1. A song by Jello Biafra on the No WTO Combo album.
2. A term coined by meaning what some predict is the coming form of corporate-govnerment, or military-industrial complex (M.I.C.--also a Husker Du song). The barons and lords in castles, who own the land and the people on the land (i.e. the serfs) have been replaced with CEOs and their huge coroporations which both fund the government (lobbies) and are funded by the government (corporate welfare), with the masses working for them, having no where else to go.
One can say that this sounds like paranoia, like another conspiracy theory rant. However, consider the following: in this modern life, it is becoming more and more rare to find an independent businessman. The mom-and-pop shops of yesterday are being replaced by Wal-Mart, and mom and pop are now running Sam Walton's registers. The independant businessman, like the independent land owner, cannot compete with the big corporations, so they give up and join said corporation. This is not unlike the medieval system of feudalism, wherein a man gave up his freedom and his land in order to become a vassal for the local lord; this would afford him protection from other kings and lords who decide to make war on the land. He was held in homage to this lord, with no real freedom, but enough money and food to keep his mouth shut.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of people haven't enough skills or social positioning to even be a vassal, and so are left to be peasants, who were exactly as they sound--worked six days a week, had no education, no ability to move beyond their caste, and in some cases, weren't even able to do such things as deflower their own wives (yes, Braveheart wasn't making that up). Worse yet were the serfs--owned by the lord, forever tied to the land they farm. However, they never farm it for their own benefit. What they farm is taken by the lord to feed to his vassals and keep them happy; a small percentage is kept by the serf to eat (this is the actual cause of the Irish Potato Famine).
So, New Feudalism is the premise that today, we are either:
Instead of the American credo "all men are created equal," this works upon the ideas of social darwinism, wherein "the strong survive, and the hell with the rest, we'll eat them for lunch when they've outlived their usefulness. There's more where they came from." All men aren't created equal by this measure, but are bound to their caste, like in India. The poor will stay poor by cutting social programs and allowing huge corporate mergers and a return of monopolies and oligarchies. The middle class shrinks because of the cut to education (for instance the laughable voucher system, wherein only one out of twenty students will be able enter a private school; the rest must remain in the public schools, which now have fewer funds because the funds have been diverted to the voucher system), which leaves the masses unable to move up using their intelligence; as well as because of the lack of meaningful employment. (A side note--unemployment may have been down the past few years, but the jobs that people worked at were low-paying retail gigs; many of these people have a college education, but that doesn't buy you much anymore).
With the death of the independant businessman, we are entering an age of New Feudalism. This isn't capitalism anymore--this is worse.
I myself will be joining the guild of bards as soon as possible, provided my band can find a drummer.