It affects everyone: a serf-like dependence on the state, where greater portions of our labor and property are appropriated by the collective at the price of diminished personal freedom.
"The ruling bodies of the gilds wielded an actual jurisdiction over their members, punishing them with the same punishments that a feudal lord imposed upon his serf, " writes historian Tom Girtin.
There were serf-like doormen, invisible porters who hauled out the trash, a squad of Polish maids who came Wednesday and Friday mornings to pick up after Kendall and scrub the toilet in the Moorish bathroom and tidy up the sunny kitchen where he ate his lunch.