1/ The New Serfdom: Mortgage Debt in Australia’s Hollow Economy
In medieval Europe, serfs were bound to land they did not own, tethered by custom, obligation, and the implicit understanding that freedom meant starvation. In 21st-century Australia, this same dynamic persists, repackaged in glossy brochures, sanctified by central bank policy, and secured by 30-year mortgage contracts. The Australian dream of home ownership has become a modern serfdom: a ritual of financial bondage masked as economic aspiration. Through the lens of historical and political analyses by Postan, Domar, Hayek, Thompson, Graeber, Piketty, and Standing, it becomes clear that Australia’s housing system does not elevate its citizens, it enslaves them in a meticulously constructed edifice of debt. We slave & toil all week in order to pay banks for the privilege of somewhere to sleep. These provide less zero productive benefit to anyone yet we pay 30-50% of our incomes to them for what? What have they done for us? What have they done for the country? We are their slaves.
In medieval Europe, serfs were bound to land they did not own, tethered by custom, obligation, and the implicit understanding that freedom meant starvation. In 21st-century Australia, this same dynamic persists, repackaged in glossy brochures, sanctified by central bank policy, and secured by 30-year mortgage contracts. The Australian dream of home ownership has become a modern serfdom: a ritual of financial bondage masked as economic aspiration. Through the lens of historical and political analyses by Postan, Domar, Hayek, Thompson, Graeber, Piketty, and Standing, it becomes clear that Australia’s housing system does not elevate its citizens, it enslaves them in a meticulously constructed edifice of debt. We slave & toil all week in order to pay banks for the privilege of somewhere to sleep. These provide less zero productive benefit to anyone yet we pay 30-50% of our incomes to them for what? What have they done for us? What have they done for the country? We are their slaves.
2/Feudalism Without the Lord
M.M. Postan’s accounts of medieval serfdom make one thing clear: serfdom was never just about agriculture. It was about control, over land, labor, and destiny.
Evsey Domar famously theorized that serfdom arises not in poor land-scarce regions, but where land is abundant and labor scarce. That contradiction the availability of land, yet inaccessibility for ownership required a mechanism to tie people down. This the same mechanics of serfdom we experience today
Australia, one of the most land-rich nations on Earth, has recreated this system. It is not feudal lords who monopolize access to land today, but banks, speculators, and planning authorities who artificially restrict supply, drive up prices, and funnel demand through the spigot of credit.
Citizens are not legally bound to the land, but they are economically indentured, with debt burdens that tether them more tightly than any feudal contract ever did. You're a indentured peasant, enslaved by the system no differently than a few centuries ago
M.M. Postan’s accounts of medieval serfdom make one thing clear: serfdom was never just about agriculture. It was about control, over land, labor, and destiny.
Evsey Domar famously theorized that serfdom arises not in poor land-scarce regions, but where land is abundant and labor scarce. That contradiction the availability of land, yet inaccessibility for ownership required a mechanism to tie people down. This the same mechanics of serfdom we experience today
Australia, one of the most land-rich nations on Earth, has recreated this system. It is not feudal lords who monopolize access to land today, but banks, speculators, and planning authorities who artificially restrict supply, drive up prices, and funnel demand through the spigot of credit.
Citizens are not legally bound to the land, but they are economically indentured, with debt burdens that tether them more tightly than any feudal contract ever did. You're a indentured peasant, enslaved by the system no differently than a few centuries ago
3/Debt as Chain, Not Choice
David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years teaches us that debt has long been a tool of subjugation. In modern Australia, mortgage debt is imposed as a precondition for basic stability. Want to raise a family? Better get on the property ladder. Want to avoid eviction in retirement? Better buy, not rent. The message is clear: submit now, or suffer later.
But what is the nature of this debt? A standard Australian mortgage now spans 25 to 30 years, often twice as long as the average job tenure. The financial commitment outlives careers, relationships, even health. In essence, it is a lifelong tax to the banking system, with the home serving as collateral not just for the loan, but for compliance.
The highest level of binding they can place on you is your home .
Miss payments, lose income, face a rate hike — and the illusion of ownership shatters. The serf may lose the hut.
David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years teaches us that debt has long been a tool of subjugation. In modern Australia, mortgage debt is imposed as a precondition for basic stability. Want to raise a family? Better get on the property ladder. Want to avoid eviction in retirement? Better buy, not rent. The message is clear: submit now, or suffer later.
But what is the nature of this debt? A standard Australian mortgage now spans 25 to 30 years, often twice as long as the average job tenure. The financial commitment outlives careers, relationships, even health. In essence, it is a lifelong tax to the banking system, with the home serving as collateral not just for the loan, but for compliance.
The highest level of binding they can place on you is your home .
Miss payments, lose income, face a rate hike — and the illusion of ownership shatters. The serf may lose the hut.
4/Hayek’s Tyranny by Market
In The Road to Serfdom, . Hayek warned that central planning could lead to tyranny. Ironically, in Australia, it is not government overreach but a twisted alliance between central bank policy and private finance that has produced tyranny by debt. The Reserve Bank of Australia, in pursuit of “financial stability,” has deliberately inflated housing prices through interest rate manipulation and moral hazard.
By keeping interest rates low to stimulate borrowing, the RBA encouraged a housing bubble that cannot deflate without systemic collapse. Asset prices rose, wages stagnated, and borrowing filled the gap, ensuring that Australians pay not only for homes, but for the privilege of participating in the national economic narrative. Hayek’s tyranny is here, not through commissars, but through brokers, property developers, and macroprudential policy.
You're their slave
In The Road to Serfdom, . Hayek warned that central planning could lead to tyranny. Ironically, in Australia, it is not government overreach but a twisted alliance between central bank policy and private finance that has produced tyranny by debt. The Reserve Bank of Australia, in pursuit of “financial stability,” has deliberately inflated housing prices through interest rate manipulation and moral hazard.
By keeping interest rates low to stimulate borrowing, the RBA encouraged a housing bubble that cannot deflate without systemic collapse. Asset prices rose, wages stagnated, and borrowing filled the gap, ensuring that Australians pay not only for homes, but for the privilege of participating in the national economic narrative. Hayek’s tyranny is here, not through commissars, but through brokers, property developers, and macroprudential policy.
You're their slave
5/The Enclosure of the Australian Dream
E.P. Thompson described how the English working class was created by the enclosure of common lands — stripping people of access to self-sufficiency and forcing them into wage labor. In Australia, a similar enclosure has occurred, not of farmland, but of housing security. Where once a family could reasonably afford a modest home on a single income, now they must dual-income hustle, delay children, or live precariously, all to service the mortgage.
The commons public housing, affordable rentals, cooperative living, have been decimated by policy that favors private developers, foreign buyers, and speculative landlords. Housing is not a right, but a financial instrument, and those locked out are condemned to rent serfdom under a class of property owners who harvest wealth through unearned inflation.
Remember those pods in the Matrix? Your work is being harvested by the banking system .
E.P. Thompson described how the English working class was created by the enclosure of common lands — stripping people of access to self-sufficiency and forcing them into wage labor. In Australia, a similar enclosure has occurred, not of farmland, but of housing security. Where once a family could reasonably afford a modest home on a single income, now they must dual-income hustle, delay children, or live precariously, all to service the mortgage.
The commons public housing, affordable rentals, cooperative living, have been decimated by policy that favors private developers, foreign buyers, and speculative landlords. Housing is not a right, but a financial instrument, and those locked out are condemned to rent serfdom under a class of property owners who harvest wealth through unearned inflation.
Remember those pods in the Matrix? Your work is being harvested by the banking system .
6/The Inheritable Caste (Piketty & Standing)
Thomas Piketty’s data in Capital in the Twenty-First Century reveals that when capital gains outpace wage growth, inequality becomes structural. Australia is a textbook case. Homeowners in Sydney and Melbourne have seen their property values double or triple in a decade, while wages crawl forward. Children of homeowners are gifted deposits. Children of renters are gifted nothing — except the hope of winning the lottery or a partner with money.
Guy Standing’s Precariat describes a new class with no job security, no assets, and no identity within the economy. Australia’s precariat includes not only young workers, but migrants, students, and casual laborers who will never own a home, and whose rent payments are upward transfers to landlords and bank shareholders. They are denied dignity, belonging, and the security of place — the very things serfdom always stole.
50% of our society has less than 4 weeks savings to fall back on?
Let that fact land
Thomas Piketty’s data in Capital in the Twenty-First Century reveals that when capital gains outpace wage growth, inequality becomes structural. Australia is a textbook case. Homeowners in Sydney and Melbourne have seen their property values double or triple in a decade, while wages crawl forward. Children of homeowners are gifted deposits. Children of renters are gifted nothing — except the hope of winning the lottery or a partner with money.
Guy Standing’s Precariat describes a new class with no job security, no assets, and no identity within the economy. Australia’s precariat includes not only young workers, but migrants, students, and casual laborers who will never own a home, and whose rent payments are upward transfers to landlords and bank shareholders. They are denied dignity, belonging, and the security of place — the very things serfdom always stole.
50% of our society has less than 4 weeks savings to fall back on?
Let that fact land
7/Manufacturing Nothing, Mortgaging Everything
Australia’s economy has become a debt-backed real estate engine. Manufacturing has declined. Productivity growth is flat. Yet the economy continues, not because it thrives, but because it borrows. This is not prosperity, this is an illusion built on leverage. Citizens are encouraged to take on mortgages not because it is rational, but because it is the only path left to a future.
Banks lend money they create from nothing. The asset inflates. The borrower works 30 years to repay. Then the next generation starts again — but higher. This is not economics. This is a Ponzi serfdom, where each generation must take on more debt just to stay in place, while a shrinking elite accumulates real, unleveraged wealth.
Australia’s economy has become a debt-backed real estate engine. Manufacturing has declined. Productivity growth is flat. Yet the economy continues, not because it thrives, but because it borrows. This is not prosperity, this is an illusion built on leverage. Citizens are encouraged to take on mortgages not because it is rational, but because it is the only path left to a future.
Banks lend money they create from nothing. The asset inflates. The borrower works 30 years to repay. Then the next generation starts again — but higher. This is not economics. This is a Ponzi serfdom, where each generation must take on more debt just to stay in place, while a shrinking elite accumulates real, unleveraged wealth.
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