serfs remain in their condition even now. Their only recourse is guerrilla war. But the landlords in many cases are now allied to large foreign, mostly United States, corporations which have thus become agents of preventing progress. In these areas, and in the southern states of the US, the instincts of the people running the corporations are to prevent trade union combination, thus perpetuating some of the unfree status of the former agricultural serfs - indeed attempting to create industrial serfdom. (This is not to deny that some unions such as the main transport union in the US - the Teamsters - can become agents of a new kind of unfreedom when the union leaders fail to submit themselves to regular honest elections and use the members as unfree supporters.)

Much of the instability of Central America can be interpreted as the result of the landowners' attempts to maintain serfdom and the peasants' attempts to attain the status of free men. One weapon in the hands of the owners is to claim that the peasants are the tools of Communism, which in the past has brought support in weapons and money from the US. But if the people of the US understood the real needs of the peasants they might wish to restrain their politicians from aiding the serf owners.

The collapse of Communism may bring this excuse to an end and allow the Americans to observe the reality of the plight of the serfs. As well as in Central America this drama is being played out in the Amazon area of Brazil where the landowners wish to clear the forest for short-lived cattle ranches, while the rubber tappers and native Americans wish to retain the forest.

The Philippines are another former Spanish colony where this pattern of landholding was introduced into an area where previously land had been distributed less unequally.

In Africa the land ownership pattern of South Africa, Zimbabwe and in colonial times Kenya, Mozambique and Angola tended the same way but did not last so long. The future of the land ownership of South Africa remains uncertain.

Related to feudalism is the Mafia phenomena. This is the attempt of a semi-secret group to exact "taxes" from legitimate and illegitimate business. That is, like the feudal landlord, the Mafia societies live off the labor of others without contributing anything. In any society where Mafia is common, economic development becomes difficult. Thus southern Italy stubbornly refuses to follow northern Italy into economic growth. New York City businesses which pay criminal taxes to the Mafia as well as legal taxes to the governments have that much less for investment and growth. Northern Ireland is another example where the various guerrilla groups extract "patriotic" contributions from businesses of an area already desperately poor. Some say that the Mafia began in Sicily as a resistance to foreign invasion. However, the same form can be found in many parts of the world under different names. In the end it seems to be a feudal phenomenon which can only be combated by a strong civic culture in which citizens feel able to trust the courts and legal authorities, which themselves must be without corruption.

The Communist and other dictatorial parties themselves had a strong element of Mafia about them, especially after they had been in power a long time. The various guerrilla groups in Northern Ireland are functioning like Mafias. As the troubles continue the protection rackets become more important and milk the economy of its investable profits.

The same is happening in Sri Lanka. Japan is reported to have a large group (Yakuza) whose exactions are supportable by the very productive economy. In several African countries, especially Zaire, Kenya, Ivory Coast, the same phenomenon can be seen. The members of the more or less dictatorial governments acquire more and more of the industrial and agricultural assets of the country, impoverishing the people and preventing further development.

What was the nature of the Soviet Union? Several descriptions of the working of the Communist Party describe it as a form of Mafia. That is, its power was seized by force and extended to the whole of life. The theoretical socialism of the economy was paralleled by a system of bribes and deceit which passed up to the top. The chiefs of the Communist Party could be considered as playing the roles of Godfathers. As they became more and more interested in material gain from the economy, they became less competent at developing it and effective investment (except in the military sector) declined. Is the same true of the leaders of business in the United States and other countries, who seem to be interested more in their enormous salaries than in providing employment? What are the conditions which prevent evolution into feudal power? If we knew this, and could apply the knowledge, utopia would have been achieved.